Finally! A Great Tool to Transcribe Handwritten Documents

Note: You must follow any of the Handwriting OCR links in this article, create your free account, and if you do make a purchase, you'll get a discount in the form of additional document credits.

Last year I wrote about two different tools that extract text from document images. Ever since then I've been using OneNote to extract text from newspaper clippings—obituaries and announcements. It does a pretty good job, but I do have to clean up the text if the image isn't very clear.

In that article, I explained how Google Docs can pull text from handwritten documents. But the results were not what I'd hoped for at all.

Then I heard about a new tool called Handwriting OCR. Let me tell you, I'm astonished at the results. Not only can it read handwriting, it formats the text results so they make perfect sense. Google Docs' formatting is awful. It's all different text sizes and colors. It seems completely random. But Handwriting OCR matches the format of the written document in straightforward text. You're going to love this new tool.

At long last, a truly exceptional tool for transcribing handwritten documents.

Here are some of my results using Handwriting OCR:

• A 1925 employment card containing pre-printed and handwritten sections. The handwriting is clear, but a bit fancy. Handwriting OCR did a perfect job. It scored 100%. It even transcribed a word the writer had crossed out!
• A poor-quality image of a completely handwritten Italian birth record from 1866. Handwriting OCR scored about 95%. Yes! You can use this tool on non-English records and paste the clean text into Google Translate. My only word of caution is to double check the spelling of any proper names and years. A couple of times it did get the year wrong. But I am so very impressed.
• My own handwritten notebook page. I have an old notebook with my notes about a bunch of Ellis Island ship manifests. It's printed, not cursive, but I can get sloppy after writing for a while. Handwriting OCR scored 100%. I could scan the entire notebook to capture all this information!
• A 1917 U.S. death certificate. How many times have you found a death certificate and been unable to make out the cause of death? Let Handwriting OCR read it for you! I'll give this result a score of 95% for one reason. It turned the mother's maiden name of Iacobacci into Jacobi. Yes, the I looks like a J, but it ignored the ending of the name. Again, double check proper names.

Then there's the big test. While writing my article two weeks ago, I downloaded Johns Hopkins' 1870 will. It's 12 images of facing pages, handwritten on long sheets of paper. I tested this tool on page 1 of the document.

Not only did Handwriting OCR score 100%, but it obliterated the competition. I uploaded the same document image to Google Docs for a test. It did a terrible job of transcription. Terrible! Take a look at the results. Note: You can click each image to see it larger.

Figure 1. The handwritten document.

Figure 2. The unacceptable results from Google Docs.

Figure 3. The outstanding results from Handwriting OCR.

Now for some more good news. You can choose 5 documents to transcribe for free when you create a free account. If you're happy, and I'm sure you will be, they have a couple of very inexpensive price options. The first option may be perfect for you: to transcribe 100 document images for $12.

Plus, the company has given me a 20% coupon only for my readers. If you buy 100 image credits for $12, you'll actually get 120 image credits. Whichever amount of credits you buy, you'll get another 20% for free. I'll bet you can complete several big projects with that deal.

All you have to do to get the free 20% is follow this link: https://www.handwritingocr.com/?ref=FAMTREE. Create your free account, give it a try, and then decide how many credits you need to complete your project.

Use your first five credits wisely. For me, that 1870 will was the ultimate test. Before you start, some very important tips:

1. Upload each page at the highest possible resolution. Blurry documents won't do you any favors.
2. Instead of uploading book spreads (two pages side by side), separate them into individual pages. This is what I did with the 1870 will.
3. Before uploading, crop the images to show only the text/handwriting itself. If the page contains, say, a rubber stamp and official signatures that you don't need, crop them out.
4. Use your favorite photo editing software to enhance the contrast if the image is faded, and sharpen the clarity if the best image available is a bit fuzzy.

Let me know how well Handwriting OCR scores on your documents.

Finding the Chain of Immigrants that Led to You

The first time I visited my grandfather's hometown in Italy, I couldn't imagine why he left. Rolling hills surround his beautiful little town, and everyone knows one another. My great grandmother's town is so clean and pretty it practically shines.

