Help restoring faded handwritten document...

Forum|Forum|12 years ago
August 15, 2013
2 replies
33485 views

Hi! I have been doing some ancestry research and came across a document I was looking for for a long time. However, the document is faded and I'm having a lot of trouble figuring out what it says. Here are links to the 2 pages of the document:

https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.3.1/TH-1-12403-18934-41?cc=1807092&wc=5840150

https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.3.1/TH-1-12403-18935-40?cc=1807092&wc=5840150

I'm by far not a photoshop expert, but I can follow instructions quite easily or if anyone can help me out with this, I would greatly appreciate it! Thanks!

F

Farida5E36

Participant

I have similar problem, need help of someone to make my document readable.

Chuck Uebele

Community Expert

If these are at the full resolution that you have, the noise/grain will create issues along with the lack of resolution. You can try using an adjustment layer such as levels to increase the contrast to make the text more legible. Open the file in PS and select from the main menu: Layer>New Adjustment layer...>Levels. When the levels dialog box opens you can adjust the sliders below the histogram (the end point ones) so that you can hopefully read the text better. Maybe someone else has some better suggestions.

Trevor.Dennis

Community Expert

Is that your only access to the document? If so, they sure don't make it easy. If not, what format and size do you have the image at? And could you upload _that_ image to this forum as opposed to the above viewer.

E

e-naterAuthor

Participating Frequently

Best wishes to you Trevor and be safe. It seems the second document is a little bit more readable. It's in Spanish and for what I can tell is a certificate of death. If someone here can put some magic to make a bit more readable it will be great. It is a really old document from the 1800s.

Yes! It's a death certificate from an ancestor of mine called Cayetano Antonio Nater. He died in the city of Bayamon, Puerto Rico, back in November 30, 1839. The certificate should tell a bit more about his family and such, and therefore it's a huge find I made recently since I had never come across a document of him, just references in documents of other relative. I'm hoping that I could get access to the original or something of better quality to see if I can get the information. Nevertheless, any further help is greatly appreciated!

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