Lukáš Svoboda wrote another excellent post on his blog that explains the true motive for numbering houses in 1770 . It is in Czech, but you can easily open it in the chrome browser, right click, and select “Translate to English.” Or copy and paste the text and dump it into google translate. In short:…
Category: History
They Came In Groups
If you are interested in Texas Czech genealogy, you should “czech” out Robert Janak’s “Janaks Texas-Czech Articles and Photos” website. It is excellent, in particular the articles section. Here was a useful post that he wrote called: “Dubina, Hostyn and Ammannsville. The Geographic Origin of Three Czech Communities in Fayette County, Texas.” Janak used tombstone…
Interesting Data Mining from old Czech Records
I read a really interesting post over at Lukáš Svoboda’s blog the other day that really helped me to think about my Czech ancestors in a different way. Using various land records, he made a list of all of the residents of the town of Zlonice (okres Kladno) and their professions. What he found was…
Moravians vs. Moravians
Jan Hus started what later became the Moravian Church (another name for it: the Unity of the Brethren Church) when he rejected practices of the Roman Catholic Church in the late 1300’s. He was burned at the stake in 1415 by order of the Council of Constance. After that, other Hussites rebelled, there was a…
Mozart lived closer to my ancestors than I do to my parents
My kids have been listening to “Mozart’s Magic Fantasy: A Journey Through the Magic Flute.” I keep finding songs from it stuck in my head. “Pa-pa-pa-papageno!” and the Aria of the Queen of the Night. Which my kids ask me to perform for them, and I gladly oblige. Haha. I began reading Mozart’s wikipedia page. The film…
The 5 Families that owned 8% of the Czech Land
In a previous blog post I took an excerpt from the book Bohemia and the Čechs, the History, People, Institutions, and the Geography of the Kingdom, Together with Accounts of Moravia and Silesia, by Will Seymour Monroe that says that five families own nearly 8% of the land.For my own perspective, I tried to find a size comparison…
How should I respond when I find out someone’s ancestors were on Schindler’s list?
I had an interesting genealogy experience yesterday. I did some transcription work for a Jewish man whose recent ancestors were on Schindler’s List. I’ve been thinking about this question ever since – what is the correct response to learning this? Obviously, you can’t say, “That’s awesome.” It isn’t. The fact that Oskar Schindler saved ~1,200 Jewish…
Excerpt from “Bohemia and the Čechs” that discusses land ownership
Here is a really interesting excerpt from the book Bohemia and the Čechs, the History, People, Institutions, and the Geography of the Kingdom, Together with Accounts of Moravia and Silesia, by Will Seymour Monroe. This book was published in 1910. I have found it a fascinating read, especially from my vantage point in history. There…
My Human Context for Austerlitz
I disliked “History” as a subject yet love Family History. I was reminded of why this is yesterday while doing some research on Austerlitz. In most of my High School/College History classes, there was a huge focus on political movements, aka wars. And I could never keep them all straight in my mind, because there were…
Sympathy Saturday: The typhus epidemic of 1848
1848 was not a great year to be in Silesia. There was a massive typhus epidemic. This typhus was actually probably typhoid fever. They are both caused by bacteria, though different strains. They are uncommon today in the developed world because of antibiotics like penicillin. Here is a parish register page from 1848 in Trojanovice….