Germanology Unlocked
Featured on PBS’ Finding Your Roots, The History Channel, and More!
Uncover the Stories of Your Ancestors
Choose the option to best help you on your genealogy journey:
Translations
Discover your family’s story through our high-quality German to English genealogical translations (German handwriting included).
Courses
Empower yourself on your German genealogy journey by taking our interactive German handwriting and language classes.
Webinars
Watch a free webinar to learn more about German genealogy, or book a topic-specific webinar for your own genealogy society.
Membership
Subscribe and receive extra help on your German genealogical documents during our weekly “Ask-the-Translator” Hour.
Meet Katherine Schober, Founder and CEO
With more than a decade of experience professionally translating German to English, I love helping clients like you discover the fascinating lives of their German ancestors. Deciphering the old handwriting and finding the perfect words to unlock the secrets of your family letters, diaries, and records – as well as teaching you how to do it yourself – is something I truly enjoy.
Born in St. Louis, I earned my Master’s degree in the German language through Bowling Green State University/University of Salzburg. I then spent three additional years in Austria, teaching English and translating German (with a focus on history). In 2014, I moved back to the States with my Austrian husband, and, although we are now in America, German is still the main language spoken in our home. As a German-English genealogy translator and educator, I can happily say I love what I do.
Get Started on Your Genealogy!
Explore German Genealogy Resources:
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The Complete German Genealogy Course Collection
$1,333.00Original price was: $1,333.00.$997.00Current price is: $997.00. -
What Clients Are Saying:
Thank you for a great job! I am very impressed that you could read, never mind translate, her writing. Very professional and much appreciated! I will have it bound and send copies to my cousins. I should mention too that the footnotes you provided were very helpful and beyond what I expected.
I asked Katherine to transcribe and translate a baptismal record written in Old German script from 1828 about my Great, Great Grandfather. We had hit a brick wall in our Erkenbrecher genealogy and we just couldn’t find where or who our relatives were in Germany. Katherine did an excellent job of translating this document which divulged the parents of our GG Grandfather. Because of this finding, I have been able to go back eight generations in our Erkenbrecher family tree, all the way back to Hei…
Katherine was instrumental in helping me give my wife—her words—“the best gift she has ever gotten.” For forty years, she has had copies of letters to and from her beloved grandmother and her siblings handwritten in German. Katherine translated the letters beautifully, providing us with both the German and English digital files. She was always responsive in our communications and met challenging time deadlines so that I could give my wife the letters as a Christmas present. Her fees were…
Just got home to find this treat in my inbox. I am thrilled to read the words my [ancestor] Christopher read; that he felt deeply enough to quote. Great job on the translation.
My German in-laws would not say one word about the past, however when they both passed away, we found two huge boxes of letters, journals, and pictures that documented every day of WWII for them. We also found 100 years of old family documents to prove they were Aryan in accordance with the Nuremburg Laws. For the last ten years, we have figured there was one person in the family history who had converted from Judaism and that person had saved those who came after from certain death, but we coul…
Thank you for getting the translation to me. As I expected, they are perfect. You can always tell that the translation is done by a professional.
Katherine’s devotion to her craft shows throughout her website and in her work. She transcribed and translated some mid-1700’s handwritten documents about my ancestors, and deciphered a real puzzle of a word along the way. I feel a kind of fluidity and ease in reading her translations, and her footnotes are unusually informative with insights and explanations while still being concise. Katherine is also very professional in the ‘project management’ aspects of reaching agreement on the wo…
I had that hardest of genealogical roadblocks- someone who changed their name illegally and died with their secret. Katherine provided very careful and scholarly transcriptions and translations of some key documents. Mystery solved. My advice: engage a professional like Katherine and don’t guess at the content of Kurrent manuscripts when the result matters to you.
I enthusiastically recommend Katherine for your translation needs! She is professional, courteous, timely, and very pleasant to work with. She responds promptly to emails, and meets the deadlines she establishes for the translations. I had asked her to translate some 1800 era Austrian church records in handwritten script, the quality of which was not always the best. She came through with not only the English translations, but the German transcriptions as well. Her footnotes and additi…
It was a pleasure working with you Katherine. I appreciated your rapid response to my requests. The German and English versions of all the documents were perfectly formatted down to the tiny letters on the bottom of the pre-printed baptismal certificate which identified the printer. Thank you.











