Tag: Finding Your Roots

Bridging Past and Present: How Katherine Schober’s GERMANOLOGY UNLOCKED Translation Work Brings Ancestral Histories to Life

📸OpenAI. (2024). ChatGPT [Large language model]. https://chatgpt.com/c/fbd93584-8b39-4bf2-902c-20df662cd1d9

Katherine Schober is the CEO and Founder of Germanology Unlocked, translating client’s German documents to English. She also teaches her clients how to translate their own documents. In fact, in 2019, she launched “Reading the Old German Handwriting.” According to one of her posts, since then she has had:

*Over 1,200 excited and hardworking students

*Over 650 students in a course community Facebook group

*One new “German for Genealogists” course

*Multiple German handwriting workshops

*Countless brick walls are broken and ancestors discovered

I have been following Katherine for a while. I mean, I do have German ancestors everywhere! Recently, I’ve seen her posts about her work behind the scenes for one of my favorite shows, the PBS show Finding Your Roots with Dr. Henry Louis Gates. She has permitted me to post her blog about the process. It is quite interesting.

In fact, recently, she was able to meet one of the show’s guests, comedian Iliza Shlesinger, for whom she had translated German records of her ancestors’ records—you can read about that at I Met Iliza Shlesinger: Finding Your Roots Meets Beverly Hills. Katherine has also translated documents for guests Cyndi Lauper, Lena Dunham, Paul Ryan, Pamela Adlon, Nina Totenberg, and Isabella Rossellini.

Below is a snippet of her translating process for the PBS Show Finding Your Roots.

So, how does translating for the show work? As I have now translated documents for Seasons 5-10, I can speak from my own experience – Finding Your Roots is wonderful to work with. I usually receive a request from one of the McGee Media series producers an entire year or so before the planned episode will air – but they have a lot of future research to do on their end, so the translation turnaround times are usually tight! 

In the e-mail, the producer sends me the document(s) they will need translated, but there is one thing I do not know – whose ancestors that document is for! I don’t find out that information until much later, about a week before the show airs…keeping me in as much suspense as all of you!

Nevertheless, I still need to ask my normal translator question: “Can you tell me any names of people, dates, and towns related to this document?” Since the documents are often hundreds of years old, the last names are often different enough that it doesn’t immediately give away whose ancestors I am dealing with. And knowing the context of the document, for any client, helps significantly in deciphering the mystery words in the handwriting. Although I always verify any information given, knowing where to start looking for any more difficult handwritten words provides a significant head start in my research.  

And then I get to work! While these translations are exciting to do, they work the same as I would do for any client. I first transcribe the handwritten text into typed German, verifying the mention of any towns with Meyers Gazetteer and verifying any last names with Geogen or other last name tools. 

You can find a more in-depth description of her process at Germanology’s Behind The Scenes of Finding Your Roots Translation Process

In wrapping up, Katherine Schober’s contributions to both genealogical research and popular media underscore the importance of meticulous translation work. Her expertise not only helps individuals uncover their ancestral stories but also brings these histories to life on a larger stage through shows like Finding Your Roots. It’s inspiring to see how her passion for history and language continues to bridge the past and present, making it accessible and engaging for everyone. For those of us with German ancestry, Katherine’s work is a vital resource, and I look forward to seeing more of her translations and insights in the future.

Schober, Katherine. “Unlock the Stories of Your Family’s Past with German Genealogy Translations, Courses, Books, and More!” Germanology Unlocked, 4 Apr. 2024, germanologyunlocked.com/.