Translations
The documents published on this site are the work of professional freelance translators hired through Upwork.com and edited by myself. The translators were given guidance to make these texts, which are often written in an older style of language, readable for modern English viewers while conveying the original meaning as best as possible. Some of the translators had experience with equine subjects, others did not. The longer they worked on the subject, the better their translation. In general, I am pleased with the result.
The purpose of commissioning these translations was to give information on the origin of Skowronek’s ancestors. While native speakers of Polish, Russian, German and French may find fault with some of the word choices, I was mainly interested in areas of the text that directly concerned horses that are in Skowronek’s pedigree. Portions known to be controversial were literally translated. These areas are heavily footnoted. As an editor who does not speak any of the original languages, I solely relied on the translator to provide meaning in areas that did not directly impact Skowronek’s ancestors. Viewers are of course welcome to comment on the quality of the translation and any concerns they may have about the texts in the comment section at the bottom of each page. There is always room for improvement.
Sources
I obtained the documents referenced on this website all over the world. Some were obtained by friends using the European inter-library loan system. I never thought Europe was one big happy family until I saw how freely texts were shared between libraries all over Europe. Others were available online through various digitization efforts.
More often I found out where documents were located using online tools and then employed freelancers through Upwork.com to walk into various libraries and archives and snap readable photos using their mobile phones. The cameras on mobile phones are amazing these days. Documents were sourced in California, Florida, Connecticut, London, Berlin, Paris, Warsaw, and St. Petersburg among other places.
Lots of old sources are slowly moving online and I am sure there are other documents pertaining to Skowronek’s ancestors waiting to be discovered. I look forward to publishing them on this site as they pop up in the future.
The translations on this site were done in accordance with the Upwork.com terms and conditions and the copyright is solely owned by Lyman Doyle. Pages may be freely shared with a link back to this website.
