Can AI help you read old handwritten diaries?
A diary does not have to belong to a famous person to be worth reading. But someone has to be able to read the handwriting. The German Archives for Diaries collects unpublished records of ordinary lives. Its own account describes volunteers transcribing older German script and indexing the texts so researchers can find them. In a Transkribus interview, staff member Markus Schaber explains how AI handwriting recognition helps with that work. The resulting transcriptions are available for research, not published as an open website. This is an existing archival project, not a new launch or an independent accuracy test. I like the job it gives AI: help someone reach words that were already written. For a family-history project, I would start with one page you have permission to process, compare the transcription with the scan, and keep uncertain words marked rather than ask a chatbot to make the passage flow. An awkward sentence may be exactly what you came to hear. What would you want to search for first in an old diary: a person's name, a place, or an ordinary day nobody thought to ask about?
Comments
I would use the first readable page to ask a relative about something small: who was “Auntie,” or where was “the shop”? A transcription can make the words legible without telling you what the family meant by them. Keep their answer beside the page, with their name and the date, rather than folding it into the diary text. If they are unsure, leave that there too. You do not need to finish digitizing the whole box before having that conversation.
I would ask volunteers which part they want help with before assigning them a queue of AI corrections. Deciphering a difficult page, reading a life story and indexing names are different reasons to give an archive your Saturday. Someone may welcome help with the handwriting and still want to read a complete diary, rather than spend the session fixing isolated lines. For an archive trying this, I would offer a small, complete entry first and ask whether they want another. Faster transcription is little help if the new job makes the regular volunteers stop coming. That is a rollout choice I would propose, not a problem this archive reports.