# LECTAUREP: Paris Notary Record Books Automated Reading

Alix Chagué, Aurélia Rostaing

<figure><img src="image_1.png" /></figure>

## To cite this version:

Alix Chagué, Aurélia Rostaing. LECTAUREP: Paris Notary Record Books Automated Reading. Fantastic Futures 2021 / Futures Fantastiques 2021, AI4LAM; BnF; Université Paris Saclay, Dec 2021, Paris, France. hal-03479258

HAL Id: hal-03479258

https://inria.hal.science/hal-03479258

Submitted on 14 Dec 2021

HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access archive for the deposit and dissemination of scientific research documents, whether they are published or not. The documents may come from teaching and research institutions in France or abroad, or from public or private research centers.

L'archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, émanant des établissements d'enseignement et de recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires publics ou privés.

<figure><img src="image_2.png" /></figure>

Distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
<figure><img src="image_3.png" /></figure>

LECTAUREP

Paris Notary Record Books
Automated Reading

FF21 - BnF - 10/12/2021

Alix Chagué (Inria, Université de Montréal)

Aurélia Rostaing (Archives nationales)

Inria

ARCHIVES
NATIONALES

<figure><img src="image_4.png" /></figure>

MINISTÈRE
DE LA CULTURE

Liberté
Egalité
Fraternité
# LECTAUREP's perimeter

## B/W & colored digitizations of notary record books, 1803-1940s

Visionneuse

Côtes : 44 vº-51 rº

Liste chronologique des actes pour la période du 2 janvier au 14 mai 1902

<figure><img src="image_5.png" /></figure>

Permalien

<figure><img src="image_6.png" /></figure>

Télécharge

<figure><img src="image_7.png" /></figure>

<figure><img src="image_8.png" /></figure>

<table><thead><tr><th rowspan="2">N°<br>DU<br>RÉPERTOIRE</th><th rowspan="2">DATES<br>DES<br>ACTES</th><th colspan="2">NATURE ET ESPÈCE<br>DES ACTES :</th><th rowspan="2">NOMS, PRÉNOMS ET DOMICILES DES PARTIES<br>INDICATIONS, SITUATIONS ET PRIX DES BIENS</th><th colspan="2">RELATION<br>DE<br>l'Enregistrement.</th></tr><tr><th>EN BREVETS</th><th>EN MINUTES</th><th>DATES</th><th>DROITS</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>1196</td><td>28</td><td>Procuration</td><td></td><td>An 1901, mois de Décembre</td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><td>1197</td><td>28</td><td>Défaut de procuration</td><td></td><td>Portal (par Marie à Paris, rue d'Elmsford am 8H, et Marie), épouse de Abel Theophile Berger, 8e Haussmann, 10H, 8e renoncée à 88</td><td>30</td><td>3,75</td></tr><tr><td>1198</td><td>28</td><td>Inventaire</td><td></td><td>Jeantean (dominée par Théophile au rotonde 5, à l'ouest de l'édifice Moriceau)</td><td>30</td><td>3,75</td></tr><tr><td>1199</td><td>28</td><td>Motorièt</td><td></td><td>Trenel (à l'ouest de l'œuf Détail), à Paris, rue de l'Épouse 181, décédé à Poitiers, le 23 Août 1901</td><td>6</td><td>12,45</td></tr><tr><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td>Miriel (après le décès de Horace Fauveille, Joseph, Veuve de Agathe Jean, Marie)</td><td>6</td><td>3,75</td></tr></tbody></table>

<figure><img src="image_9.png" /></figure>

<figure><img src="image_10.png" /></figure>

<figure><img src="image_11.png" /></figure>

<figure><img src="image_12.png" /></figure>

Verrouiller les paramètres

<figure><img src="image_13.png" /></figure>

Nº

1

/7

Aller à
# Stakes

**Help** end-users read, search, mine notarial registers

> Turn massively digitized archives into data through AI (recurrent neural networks - LSTM)

**Serve** GLAM communities, academics, genealogists, HTR/AIS/LIS SPs

> Mutualize & document data, models, platform, methods for interoperability purposes

Consider **digital heritage** as a whole

> Take into account B&W digitized microfilms & digitization from the original
Sample sets