How could they leave the serene Italian countryside for bustling American cities? To figure out why my people became immigrants, I had to find out what was happening at home when they left.

People have always left their homelands for the same basic reasons:

• To escape persecution, religious or otherwise.
• To escape extreme poverty, hunger, or famine.
• To escape the brutalization of war and armed aggression.
• To escape disease and a high death rate.

Which ancestor led the way for your family to follow to a better life?

In my family's case, their rural Southern Italian towns were, and still are, left behind. In the early 1900s, local transportation was difficult. This made it hard for people to get the food and other goods they needed. They had to raise their own crops and livestock. There was little to no industrialization in the south, which meant there were no jobs. Everyone was a farmer or practiced a trade. The vast majority of people were illiterate with no access to higher education.

That's why Southern Italians traveled to America in droves. They came to work on the railroads, in the steel mills, in the coal mines, and in the factories. They were hard, dangerous jobs, but at last they could earn money to help support their families.

Using Ship Manifests to Find Your Chain of Immigrants

Who paved the way for your earliest immigrant ancestors? Very early ship manifests won't offer you much information. But if you have anyone who left their home country in the 1890s or later, you're in luck. Your relative's ship manifest should tell you who they're coming to join in the new country. You may even see a street address.

Here's what I've put together by studying ship manifests.

anchor: a person or thing that can be relied on for support, stability, or security

My Iamarino Anchor. My great grandfather, Francesco Iamarino, traveled to New York City a handful of times. He earned money and went back home to Italy. The first ship manifest I find for him is from 1903. He is coming to join his brother Giuseppe Iamarino on Morris Avenue in the Bronx, New York. Also on board with Francesco are Giuseppe's wife and two children.

On a 1909 ship manifest, Francesco is sailing to Boston, but he isn't alone. He's with his brother Teofilo, brother-in-law Innocenzo Pilla, and cousins Giorgio and Antonio Paolucci. All five men were heading to the Bronx to join Giuseppe Iamarino.

In 1920, my grandfather Pietro Iamarino (Francesco's son) had no opportunities at home. His only choice there was to work the land and hope to get by. Instead, Pietro joined his uncle Antonio Pilla in a Boston suburb where he worked for a baker. Then he went to Pennsylvania to join some men from his hometown and work at a steel mill. Then on to Ohio to work in another steel mill and live with a cousin who would become his father-in-law. (Pasquale Iamarino, my great grandfather.) Finally, he took his family to the Bronx to join his uncle Giuseppe Iamarino. That's the same Giuseppe his father had joined at least three times. Pietro worked as a stone setter for a jeweler, finally achieving security for his family.

I've never found a ship manifest for my 2nd great uncle Giuseppe Iamarino. The 1905 New York State Census says he arrived in 1900, but I don't know who was here for him. Giuseppe became an anchor to help his family find a better life in America. My father was about 3 years old when his family moved from Ohio to the Bronx. He says his family lived with Giuseppe until they could get their own apartment nearby.

My Caruso Anchor. My great granduncle Giuseppe Caruso boarded a ship in 1900. He and his brother-in-law set out to join their shared brother-in-law Michele in Elmira, New York. Michele arrived in America in 1894. His ship manifest offers no extra details. That's why I'm so lucky my ancestors arrived as late as they did.

Giuseppe Caruso sent for his wife in 1901, his brother Nicola in 1902, his brothers Filippo and Luigi in 1903, and his sister Maria Rosa (my great grandmother) in 1906. Each person listed Giuseppe as the person they were coming to join.

Four months after Maria Rosa arrived, she married Giuseppe's friend, Pasquale Iamarino (my great grandfather). Part of Giuseppe's work in paving the way for his family was finding a husband for his sister.

Who paved the way for your immigrant ancestors? Did they find a better life? Do you think you could have been born if they hadn't left?

Who Gave Away the Treasure in Your Family Tree?

