Question/answer » What are transcriptions and how do I search them?

A transcription is the typed-out text of an old document. On Open Archives these are millions of pages from archives and old newspapers. The text has largely been recognised by computers, with handwritten text recognition (HTR) and optical character recognition (OCR).

What is the difference with person mentions?

For person mentions, an archive has neatly put the names, dates and places into fields. With transcriptions you search the whole text. So you also find persons who are not in an index. And you read what exactly the document says.

How to search transcriptions

  • Go to Transcriptions and type a name or a word.
  • Or browse per source or per archive.
  • Are you searching for a name on the start page? Then Open Archives also reports how many transcriptions contain that name.

Please note: computers make reading errors. So also search for variants. And always check the text in the scan.

With a Plus subscription you get a short summary of a page in plain language.


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