<table><thead><tr><th></th><th>Images</th><th>Dates</th><th>Notaries</th><th>Notary Studies</th><th>Hands</th><th>Hands</th><th>Size (Go)</th><th>Target (p.)</th><th>Lots (p.)</th><th>Transcribed (p.)</th><th>Revised (p.)</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Lot Rép. 1</td><td>b/w</td><td>1803-1907</td><td>12</td><td>4</td><td>~50</td><td>~16</td><td>11.6</td><td>~174 840 ?</td><td>20 800</td><td>533</td><td>138</td></tr><tr><td>Lot Rép. 2</td><td>col.</td><td>1889-1943</td><td>~100</td><td>~57</td><td>~200</td><td>~100</td><td>3.75</td><td>~1 M ?</td><td>1844</td><td>800</td><td>16</td></tr><tr><td>Lot CM-SD</td><td>col.</td><td>1829-1934</td><td>N/A</td><td>N/A</td><td>~30</td><td>~10</td><td>42.5</td><td>20 000</td><td>600</td><td>600</td><td>218</td></tr><tr><td>Lot Bronod</td><td>col.</td><td>1719-1760</td><td>1</td><td>1</td><td>1</td><td>1</td><td>1.2</td><td>3595</td><td>200</td><td>200</td><td>200</td></tr></tbody></table>

<figure><img src="image_14.png" /></figure>
# Technological environment

<figure><img src="image_15.png" /></figure>

## Software

- **Kraken** - open source HTR engine developed by Ben Kiessling since 2015

- **eScriptorium** - open source web application developed by SCRIPTA PSL since 2018

## Hardware

- 2019 - lectairep.paris.inria.fr (no GPU, virtual machine)

- 2020 - traces6.paris.inria.fr (2 GPU, more storage)

- 2021-2022 - escriptorium.cremma.fr (better architecture, + 2 GPUs, more storage, more RAM)

<figure><img src="image_16.png" /></figure>
# Contractual deliverables

## Models

- 1 perfectible model for line detection

- 1 perfectible model for region detection

- at least 4 usable models for text recognition

- 2 generics (several hands): "Generic" (9 %) & "Random Set" (10 %)

- 2 specialized (1 hand): "Bronod" (5 %) & "Contrats de Mariage" (3 %)

## Documentation

- Transcription conventions & good practices

- Open Science and Gitlab/Github environments (issues and codes)
# Contractual deliverables

## Data

- 239 images (31 401 lines) gold transcription published and documented as ground truth on HTR-United

- from Répertoires, CM/SD and Bronod

- additional publication on data.archives-nationales.culture.gouv.fr?

- 333 more pages ready to join HTR-United

- 1561 images of silver transcription awaiting revision

data.culture.gouv.fr

HTR
United

<figure><img src="image_17.png" /></figure>

0

5000

10000

15000

20000

25000
# Bonus deliverables

## Scripta-PSL

- Providing use cases and feedback

- Developing features for eScriptorium (document tags, dashboard...)

- Creating general documentation for eScriptorium (tutorial)

## GLAM & academics

- Sharing expertise with users, project carriers and working groups (smaller projects, CREMMALab, AI4LAM)

- Sharing expertise via scientific publication (Hypotheses blog)
# KaMI: metrics from the lab to the field

A tool to better evaluate the performances of HTR models with:

- filters (digits, punctuation, diacritics, lower/upper case, etc.)

- more metrics (CER, WER, hit and substitutions or deletions, etc.).

- KaMI is agnostic (not limited to Kraken)

