Today I had an associate ask me: “Yesterday we had a man come into the FHC helping a friend on his research. I’m not sure if Ron will be coming back for further research on this family or not. Anyway, on the 1940 census, the family’s country of origin was Czechoslovakia, earlier censuses Austria…
Category: tutorial
Why should you look for village of origin records in the country of arrival?
So, you have a vague clue about a village of origin, say in the village “Hradiště.” You look up Hradiště on the Czech Parish finder and discover that there are over 20 different places with this name. But you don’t know which Hradiště is your Hradiště. Since so many of the Czech parish records are available online now, should…
Search for records in the bride’s home village
I have recently been doing research on some Klečka ancestors. I solved a problem using some basic knowledge about Czech customs in family migration. Here are two general pieces of knowledge that I have discovered in my experience researching my Catholic Czech ancestors. 1. Marriages often took place in the village of the bride. 2….
Finding Czech Parish Records: Moravian-Silesian Region
I gave a presentation today at the Czech Heritage Society – Harris County Chapter for their Summer Genealogy Meeting. It was called “Finding Czech Parish Records: Moravian-Silesian Region.” If you click on that link, it will allow you to view and download my presentation. Feel free to share this with anybody who might find it interesting…
Search Strategy: Finding the Parish of a Village of Origin in the Czech lands using only online tools
So you have a name of a village in the Czech lands. You know that records must exist somewhere. You learn that they have likely been digitized and are available online, as part of a massive movement of many of the state and local archives in the CR to promote accessibility. The end goal is…