Gemeinde Rattimau = Parish/Community of Vratimov
It seems like the Parish was actually made of more than one village. Vratimov records are always with those of Horní Datyně, Hrabová, and Kunčice, to name a few. Kunčice, by the way, as in Gross Kunzendorf, a village that is no longer on the map. It was razed to make way for a steel mill.
Anyway, those are all somewhat tangential to this blog post. The point is – look at the handwriting! The above sample is from a page of 1863 birth registrations. After you’ve looked at these for a while, you begin to forget how gorgeous the handwriting really is. Take a second to admire it. It’s really a work of art, this beautiful cursive Czech-German current hybrid! I love it.
I’ve heard it said that the next generation will never have such beautiful handwriting, in a disparaging tone of voice. I’m not that pessimistic; probably they are write. This art form is lost, replaced with all kinds of fantastic new technology never even imagined 150+ years ago. Maybe it’s a tragedy, but not one that will make me cry myself to sleep at night.
Instead, I’ll marvel at the relics of the past that do remain. I mean seriously, they must have used a ruler on the example above. Come on! Nobody can write that straight, can they? Even with a ruler, it looks like a computer font. Gorgeous, gorgeous. All you genealogists out there reading this blog, take a second to smell the roses admire the handwriting!