Adding umlauts and the like
This is definitely going to be snippet week around The Legal Genealogist.
I are a student!!
With the last-last minute decision of the Salt Lake Institute of Genealogy to go virtual, I was able to snag a seat in Warren Bittner’s Gothic Script and Fraktur course — a class I’ve been wanting to take for ages — to try to help with reading the records of the 50% of my ancestors who all were in what is Germany today.
So between practicing reading the script and practicing writing the script, and — yeah — teaching a couple of sessions in other classes — I’m going to be pressed for time.
So… snippets.
And in honor of the German class and my own German roots, here’s a practical snippet: how to add those marks to the names and places of our German ancestors.
You don’t want Jurgen, you want Jürgen, with the umlauted u? On a Windows computer, type ALT+129; for the capital Ü, it’s ALT+154.
Each letter has its own set of ALT combos:
For Ä, it’s Alt+0196. For ä, it’s Alt+0228.
For Ë, it’s Alt+0203. For ë, it’s Alt+0235.
For Ï, it’s Alt+0207. For ï, it’s Alt+0239.
For Ö, it’s Alt+0214. For ö, it’s Alt+0246.
For Ü, it’s Alt+0220. For ü, it’s Alt+0252.
For Ÿ, it’s Alt+0159. For ÿ, it’s Alt+0255.
On a Mac, press and hold the Option key while typing the letter u (for umlaut). Then type the letter to which you want to add the umlaut, so for ü it would be Option+u, u. For Ü, it’s Option+u, shift+u.
The goofy-looking character that looks like a lopsided capital B but sounds like a double-S (the esszet) is a little different. On a Windows system, the ß character is ALT+225/ On a Mac, it’s OPTION+s.
Need more help? Check out the FamilySearch guide on special German characters.
Don’t wanna learn this but need the characters anyway? Try TypeIt, an online service where you just click the right button, the character appears and you can copy and paste it into your own document. The German characters are here.
Cite/link to this post: Judy G. Russell, “Snippet: marking your Germans,” The Legal Genealogist (https://www.legalgenealogist.com/blog : posted 10 Jan 2022).
It exists also to add all the accents and trema in French. My letters to family and friends (and my genealogy notes) are now written in correct French, since forgetting accents lead to bad grammar mistakes and/or misundersandings. example to clarify: ou means: or but où means: where.
I’m sure that’s true — but I’m only dealing with the Germans today. NOTE TO LURKERS: do not use German umlauts in French. Or vice versa. 🙂
I am, and have been, a Mac user for {mumble} years and, if I may, I have a different way of finding the “special” characters on a Mac, which doesn’t require memorizing a whole string of coded “tags”.
In the selections header (the one which runs across the very top of every Mac screen over towards the right hand side) there is a “button” which allows you to choose the Keyboard you are using. Select the “Show Keyboard Viewer” menu item and you will “pop-up” a miniature view of your keyboard, showing you all the lowercase characters and the Option, Shift, Command, etc., keys.
Now, depress and hold either the OPTION key, or the OPTION & SHIFT (simultaneously) key and you will see all the available “accent” character keys which you can now type/click into your document while your next character will appear under/over the “Accent” key. The commonly associated letters and accents are usually associated with the same key so “clicking/typing” the key with the OPTION depressed and then again without the Option key, will enter the fully accented character into your document.
It is MUCH harder to describe how to do this than it is to actually to do, so you may have to struggle a bit with it at first. But it so easy to actually do you will find it is almost like having all sorts of “Special” characters added onto your actual keyboard!!
Judy, there is an even easier method (at least with Windows or Android): Specify “US International” as your keyboard, and you don’t have to worry about the Alt codes. For example, I am on my Android phone right now, and to get an eszet, I simply hold down the “s” key and select the eszet from the group that pops up, like so: ß. Ditto for the umlaut, but I just press sand hold the “u” key, like this: ü.