Memories of 1856 Written by F. Marák Originally Published in Czech 7 October 1951 in Věstník Continued from part one. At first, I didn’t do anything about it except laugh, but as every corner was “full”, the laughter left me. Regardless of whether I wanted to or not, I had to carry the chamber pot up…
Category: Texas Czechs
Memories of 1856, written by František Marák : PART ONE
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,…
Louisa Miller
During the course of researching the DNA case which we were successfully able to solve, and which I hope to write about in the future, I came across some interesting family stories including one about how Otto Weige murdered his pregnant wife, Louisa Miller (see here). My match’s cousin asked how I could be certain…
Weige v. State
All my genealogy time has been consumed by this DNA case I’ve been working on, which I promise to write about at a future date. Through the course of this project, I have come across a number of really interesting stories, including the very sad one I want to share (with permission) today. Basically, this…
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…
Johann Černoch and his two wives named Petrová
My brother found a discrepancy in a Texas death record and wanted for us to research it further. So we spent the afternoon together researching this ancillary Czech line of ours. How are they related to us? Anton Černoch married Filomena Kobersky. Filomena Kobersky is the daughter of Anton Koberský and Marianna Vašíčková. Notice that…
We CAN Remember!
Last month I posted the death certificate of Anton Smihal, which said, “Can Not Remember” when listing the name of his mother. I was very happy to be able to connect the living descendant of this family to their Czechs in the old country a few days later, and of course I started writing a…
Can Not Remember
This is so sad to me, that in one generation the name of his parents could be completely forgotten. This is a rare example of a Texas Czech death record having a hint to the village of origin – “Chaslaf”? But it is really sad that the mother’s name is forgotten. They should not be…
Back Issues of SPJST’s Věstník are online!
Hey! While looking for something completely different, I stumbled across something I absolutely must share with all of those who have some kind of connection to Texas Czechs. When Czechs immigrated to Texas, they brought with them deep and abiding love of literature, education, and culture. After all, Jan Amos Komenský was a Czech. It…
Secondary information on an original document
Sometimes genealogists get into the habit of believing that because something was an “original source” or handwritten, it is therefore always correct.While there is some truth in the idea that the more a document is transcribed, the more likely it is to contain errors (since at every stage of the transcription and/or translation process, there…