Is generosity is in your genes? I'm going to ask you to search your family tree for someone who gave all they could to help others. But first, let's look at two of the biggest philanthropists of all time. What life occurrences made these two titans of industry so generous?

philanthropist [ fi-lan-thruh-pist ]: a person, typically a wealthy one, who has an altruistic concern for human welfare and shows it by donating money, property, time, or work to aid people in need or to support institutions that serve the public.

Hopkins' Quaker values made it clear where his vast fortune should go.

Quaker Values

Johns Hopkins was born in 1795 and grew up on a tobacco farm as one of 11 children. (His unusual first name comes from from his great grandmother, Margaret Johns.) His family was not poor, but the farm's income wasn't enough for such a large family. Hopkins left home at age 17 to help his uncle run his business.

After an ethical disagreement about alcohol, Hopkins set out on his own. He became a director of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad and a bank president. He charged higher interest rates to the wealthy and lower interest rates to the poor.

He wasn't an extravagant man. In fact, when he died of pneumonia in 1873, people joked that he'd been too cheap to buy a winter coat. He had devoted himself to using his wealth and position to help others. He never married—and this is the interesting part to genealogists: He fell in love with his first cousin, and of course they weren't allowed to marry. They chose to remain lifelong friends and never marry anyone.

With no wife or children of his own, he began planning for the distribution of his enormous wealth. He laid the groundwork for Johns Hopkins University and Johns Hopkins Hospital.

What do you suppose led this successful Quaker to become a philanthropist? I'll bet it was his close friend's influence and an awareness of the suffering in his city of Baltimore.

He was a good friend of George Peabody whom some have called the father of modern philanthropy. Peabody had to be a role model. Hopkins saw the terrible effects of cholera and yellow fever epidemics in Baltimore. This must have had a deep effect on him based on his 1870 will. In it, he left $7 million dollars (about $168 million today) for the hospital and university. He created scholarships for the poor and an orphanage for African American children. If you're wondering about that last part, he was a slave owner during his life. One would like to think he regretted it.

An Avid Reader

Andrew Carnegie, born in Scotland in 1835, earned his massive fortune from scratch. As a boy, he labored in a cotton factory in Pittsburgh. He became a superintendent of the Pennsylvania Railroad at the age of 24. In his 30s, he began investing in other companies. He sold his Carnegie Steel Company in 1901 for $480 million dollars. That's almost $18 billion today.

That's when Carnegie became a philanthropist. He donated $13 billion in today's money so he might, in his words, "promote the welfare and happiness of the common man". The recipients included:

• the New York Public Library
• the Carnegie Institute of Technology in Pittsburgh (now Carnegie-Mellon University)
• the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching
• the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
• Carnegie Hall

He once said, "The aim of the millionaire should be, first, to set an example of modest, unostentatious living, shunning display and extravagances." Yet I can't help but notice the increasing number of servants in his household.

Carnegie knew his fortune was meant to serve his fellow man.

In the 1850 census, Carnegie's father was a weaver while 15-year-old Andrew was a clerk. There were no servants. In the 1860 census, Andrew lived with his mother, brother, and a housemaid. The family was beginning to prosper, despite the loss of his father. Andrew was a railroad superintendent. His 14-year-old brother Thomas was a clerk.

Jump ahead to a posh Manhattan home in the 1905 census and Carnegie has 15 servants. In the 1910 and 1915 censuses, he has 21 servants. It's hard to imagine unless you've watched certain British TV shows.

What do you think led this intelligent, self-made man to become a full-time philanthropist? My money's on his working-class background and his belief in the power of education.

When he was a boy, his family couldn't afford to give him a proper education. But a local man made his own library available to working boys in the area. Carnegie was an avid reader, so he paid it forward by donating many library buildings. He provided teachers' pensions by establishing the Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association (TIAA). He was a strong believer in the powers of education.

When Carnegie died, he left his wife and daughter enough money to live in comfort, but not extravagance. His brother Thomas left his fortune to his 9 children. He didn't have the same struggles as Andrew. Andrew was able to pay for his younger brother's education who then followed in his brother's footsteps.

