GENEALOGY / GÉNÉALOGIE 
Can You Read French? / Pouvez-vous lire le français?

Do you need to decipher documents written in languages other than English? It isn’t difficult to teach yourself how to do it because lists of genealogical terms in many languages are available at the FamilySearch Wiki.

image: 1814 marriage record Antoine Benoit

To access a pdf copy of genealogy terms in the language you need go to the FamilySearch website and click “search.” When the “search” home page opens, click “WIKI,” and enter whichever language you need, followed by the words “Genealogical Word List.” Like this: “French Genealogical Word List,” “Latin Genealogical Word List,” “Italian Genealogical Word List,” etc. Then click the search button. You will get a list of numbers, days of the week, times, months, occupations, relationships—everything you need—in the language you have requested with its English equivalent.

RESEARCH TIP: Once you’ve figured out basic information in your ancestor’s foreign language records, transcribe the documents you have and use Google Translate to hep you understand more of their content.