I have used handwritten text recognition to automatically transcribe a series of legal records of New Amsterdam, the former name of New York City while under Dutch rule. The records are now full-text searchable via New Netherland Sources.
The following records are available:
- Burgomasters & Schepens, Volume 1: Powers of attorney, acknowledgements, indentures, inventories, deeds and conveyances, March 1653-November 1655
- Burgomasters & Schepens, Volume 2: Register of mortgages, December 18, 1654-February 14, 1660
- Burgomasters & Schepens, Volume 3: Deeds and conveyances, 1658-1660
- Burgomasters & Schepens, Volume 4: Deeds and conveyances, April 16, 1661-March 10, 1663
- Burgomasters & Schepens, Volume 5: Deeds and conveyances, March 10, 1663-June 20, 1665
- Burgomasters & Schepens, Volume 6: Notary records of Walewyn van der Veen, May 20, 1662-June 1664
- Burgomasters & Schepens, Volume 7: Debts and mortgages, March 6, 1660-April 25, 1665
Support New Netherland Transcriptions
Transcribing these records costs about 20 cents per scan. If you want to support my work transcribing these records, please consider making a donation.
Transkribus for Handwritten Text Recognition
The records were automatically transcribed by Transkribus, using model Dutch Demeter I. Transkribus uses artificial intelligence to train models to read handwriting. This model was trained to read and transcribe seventeenth-century Dutch records. The results are not perfect; some words will have been transcribed incorrectly. You can use wildcards, like Stu*vesant to search for both Stuyvesant and Stuijvesant, and you can set the “fuzzy search” to “high” to also find words that are similar to your search term but do not match exactly.
View of New Amsterdam, 1665
About Yvette Hoitink