These were the stories of two self-made men. Some philanthropists who inherited their wealth followed the example of their elders. New York's Rockefeller family is one example. The Rockefeller who made his fortune came from humble beginnings. His opportunity for a good education led to his success. His descendants carry on his philanthropic work, and education is one area of their focus.

I'm not aware of anyone in my close family who made a fortune. But I am proud of my 2nd great grandfather Antonio Saviano. In 1890, he became my first immigrant ancestor at the age of 47. When he died in 1925, a ribbon pinned to his chest commemorated his work with a mutual aid society. This society consisted of Italian immigrants making like easier for new arrivals from the old country. He was a hard-working man who rose above the extreme poverty of his hometown. He wanted to help others do the same.

Who were the most generous people in your family tree? You may never have met them. But I'm sure you can piece together enough of their lives to see where their generous spirit came from. The world is better for having people like this.

Use a Wide Search to Find New Connections

When your family tree is very large, it's hard to know which people need more research. Usually I don't know which Italian nationals in my tree came to America until a descendant writes to me. DNA matches' trees can also show me who left Italy. Waiting to hear from someone or hoping a good match comes along is a poor research strategy.

Today I'm being proactive about finding Italian immigrants. Most of the Italians in my family tree came from a handful of towns, so I can focus on those towns one at a time.

Cast a Wide Net

Start from the right genealogy record collection and keep your search wide open. Then reap your harvest.

You can use your favorite website to do a broad search for immigrants. I'll use Ancestry.com. I'll start my search from the "New York, U.S., Arriving Passenger and Crew Lists, 1820-1957" database. In the database's search fields I'll enter one thing only: a town of birth. I'll start with my grandfather's hometown of Colle Sannita.

This wide search for one town gives me 263 search results, and I recognize every last name in the list. I'll start with Giovanni Mascia because seeing his name gave me this idea. In the search results list I see Giovanni Mascia has a birth year of about 1883. When I check my family tree for this name, I find one man born in 1883 and two others born in 1882 and 1884. I'll look at the ship manifest to see if I can be sure which Giovanni Mascia made the journey.

The record page for Giovanni's 1934 ship manifest says his wife is Maria Iamarino. My tree says her name was Annamaria Assunta Iamarino at birth, so Maria is acceptable. It also says his daughter is Angiolina. This makes the 1883 Giovanni Mascia in my family tree a perfect match. He happens to be my 4C3R (fourth cousin three times removed). I know Angiolina was born in Colle Sannita in 1903 because her vital record is online.

The 1934 ship manifest says Giovanni is coming to America to join his daughter Angiolina. She's in Cleveland, Ohio, and his wife is home in Colle Sannita.

With this new information, I can do a search of all records for Giovanni. I find that he also came to America in 1909, and that ship manifest says he first came here in 1907. He naturalized in Cleveland, Ohio. His Declaration of Intention gives me lots of details I couldn't access before:

• He and his wife married in Colle Sannita on 17 Jan 1902.
• His son Bartolomeo, born in Colle Sannita on 7 Feb 1910, died by 16 Nov 1936. That's the date of Giovanni's declaration of intention, and Bartolomeo isn't listed.
• He had four children I didn't know about. They were born in years for which the Colle Sannita birth records aren't online. Now I have their names and birth dates.

Other search results tell me that Giovanni became a U.S. citizen on 20 Dec 1940 and died in Cleveland in 1942. When he filed for citizenship on 6 May 1940, his wife and four of his children were still in Colle Sannita. His son Pietro was in Argentina. I found him in Cleveland in the 1940 census living with his daughter Angiolina and her family. (Angiolina's husband is also from Colle Sannita.)

When I found a link for Giovanni on "Italy, Find a Grave" I saw the photo that I TOOK and uploaded in 2018. He and his wife's memorials are there in a crypt in Colle Sannita. I never would have imagined he'd become a U.S. citizen. Note: "U.S., Find a Grave" says he's buried in Cleveland. An Ohio death records index confirms his death date and place, and gives me a certificate number. Someday I may confirm his place of burial through the death certificate.

Add Wide Searches to Your Research Routine

A wide search brought me full circle, from Grandpa's Italian hometown to Cleveland, Ohio, and back again to a photo I took in 2018.

