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….
Month: November 2013
Can you get Czech Records that have not been digitized but are old enough to be made publicly available?
My Czech cousin answered a question I have had for a very, very long time. I thought it would be good to post this for others who may be wondering the same thing. Privacy laws in the Czech Republic limit public viewing of records to those older than 100 years for birth records, older than 75…
Thankful Thursday: 2013 List
Happy Thanksgiving to everyone in America! Here is a list of some of the genealogy-related things I’m especially thankful for this year. OCR technology that allows me to search newspapers instantly BYU’s online German script tutorial that has helped me remember that German script does have patterns that are generally predictable Online forums that allow me to…
Velkostatek: the Estate
The Czech word for “Estate” is Velkostatek. According to Wikipedia (as translated from Czech to English by Google translate):“The estate is the name for a farm with an area greater than 100 ha [ha = hectares. 100 hectares = ~247 acres] agricultural area. In the history of this term also denoted a feudal estate . In the Middle Ages, and especially in the early modern…
Wordless Wednesday: Johanna Vasicek Naiser
Photo from Elaine Naiser Hicks Back row, standing from left to right: Richard J.(a great uncle), Johann Naiser (my great-grandfather), Edward (my grandfather) and John, J. a great uncle Front row, seated from left to right: Elizabeth Naiser Vacek (born in Texas) and Johanna Vasicek Naiser. Probably taken about 1890 or so in Texas. Elizabeth…
Czech Out Your Ancestors Facebook Page goes live
Thanks to the urging of a friend and fellow genealogist Rebecca Christensen over at Kansas Ancestors, I finally drummed up enough motivation to finish a facebook page for my business. Woohoo! Here is the link: https://www.facebook.com/czechoutyourancestors I think it will mainly be a place for me to share blog updates, interesting status updates about my…
Two Options: Find them, or have them find you
Whether your goal is to connect with living descendants of a common ancestor, or simply to continue to trace your heritage back further generations in time, you have two basic options. Find the people yourself, or have the people (or their relatives) find you. The first option, finding the people yourself, is the most traditional….
die hausbücher der nürnberger zwölfbrüderstiftungen
Ever wondered what your ancestors looked like? If they were a compass needle filer, they could have looked like: I found a really interesting, really old dictionary of occupations from 1400-1500’s Germany. It’s called “die hausbücher der nürnberger zwölfbrüderstiftungen”. The best part? These are portraits of real people. How cool would it be if your…
Czech Handwriting Transcription Test 1 ANSWERS
Here are the answers to yesterday’s transcription test. Note how there actually are some major differences in the “answers” copy. Names and words were Latin-ized. So I will give you the answer to the original. 1. Mičhal Leičht Michael Leicht 2. Waczlaw Majer Venceslaus Mayer 3.Ondřej Reidl Andreas Reidl 4. Jakob…
Czech Handwriting Transcription Test 1
I found something really awesome on actapublica.eu: two registers that had identical information, but their legibility varied drastically. Why would two parish registers have identical information? One of the registers was the original, and the other was a copy, sort of like the Czech Catholic equivalent to bishop’s transcripts in England. The copy was made…