I recently returned home from my first trip to the Czech Republic with my husband. It was a perfect trip. I would not change anything. Me with my 5th cousin Roman in front of our ancestor’s church in Vratimov If I could sum up the most important thing that I learned from this trip it…
Dominikál vs. Rustikál
When you are reading Czech land records, you will inevitably encounter the terms dominikál and rustikál. What do these words mean? Why are they important for genealogists to understand? Dominikál comes from the same root as the word dominion. It refers to manorial/estate land owned by the nobility and tilled under their direction by the…
Franz Waschiczek Nro. 3 Vratimov: Hlavní Kniha (Ledger) record, first page
http://vademecum.archives.cz/vademecum/permalink?xid=78ea28f5d14a405d9330eca92a42ac57&scan=13 Here is a page I transcribed from the Hlavní Kniha pro obec Vratimov, taken from the Velkostatek Velké Kunčice č 27. Hlavní Kniha means Ledger. This is a page from the ledger for the town of Vratimov, which is in the Estate of Velké Kunčice. The inventory number for the Opava Archives is 27….
What did my emigrant ancestors think when they saw Prague for the first (and probably only) time?
As I leave Moravia for the first time, of course I have had many thoughts about what it must have felt like for my ancestors as they left. Many, if not most, of them never had the opportunity to return home and ever again see this place, and more importantly, their family and friends who…
My first last day in Frenštát p. Radhoštěm
I woke up this morning in Frenštát, one of the ancestral home towns of my Czech ancestors. It is the last day of our stay in this part of the Czech Republic, as today we will travel by train to Prague. Of course I feel overwhelmed with thoughts and feelings, but I will only write…
Wazlaw Folta of #8 Vítkovice
I started blogging about my ancestors in a different, new blog. Czech it out here:http://czechoutmyancestors.blogspot.com/ But…the transcription that follows is for my ancestor. So why did I put it here? Well…I know exactly what it feels like to be without resources to learn how to transcribe and translate Czech Land Records into English. I want…
The Anna Perašek Village of Origin Problem: Mary Golka/Golík
I really feel for anybody who is struggling to trace their Moravian Czech ancestors to a village of origin. I especially feel for anybody who has dealt with what I call the “Anna Perašek” problem, after a woman who has eluded me for years. To qualify for the “Anna Perašek” problem, your ancestor must do…
My Czechs were all Catholic…
…but what if they weren’t? What if before they were Catholics they were Hussites? The more I learn about the history of Protestantism in the Czech lands, the more I realize how little I know. What if some of them were Jews? I don’t know of any, but the more I learn about the history…
First Pass on first few paragraphs Transcription of Purchase Contract of Anton Hruby
Tonight I didn’t work on my Krczmarsky problem, as my friend Lukas emailed me an extensive theory about why it might be possible that Michel is the father of my Joseph, and I haven’t yet been able to find enough time to respond yet to him. More on that interesting problem in forthcoming blog posts. So,…
Scan for the Person
Here’s a handy tip that you might have known already, but I thought it was worth sharing. It can be really tempting to just scan the pages for the house number, especially when the clerk had extremely scribbly handwriting. I find that this is more common in the 1830’s-1880’s. Surprisingly, the further back you go…