Memories of 1856 Written by F. Marák Originally Published in Czech 7 October 1951 in Věstník Translated December 2018 by Kate Challis Editor’s note: – In the previous Věstník there was an announcement that the organizer wanted to receive the biographies and experiences of our old settlers that were published in various magazines and calendars thirty,…
Category: Czech Language
Estcha Máme Plenty!
I am learning Czech, and this is a translated cross-post from my language learning blog here. Děda JoeGrandpa Joe Joe a AnežkaJoe and Agnes My great-great-grandpa Josef Jan Vasicek immigrated to Texas when he was 16 years old. He was the youngest son of the Vasicek’s. And he never saw his parents again after he…
House Numbering in Frenštát
My fourth cousin in Trojanovice sent me a copy of a history of the town of Frenštát from 1904. I started to read it in Czech, and of course I need to share what I am learning, because it is very interesting. Here is a translation of pages 7 and 8. ———————————————————————————————– House numbering was…
Getting Better at Czech
So. Much. Czech. I sometimes think my brain will explode. But this weekend I proved to Lukáš the usefulness of my Czech study by doing a little comparison of my transcription ability in 2013 and now. Here it is: ——————————————————————- Transcription attempt 11/10/2013: leta pane 1790, dne 15th Marcza povolenimArvzeneho, a Misocze vzneseneho Pane Ondřeje…
Gender, the temple, and another reason to learn some Czech
In order to do proxy temple work for your ancestors, you need four things: a name, a date, a place, and a gender. This last category is because people who stand as proxy are either women or men. After I first went through the temple for my own endowment and started doing it by proxy…
Watch out for that final a!
I was doing some research for my own Frenštát ancestors. Here is a link to this 26 April 1784 birth. A very quick glance with my tired eyes, and at first I saw, “Johann Chodurin.” I should have noticed three things: 1. There is a third little nožičky – what looks like a final “n” is…
Why Czech Matters: Part I
If it seems I’ve fallen off the face of the earth (or…blogosphere), there are a few good reasons why. First, I went to this crazy huge conference called RootsTech. It was awesome. And after being gone for a week, my email inbox was like…a mountain. There were so many things to do when I got…
Spoken Czech and the schwa (ə)
On my first trip to the Czech Republic (I suppose I’m supposed to call it Czechia, but that sounds so ridiculous I can’t bring myself to even write it, much less say it), I realized that my beloved Czech genealogy is inextricably linked to the Czech language. Therefore, I must not only learn everything there…