<figure><img src="image_18.png" /></figure>

<table><thead><tr><th></th><th>Default</th><th>Ignoring digits</th><th>Ignoring case</th><th>Ignoring punctuation</th><th>Ignoring diacritics</th><th>Combining all options</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Levenstein Distance (Char.)</td><td>440</td><td>433</td><td>433</td><td>421</td><td>210</td><td>178</td></tr><tr><td>Levenstein Distance (Words)</td><td>228</td><td>216</td><td>224</td><td>219</td><td>130</td><td>99</td></tr><tr><td>Hamming Distance</td><td>0</td><td>0</td><td>0</td><td>0</td><td>0</td><td>0</td></tr><tr><td>Word Error Rate (WER)</td><td>30.645</td><td>33.333</td><td>30.107</td><td>29.514</td><td>17.473</td><td>16.202</td></tr><tr><td>Char. Error Rate (CER)</td><td>9.596</td><td>10.253</td><td>9.443</td><td>9.57</td><td>4.554</td><td>4.38</td></tr><tr><td>Word Accuracy (Wacc)</td><td>69.354</td><td>66.666</td><td>69.892</td><td>70.485</td><td>82.526</td><td>83.797</td></tr><tr><td>Match Error Rate (MER)</td><td>9.333</td><td>9.949</td><td>9.183</td><td>9.297</td><td>4.538</td><td>4.363</td></tr><tr><td>Char. Information Lost (CIL)</td><td>13.52</td><td>14.385</td><td>13.196</td><td>13.425</td><td>6.203</td><td>5.75</td></tr><tr><td>Char. Information Preserved (CIP)</td><td>86.479</td><td>85.614</td><td>86.803</td><td>86.574</td><td>93.796</td><td>94.249</td></tr><tr><td>Hits</td><td>4274</td><td>3919</td><td>4282</td><td>4107</td><td>4417</td><td>3901</td></tr><tr><td>Substitutions</td><td>204</td><td>200</td><td>195</td><td>193</td><td>78</td><td>57</td></tr><tr><td>Deletions</td><td>107</td><td>104</td><td>108</td><td>99</td><td>116</td><td>105</td></tr><tr><td>Insertions</td><td>129</td><td>129</td><td>130</td><td>129</td><td>16</td><td>16</td></tr></tbody></table>
# A corpus raising challenges for NLP-ists

A corpus of text with strong potential to raise new challenges for NLP due to its specificities

- many abbreviations

- many named entities

- non verbal sentences

Notoriété

Leroy (après décès de Augustin Jules) d'à Paris, avenue de Wagram,
157, du 31 deDEC 1903

Notoriété | Leroy (après décès de Augustin Jules) demeurant à Paris, avenue de Wagram, 157, du 31 décembre 1903.

Affidavit | Leroy (after death of Augustin Jules) dwelling in Paris, avenue de Wagram, 157, on December 31st 1903.
# Towards TEI XML and TEI Publisher

- More systematic usage of TEI XML in the pipeline

- Displays documents with complex layout in simple interface

- Benefits from viewing IIIF facsimile and search feature in tools like TEI Publisher

<figure><img src="image_19.png" /></figure>

eScriptorium

- perform segmentation

- handle layout annotation

- perform transcription

<figure><img src="image_20.png" /></figure>

export

<figure><img src="image_21.png" /></figure>

(sourceDoc)

<figure><img src="image_22.png" /></figure>

import

<figure><img src="image_23.png" /></figure>

TEI Publisher

<figure><img src="image_24.png" /></figure>

interpret
Layout

render
Layout

<figure><img src="image_25.png" /></figure>
Conclusion

Generic HTR models enable fuzzy search in loose lines (B/W 19th c. & part of col. 20th c.).

Segmentation models need to be upgraded in case of tight lines (large part of col. 20th c.).

A segmentation rating tool could be handy.
Target corpus: 3100 notary record books (~14% color)

~1,2 M pages, ~1000s handwritings, 1803-1940s (sample transcribed: 1,11 ‰)

Scaling for production deployment means

> collaborative logistics, infrastructures,
project engineering.

> better sources diplomatic (how many
handwritings in a book?)

> better mastering of digital images metadata
(B/W-col. distribution).

<figure><img src="image_26.png" /></figure>

in order to avoid wasting AI resources.

<figure><img src="image_27.png" /></figure>

<figure><img src="image_28.png" /></figure>

de Gourgue demeurant à Paris place royale n°16.

by (eScriptorium) on Wed Dec 08 2021 22:22:20 GMT+0100
# Thank you!

## Links to doc!

* Blog: https://lectaurep.hypotheses.org/

* Gitlab: https://gitlab.inria.fr/almanach/lectaurep

* Github: https://github.com/lectaurep

## Data on HTR-United

* https://github.com/HTR-United/lectaurep-mariages-et-divorces

* https://github.com/HTR-United/lectaurep-bronod

* https://github.com/HTR-United/lectaurep-repertoires

## Contact

<figure><img src="image_29.png" /></figure>

alix.chague@inria.fr

<figure><img src="image_30.png" /></figure>

aurelia.rostaing@culture.gouv.fr