William H Sechler was a prominent attorney, teacher and solider in Pennsylvania and wrote the diary when he was 20. The family has been transcribing and scanning the entire journal and hope to donate it to a historical society in Ebensburg, Pennsylvania, but have been unable to translate some sections that have been recorded in some kind of phonetic writing system.
Four generations of the Sechler family have been unable to translate the entries, which may have been encoded to keep them private.
In January 2004, dotJournalism appealed for help in translating shorthand diaries written by a soldier during the Anglo-Boer War. All the entries were translated by an encryption expert, but the entries were not made public because they detailed the soldier's personal thoughts on his marriage and extra-marital relationships.
If you can help with translation of the Pennsylvania diaries, please email jemima@journalism.co.uk.
• UPDATE: The Sechler family have since found a volunteer that helped to translate their grandfather's journal - revealing that he was just practicing his shorthand. So no scandal there...
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