We transcribe and translate old family letters and documents from Russian, Yiddish, Hebrew, Polish, German and Ukrainian into English, handwriting included. You get a finished PDF within 48 hours, with every uncertain word marked and explained.
Any page we cannot read is refunded.
Дорогая моя Рая,
Письмо твоё получила в среду, и читала его четыре раза подряд. Мы живы. Дом на Садовой стоит, только крыши нет. Коля вернулся в августе, худой, но целый.
О маме до сих пор ничего. Я писала в Чкалов и в [?Бугуруслан], ответа нет.
My dear Raya,
Your letter arrived on Wednesday and I read it four times over. We are alive. The house on Sadovaya is still standing, only the roof is gone. Kolya came back in August, thin but in one piece.
Still nothing about Mama. I wrote to Chkalov and to [?Buguruslan], and there has been no answer.
[?Buguruslan]: the ink has bled and the third letter is ambiguous. Buguruslan is the likely reading, because the Soviet Central Information Bureau for evacuees operated there from 1941 and families wrote to it looking for relatives. Flagged rather than silently resolved. (Chkalov was the name of Orenburg from 1938 to 1957.)
Russian, pre- and post-reform spelling, cursive.
Yiddish, including Hebrew-script cursive.
Hebrew, including Hebrew-calendar dating.
Polish, including partition-era and interwar documents.
German, including Kurrent and Sütterlin script.
Ukrainian, printed and handwritten.
One letter or document page, up to roughly 400 words. A good way to find out what you have.
Order one pageEnough for a short run of letters, or a document with its envelope and reverse side.
Order three pagesUp to ten pages read as one collection, with an index and a timeline of who wrote to whom.
Order the archiveA page is one side of one sheet. All prices are in US dollars and include delivery of the PDF. If your scans turn out to be fewer pages than you paid for, we refund the difference.
Pick the number of pages and pay by card through Stripe. Not sure the handwriting is readable? Any page we cannot read is refunded, so there is no risk in ordering. If you would rather ask first, send us one photo.
Send photos of your pages to [email protected] from the email address you paid with. Photograph each page flat, in daylight, with the whole sheet in frame. The 48-hour clock starts when we have all of them.
If anything turns out to be unreadable, you get everything we could read, the gaps marked, and a refund for those pages. Afterwards you can send one round of follow-up questions about a name, a place or a word at no charge.
Transcription and translation are produced with an advanced AI system and a careful process built around it: multiple readings of each line, historical and geographical checks on names and places, and explicit marking of anything uncertain. Quick translation apps tend to hand you fluent English even when they have misread the handwriting. Our process is built to do the opposite and show you where the doubt is.
These translations are for families, researchers and genealogists. They are not certified, sworn or notarized translations and are not suitable for immigration, court or probate filings. If you need a certified translation, you need a certifying translator, and we will tell you so instead of taking the order.
Email a photo of a single page and tell us roughly how many pages you have. We reply with a plain answer about whether it is readable and what it will cost. No call and no form. Ready to go? Choose a package.
Payment is by card through Stripe. We never see or store your card number. Full refund any time before work begins.
Last updated October 29, 2026
These terms govern orders placed with Heirloom Letters, a service operated by Taisol Group, LLC, a Delaware limited liability company ("we", "us"). By placing an order you agree to them.
We transcribe and translate photographs or scans of letters and documents that you send us, and deliver the result as a PDF by email. The work is produced with an AI system, as described on this page. Translations are provided for personal, family, genealogical and research use only. They are not certified, sworn or notarized and must not be relied on for legal, immigration, court, probate, medical or financial purposes.
You confirm that you have the right to share the documents you send us and that sharing them for this purpose does not violate anyone else's rights. You keep all rights in your documents and in the delivered translation.
Prices are shown in US dollars and are charged in full before work begins. Payment is processed by Stripe; we do not receive or store your full card details.
We deliver within 48 hours of receiving all of your photos and your payment. If we cannot meet that time, we will tell you before it passes and you may choose to wait or to cancel for a full refund.
Old documents are often damaged, faded or hard to read. We mark every reading we are unsure of and explain our reasoning, but we cannot guarantee that every word is correct. If you find an error, tell us and we will review it.
To the extent permitted by law, our total liability for any order is limited to the amount you paid for it. Nothing in these terms limits any right you have under applicable consumer protection law.
Questions about these terms: email the address shown under Ordering.
Last updated October 29, 2026
Refunds go back to the original card through Stripe, usually within 5 to 10 business days depending on your bank.
Last updated October 29, 2026
This policy explains what information Heirloom Letters, operated by Taisol Group, LLC, collects and how it is used.
This page uses the Meta Pixel, an advertising tool from Meta Platforms, Inc. When you visit, it may set a cookie and send Meta information such as the page you viewed, your browser and device details, your IP address and whether you clicked an order button or completed a purchase. We use this to measure whether our Facebook and Instagram ads work and to show our ads to people likely to be interested. Meta may combine it with information it already holds about you under its own privacy policy. When you complete a purchase, our server also sends Meta a record of it: the amount, and your email address, name and postal code converted to one-way hashed codes before sending, so Meta can match the purchase to our ads. We never send Meta your card details, the contents of your documents or your messages. There is no form on this page; the page is hosted by Cloudflare, which processes standard technical data such as your IP address to deliver it.
You can limit this: adjust your ad preferences in your Facebook or Instagram settings, block third-party cookies in your browser, or use the opt-out tools at optout.aboutads.info.
Our site does not currently respond differently to Do Not Track browser signals. The choices above are the way to limit advertising measurement.
Family documents can contain information about religion, ethnic origin, health, or about other people, living or deceased. We use the contents of your documents only to produce your transcription and translation and to answer your questions about it.
We do not sell your information or publish your documents, and we never share the contents of your documents for advertising or use them to train AI models. The only data shared for advertising is the website activity and purchase records described above.
Each processes your information under its own terms to provide its service to us.
We delete your photos and the delivered files 30 days after delivery unless you ask us to keep them longer, or sooner if you ask. Payment records are kept as long as tax and accounting law requires.
You can ask us at any time what information we hold about you, to correct it, or to delete it, by emailing the address shown under Ordering. We will respond within 30 days.
This service is offered to adults in the United States. We do not knowingly collect information from children under 13.
If we change this policy, we will update the date above. Material changes will not apply to documents you have already sent us without your agreement.