Tools for reading the record Five tools that run in your browser.

Faded-ink enhancer

Load a photo of an old letter, deed, certificate or page. Slide until the writing stands out, then save the clearer copy. Your photo never leaves your device.

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Age at death → birth date

Old certificates and gravestones often give age to the day: “aged 71 years, 4 months, 12 days.” Count back from the date of death and you have a birth date to test against everything else.

Remember: the informant gave that age, so it is a clue to test, not a proof. Stones carved years later can be off too.

Soundex finder

The indexes to the 1880 to 1930 censuses, made in the 1930s and 1940s, were filed by Soundex, a code that groups surnames that sound alike. Type a surname to get its code and spellings worth searching.

Cousin calculator

Start from the ancestor two people share. Say how each one descends from that ancestor, and the calculator names the relationship.

“Removed” counts the generations between two cousins: your parent’s first cousin is your first cousin once removed.

Census finder

Give the years a person was born and died, and the finder lists every federal census they should be in, their age on census day, and what each census can and cannot tell you.

Census days and the 72-year rule from the Census Bureau and its page on census records; the 1890 loss from the National Archives. Ages in a census were given by whoever answered the door, so treat them as clues.

Cipher wheel

The simplest secret writing of all: every letter slides the same number of places along the alphabet. Turn the wheel until the line makes sense. Somewhere on this site, a line is waiting for it.

Try the sample above: it reads plainly at one turn of the wheel: seven. Old soldiers, lodges and lovers all used ciphers like this one, and so does the hunt.