An alternative to MyHeritage Scribe AI for transcribing and translating hundreds of archive photos

What is MyHeritage Scribe AI, and when should you look for an alternative?

MyHeritage Scribe AI is a feature of the MyHeritage genealogy platform that transcribes, translates and summarizes a historical document from its image. An alternative becomes useful when you move from a handful of documents to hundreds of archive photos. Scribe AI suits the genealogist who reads a few records or letters in the environment where the family tree is already built. A whole collection needs something else: photos kept in register order under their shelfmarks, and a name found across every page.

Signs that you need a different tool:

• you have a whole folder of shots, not a single document;
• you want to find a surname and its spelling variants across all the registers;
• you need to cite a precise page (collection, shelfmark, folio);
• you want to export transcriptions in a working format;
• you want to choose where your images are hosted.

What is the best alternative to MyHeritage Scribe AI for a collection of several hundred photos?

wondarchive is an alternative to MyHeritage Scribe AI for whole collections. wondarchive is an online service that transcribes, translates and indexes archive photos taken in the reading room (manuscripts, typescripts, printed material), for historians, doctoral students, archivists and genealogists. You upload the photo folder as your camera wrote it, subfolders included. Transcription and translation run on the server within minutes or hours. By the next morning, the collection is readable.

What this changes compared with reading a single document:

• Order: pages are read in the order the photos were taken. They are then arranged as in the archive, by place, shelfmark and folio.
• Context: translation is done page by page. It uses the end of the previous page and the start of the next as context, and relies on a glossary of terms from the collection.
• Search: full-text search covers the whole collection. Personal names are indexed with their variants, and dates are understood even when imprecise (searching your archives).
• Reading: two panes, the photo on the left and the text on the right, original or translated in one click.

MyHeritage Scribe AI, wondarchive, Transkribus, eScriptorium: which tool for which need?

The right tool depends on your unit of work. Scribe AI suits a document read within MyHeritage. wondarchive suits a collection of photos to transcribe, translate and search. Transkribus and eScriptorium suit projects that train handwritten text recognition (HTR) models. State as of November 2026.

The details of each tool (publisher, country, status, image hosting) are on the page compare the tools.

Parish registers, Kurrent, Latin: what is read well?

Parish registers, letters in Kurrent or Sütterlin, and handwritten Latin records are transcribed by wondarchive with high quality. They go through an enhanced review pass, carried out by wondarchive's most accurate model. This review reads cursive hands in the main European languages and in the Latin, Cyrillic and Greek alphabets. Typescripts, printed text and Fraktur (blackletter) are read with excellent accuracy. On handwriting, a personal name or a date is checked at a glance against the photo.

• Parish registers and civil registration records: handwritten, transcribed, then searchable by name (the case of registers and records).
• Kurrent and Sütterlin: read like other cursive hands; try them on the 100 free pages with your own photos (the Kurrent and Sütterlin guide).
• Latin: transcribed in its own language and translated into yours. On handwriting, abbreviations and names should be checked.
• In every case: a personal name or a date is checked at a glance against the photo, displayed next to the text.

Where do my archive photos go, and can I get my transcriptions back?

With wondarchive, photos and their transcriptions are hosted in France, with OVHcloud, and the originals in Paris. They are not used to train any model, the service complies with the GDPR, and export is complete. The original JPEG is kept intact, never recompressed. For Scribe AI or any other tool, read its terms of use to learn where your images go and what is done with them.

• Export of a page, a shelfmark or a search as PDF, DOCX, TEI or CSV.
• One-click citation of a page through a stable link; a name can be opened in Wikidata.
• Sharing of a shelfmark, for example with family.

More details: your data and exporting and citing.

How do you go from a few documents to a whole collection?

To move from documents read one by one to a whole collection, you upload the photo folder and let transcription and translation run on the server. You then arrange the pages by shelfmark and check names and dates. Five steps:

1. Upload the folder from your archive visit, subfolders included. Files already online are not sent again, and an interrupted upload resumes where it stopped.
2. Let the pages be straightened: the browser decides the reading orientation and shows you the four possible rotations when it hesitates.
3. Let it transcribe and translate on the server: you can close the tab and the work continues.
4. Arrange the pages by place, shelfmark and folio, in batches if needed. The shelfmark printed in the page footer is read and suggested for the pages that follow.
5. Check names and dates against the photo, correct where needed while keeping the original version, then search for a surname across the whole collection.

Follow-up questions

Can I keep MyHeritage for my tree and use wondarchive for my archive photos?

Yes, the two needs complement each other. MyHeritage is for building the tree; wondarchive transcribes, translates, organizes and makes searchable the photos taken in archives. CSV or DOCX export keeps at hand what you then carry over into the tree.

Is automatic transcription reliable for family names?

Transcription is of high quality on handwriting, but a personal name should always be checked. wondarchive displays the photo next to the text so you can verify at a glance. Names are indexed with their variants so you can find them despite old spellings.

What about a family letter in Sütterlin?

Sütterlin is read like Kurrent, through the enhanced review pass for handwriting. The safest approach is to try it on your own letters, within the 100 free pages.

Can I share the transcriptions with family?

Yes: a shelfmark can be shared, and a page can be cited through a stable link. Transcriptions can also be exported as PDF or DOCX.

How can I try it without paying?

The free account gives 100 pages transcribed, translated and stored, with no credit card, for one year. The account and its pages remain.

To compare on your own photos of registers or letters: open a free account, or first see the demo on real archives.