Genealogy research in many languages

Today I am working on my Swedish branch of my family tree.

Most of the work has been done for me by Elisbet in Sweden.  Each time I begin to work on incorporating her tree into mine I just get tired out.  The reason is the language.  Not only Swedish, I have found most of the source documents are not translated from the native language.  If I was searching for lets say Jan.  Most likely I would not find much if anything.  But if I try a search on Göran, this might be sucessful.  So then Jan Anderson might be found as Göran Andersson.  Simple? Not so fast.  Language isn't just about the spelling.  We also must take into account the meaning.  You just would not translate Björn Andersson to Bear Anderson.

Since I started working on the family tree I found that I needed the skills to be able to translate many other languages into English.  I have been learning French, German, Russian, Maltese, Yiddish, Portuguese, and Swedish.  I have found the google translator helps, however it isn't perfect.  Atleast it gets you somewhere.  One thing that I want to share with you that I found very helpful for Swedish was how to learn to use my keyboard.  See the issue I was having was that even though the Swedish language is similar to the English alphabet, there are three more letters: å, ä and ö. These are at the end of the alphabet.   Here is how you get these letters on your keyboard using the ALT key.  First you hold down the ALT key then on the number pad type the three digit number.  For MAC users see below for Mac:

å	Alt key and 134  å is pronounced as 'o' in 'boring' or 'au' in 'laundry'
Å	Alt key and 143
ä	Alt key and 132  ä is pronounced as 'a' in 'mad
Ä	Alt key and 142
ö	Alt key and 148  ö is pronounced as 'i' in 'bird or 'ea' in 'earn
Ö	Alt key and 153
ø	Alt key and 0248
Ø	Alt key and 0216

Other special letters for you

Ç - ALT-128     è - Alt-138     ö - Alt-148    P - Alt-158
¿ - Alt-168      ¡ - Alt-173
ü - Alt-129       ï - Alt-139      ò - Alt-149     ƒ- Alt-159
é- Alt-130        î - Alt-140      û - Alt-150     á - Alt-160
 â- Alt-131        ì - Alt-141      ù - Alt-151      í - Alt-161
ä - Alt-132      Ä - Alt-142     ÿ - Alt-152      ó - Alt-162
à - Alt-133      Å - Alt-143     Ö-Alt-153       ú - Alt-163
å - Alt-134       É - Alt-144     Ü - Alt-154     ñ - Alt-164
ç- Alt-135        æ - Alt-145     ¢ - Alt-155     Ñ - Alt-165
ê - Alt-136      Æ - Alt-146     £ - Alt-156      ª - Alt-166
ë - Alt-137       ô - Alt-147      ¥ - Alt-157      º - Alt-167

Mac Users

As a Mac user you need to use your "option" key.
For instance ö is achieved by holding down the option key and the "u" key then type the "o". When you do that nothing appears until you type the 'o'. To get å, you hold down the option key and type the "a".

ä = option and u then the a
ë = option key and u then the e
ü = option key and u then another u

ø = option key and o
é = option key and e
ê = option key and i then the e
â = option key i and then the a
ô = option key and i then the o

There are many more helpful hints for Swedish at: 
Learn Swedish