I’m going to step on my soapbox and give a plug for Familysearch Indexing. If you have a computer and can read, you can index. Indexing is the process of typing the information from records into a massive database so they become searchable. Every record you index is important. It can be the key for somebody…
Author: Kate Challis
Church Record Sunday: Johann Mladinka
Here’s a registry entry from yesterday’s post from the parish register in Trojanovice where so many died from Typhus. Here’s a transcription: [died:] 18 January 1848 [buried:] 20 January 1848 [some type of clergy?:] Franz Kaschek, ročz [?] [another type of clergy?:] Valentine Ziczek Řapellau [?] [deceased:] Johann Mladinka, tischler [carpenter] Pasekar [farmer on cleared land] in…
Sympathy Saturday: The typhus epidemic of 1848
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….
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…