All this information came from picking a random name from a wide-search results list. These are all facts I would never have learned if not for that search.

I can imagine using this technique and choosing one person a day to research. For a year now, I've been adding the tens of thousands of missing source citations to my family tree. With more than 82,000 people in my family tree, most plucked from Italian vital records, I still have a long way to go.

Now, anytime I start to feel as if I'm stuck in a rut, I can toss in a wide search. I can gather details about someone I didn't know had come to America. And if they settled here, I can bring their family forward in time.

That new research may connect me to a distant cousin who happens to find their people in my family tree. And that's what all this hard work is all about.

3 Tips to Master Handwritten Genealogy Documents

Last Tuesday, as "Finding Your Roots" was about to start, my childhood best friend texted me. Could I help her find documents for her husband's grandfather? Of course I could! Sitting on my couch with my phone, trying to pay attention to the TV show, I did my thing. I downloaded census records, draft cards, and an obituary and sent them to her.

A long-time teacher, she said, "I don't know how you read all that old-school cursive handwriting." I answered, "Years of practice."

Spending time with "old-school cursive handwriting" takes the difficulty out of reading it. There is the occasional document that's written so badly it's a struggle for me. And I still dislike Latin documents, although I'm comfortable with the numbers. For the most part, I can find the details I need from an old document without a second thought.

No matter what the language, these 3 tips help you conquer old genealogy document handwriting.

It's like being fluent in another language. You don't have to think about the translation. You understand it as it is.

Tip 1: Comparison

The number one handwriting tip I see online is to look at the whole page. People will post a snippet of an image and ask for help with one word or name. Someone will always say, "show us the whole page". Why? Because you can compare how the writer formed a particular letter elsewhere on the page.

Let say you think a last name begins with the letter C, but you're not quite sure. Scour the rest of the page for a capital C. Does it look the same? If not, is there another letter that does match? What does that word say?

Handwriting comparison can help you rule letters in or out.

Tip 2: Guides

You can find helpful handwriting pages on FamilySearch.org. Go to their Wiki page in the Search menu and type "handwriting". Here are a few direct links by language, not by country. Many of these links take you to other websites, but I found them all on the FamilySearch Wiki:

• Algerian Arabic handwriting: https://www.omniglot.com/writing/arabic_algerian.htm
• Armenian handwriting: https://www.familysearch.org/library/books/viewer/508641
• Cyrillic handwriting: https://www.sggee.org/research/rus_translate/Cyrillic_Handouts.pdf
• Czechia handwriting: https://www.familysearch.org/en/wiki/Czechia_Handwriting
• English handwriting: https://script.byu.edu/english-handwriting/alphabet/alphabet-chart
• French handwriting: https://cfhg-permanent-web-files.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/Script/ExtractionGuides/French_Extraction_Guide/French_Extraction_Guide-Chapter_5.pdf
• Gaelic handwriting (scroll down a bit): https://www.omniglot.com/writing/irish.htm
• German Gothic handwriting: https://www.familysearch.org/en/wiki/img_auth.php/c/ca/German_Gothic_Handwriting_Guide.pdf
• Greek handwriting: https://www.familysearch.org/en/wiki/Greece_Handwriting#The_Handwriting
• Hindi handwriting: https://www.omniglot.com/writing/hindi.htm
• Italian handwriting: https://www.familysearch.org/en/wiki/Italy_Handwriting#Letters
• Netherlands handwriting: https://www.familysearch.org/en/wiki/Netherlands_Handwriting
• Portuguese handwriting: https://script.byu.edu/portuguese-handwriting/alphabet/alphabet-charts
• Scandinavian Gothic handwriting: http://broadcast.lds.org/elearning/FHD/Community/en/FamilySearch/Handwriting/ScandinavianGothic/Lesson_1/GothicAlphabetsamples%20.pdf
• Spanish handwriting: https://script.byu.edu/spanish-handwriting/alphabet/alphabet-charts
• Urdu handwriting: https://www.omniglot.com/writing/urdu.htm
• Welsh handwriting and pronunciation: https://omniglot.com/writing/welsh.htm

Also on the FamilySearch Wiki, check the country you need for a Genealogical Word List. These are the most important words to recognize when you're viewing old records. Memorize numbers and months to hit the ground running. If there is no handwriting help for the country or language you need, the Genealogical Word List is your best bet.

