Captions & page text
EveryoneEvery page has a caption written for it — a short title and a description of what’s on the page, who’s in it, and when it happened. Some pages also have a transcript of the actual writing on the page, and a translation into English if the original isn’t.
The caption
Below the page image you’ll see the caption title in the book’s gold colour, followed by the caption body. Captions were written by the family and are refined over time.
John Reed (age 18) stands at the dock with his mother Anna Reed. The photograph was taken by his brother Charles Reed with the family’s Brownie camera.
A caption. The gold underlined names are clickable — they take you to the person’s profile.
Clicking names
Any name shown in gold and underlined is a link to that person. Click it to open their profile in the People Directory — you’ll see every page they appear on, their photos, and their family tree. See People directory.
Page text (the transcript)
If a page has writing on it — a letter, a journal entry, a poem — there may be a Page Text button or link that opens the full typed text so you can read it easily.
Dear Mother, I hope this letter finds you well. The harvest is nearly in and the weather has held fine all week...
The page-text panel. Scanned handwriting is sometimes imperfect — if you spot a mistake, suggest a correction.
Page text is extracted automatically from the scanned image. It’s usually pretty good, but handwriting and old print will sometimes trip it up. Admins can correct it — everyone else can suggest a fix.
English translation
If the page text is in another language, the book can show an English translation next to it. If there isn’t one yet and you’re logged in, you’ll see a Translate to English button in the page-text panel.
Audio recordings
Some pages have a voice recording attached — a family member reading the letter aloud, telling a story, or remembering the moment. When a page has audio you’ll see a small player. Press play to listen. For how to make your own, see Audio recordings.
On a two-page spread
In Expert view, the left and right pages each have their own caption, shown side by side under their page.