A chance encounter with an 1801 document from Greene County, Pennsylvania got me thinking about early German records in western Pennsylvania

Why does German Capitalize everything? If you look at much German, you start to notice- they use a Lot of Capitalization. Not just for nam

By 1700, one-fifth of Berlin was French-speaking, and they remained French-speaking until siding with the rest of Germany against Napoleon.

What challenges of reading an older document, such as a 15th century manuscript, and what can its language tell us? Who, when, where & more!

When you look at old books into the 1600’s, it looks like they mixed u and v up with abandon. Originally, there had only been one letter.

Why do we dot our i's? Minims! Old English and old German writing and printing added the dot to decipher which letter was which. Read on!

Translating names can be tricky. Look at the name George, Jurgen, Georgios, Jorge and Yuri - all the same. Here's some history.

A comma, semi-colon or period - different quotation marks in different languages - Agh! What an interesting history to punctuation marks.

Tax Time: Plucked Chicken - In English we say the tax office fleeces tax payers, Germans say plucked! Translation is fun, isn't it?

Unlocking the umlaut. History of the two dots.

Unlock Your History launched in 2017! Check out some favorite posts about language history & translating old German, Danish, Swedish.

What language belongs to those accents? From German to Norwegian Hungarian or French, see different accents that some languages use.

Beethoven and Goethe, the German Shakespeare, were glad to see liberator Napoleon come, and glad to see occupier Napoleon go. Napoleonic la

You’re tracing your family back, and the spellings sometimes just go crazy.

Are German dialects really more extreme than American dialects? Are they ever! The Old World dialects in general are far, far more extreme t

1843 letter in old German handwriting from my 3x great grandfather, to his son telling him to hurry from the army before his mother dies.

Some old cemeteries have gravestones written in German. Here are some tips to help translate some key words.

People's surnames often provide clues into their way back family history. Learn what Von and Van mean for the Dutch and Germans.

Ä, Ö and Ü are simple variations of familiar letters, but the ​​fourth letter that German has that we don’t is the real kicker:  ß  Eszett

Old German letters are tough to read but they are mostly the same alphabet we use - just with a few variations.