Tip 3: Location

Imagine you find a document that has your female ancestor's missing maiden name. It's the name that will break down your brick wall. But you can't read it!

This is when it's a great help to know which last names are common in that place. Go through the town's vital records collection and scan the index pages. If it's a census, look at the surrounding pages. If the same name is there a few times, you have that many more chances to see it written clearly.

This happened to me. I was so excited to find the name of my 6th great grandmother, born in about 1711. But I couldn't read her last name! As I spent more time viewing other vital records from her hometown, it became 100% clear her last name was Carosa.

Do your homework, read all the documents you can get, and you may never need handwriting help again.

You Must Find Your Ancestor's Hometown First

My first article in this blog—eight years ago—explains the first step to take in your genealogy journey. You must find out where your ancestor came from. If you don't know your ancestor's hometown, you can't be sure any of your search results are the right person.

Most people know where their parents were born, and their grandparents, too. When I was a kid, my grandparents still lived in the building where my mother was born. My father would mention his hometown in Ohio. I knew my grandmothers were born in New York. And I heard the names of my grandfathers' hometowns in Italy many times.

It's your great grandparents who may be your first genealogy obstacle. If you don't know where they came, where will you search? You need to find clues to point you in the right direction.

You can't tell your ancestor from a stranger unless you know where they came from.

My very first article for this blog, "Where Did Grandpa Come From?", lists five resources for finding a town of origin:

• ship manifests
• naturalization papers
• passport applications
• draft registration cards, and
• a website for tracing Italian last names. (I use a better one now.)
  

"4 Key Places to Discover Your Ancestor's Hometown" explores four of those resources. Using them, I broke through brick walls.

• A ship manifest and a phonetic clue led me to my great grandmother Maria Rosa Caruso's hometown in Italy.
• A World War II draft registration card pinpointed a town in Italy no one remembered.
• My grandfather's declaration of intention named his hometown—but I knew that already. What I didn't know was that his birthday was different than the one we celebrated!
• A passport application proved my grandaunt's husband had roots in the same town as her. I knew they both had the last name Sarracino for a reason!

"6 Places to Discover Your Ancestor's Town of Birth" goes a bit further. It shows how birth, baptism, marriage, and military records held important clues.

"6 Ways to Find Your Ancestor's Hometown" adds a few more tips:

• Say your relative died in an English-speaking country. It's likely his death certificate Anglicizes his parents' non-English names. My 2nd great grandmother's last name was Girardi. Every U.S. document that mentioned her had a different version of her name. With a bit of imagination, I finally figured it out.
• A marriage certificate in a person's new country may include their foreign hometown. Or it may have the name of a country you weren't expecting.
• Try a broad search for a last name only. See where everyone else with that name came from. This is how I solved my great grandmother's hometown. And she has a common last name.
• If you can't find a document for your person that has their hometown, search for their siblings. One of them may have extra documents for you to view. And one of those documents may have exactly what you need.

Finally, there's DNA. "How DNA Can Help Find Your Ancestral Hometown" explores how a DNA test can show your ancestors' origins. I'm sure my AncestryDNA communities are so accurate because my tree is so extensive. If you don't have an enormous family tree with lots of references to those towns of origin, there's still hope.

Take a look at the origins of lots of your closest matches. Which areas do you have in common? My DNA matches and I share Southern Italy. That's not too helpful unless you didn't know where your ancestors came from.

Next, take a look at any matches with a decent family tree. Also try searching for your ancestors in other people's family trees. So many people have written to me because they found their ancestors in my family tree. They got very lucky because I had the documents and the names and dates they couldn't find on their own. Be sure to use any new information to do your own research. Confirm everything!

Finding the right place of origin for your ancestors makes all the difference. Don't go down the wrong research path. You must find out where to look.