How it works
AI trained on millions of handwritten pages
Transkribus uses artificial intelligence trained on more than 30 million words from historical documents. The AI analyzes the shape and flow of each letter, recognizing patterns even in the most difficult Kurrent handwriting. Your document is processed line by line and converted into readable digital text.
Reads Kurrent, Sütterlin, and other old German cursive scripts
300+ public models for different handwriting styles and time periods
Works with phone photos or high-resolution scans
Genealogy & research
Finally decode your ancestors' Kurrent letters
Kurrent was the standard handwriting in German-speaking countries for over 400 years. If you're researching German, Austrian, or Swiss ancestry, chances are most documents you find will be written in Kurrent – and nearly impossible to read without training. Transkribus decodes them automatically.
Immigration letters and family correspondence
Church records: baptisms, marriages, and death certificates
Court records, land deeds, and wills
Diaries, notebooks, and personal journals
Beyond the demo
The full platform for historical documents
The demo above gives you a taste. The full Transkribus platform lets you process thousands of pages, train custom AI models on your specific handwriting, search across all your documents, and export in any format you need.
Train custom models on your family's specific handwriting
Full-text search across all your transcribed documents
Export as TXT, DOCX, PDF, TEI-XML, or PAGE XML
Collaborate with family members and share collections
What you can transcribe
Common documents written in Kurrent
Kurrent was used across all areas of life – from personal letters to government records. If you're working with documents from German-speaking countries before the 1940s, you'll likely encounter Kurrent handwriting.
Personal letters and family correspondence
Kirchenbücher (church books) with vital records
Military records and wartime letters (Feldpost)
Administrative records and court protocols
Wills, contracts, and legal documents
Academic manuscripts and scientific notes
Background
What is Kurrent?
Kurrent (also called "deutsche Schrift" or "old German cursive") was the dominant handwriting style in German-speaking countries from the 1500s until the early 1900s. Its angular, tightly spaced letters look nothing like modern handwriting, which is why most people today can't read it at all.
The standard German handwriting from the 16th to early 20th century
Characterized by angular, narrow letters with a strong forward slant
Gradually replaced by Sütterlin (a simplified version) from 1911
Officially abolished in 1941 in favor of Latin script
Still found in millions of unread historical documents
The technology
How does Kurrent handwriting recognition work?
Handwriting recognition (HTR – Handwritten Text Recognition) uses deep learning neural networks to convert images of handwritten text into machine-readable characters. Unlike OCR for printed text, HTR must handle the infinite variation in human handwriting – different letter shapes, connected strokes, and personal styles that change across centuries.
Neural networks trained on millions of handwritten samples
Layout analysis detects lines and text regions automatically
Character-level recognition handles connected and cursive writing
Language models improve accuracy by understanding word context
Ready to decode Kurrent handwriting?
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200M+Pages processed
500K+Users worldwide
300+Public AI models