In my previous post about my fourth great grandmother, Anna Kreczmarska, I linked to the surname density map kdejsme.cz for the surname Krečmar. This variant spelling is not found anywhere close to Ostrava. However, a friend pointed me in the direction of a different surname spelling variation: Kreczmarská and Kreczmarski. In an email correspondence with Carolyn…
Follow Friday: Michele Simmons Lewis
Today I’m going to link you to one of my favorite bloggers in the genealogy world: Michele Simmons Lewis author of ancestoring.blogspot.com. While not a Czech researcher, her insights into genealogy research apply to all geographical areas of interest. She took a short blogging hiatus (phew! Good to know I wasn’t the only one!) these past…
The 5 Families that owned 8% of the Czech Land
In a previous blog post I took an excerpt from the book Bohemia and the Čechs, the History, People, Institutions, and the Geography of the Kingdom, Together with Accounts of Moravia and Silesia, by Will Seymour Monroe that says that five families own nearly 8% of the land.For my own perspective, I tried to find a size comparison…
Predictions for Czech Genealogy Research in 2014
I’m back! Woohoo! What a great start to the year! I’m so excited to continue researching, writing, and learning about genealogy. Here are my predictions for what will happen in the world of Czech genealogy research in 2014: The current Czech indexing project on familysearch.org will be completed Czech census records will begin to be…
See you in January 2014!!
I am officially going to take a blogging hiatus until January 1st. My whole immediate family is coming here for Christmas and there is a lot left to do to prepare. Right now I need to focus on my living family more than my dead family. But don’t worry, I have a goal to blog…
How should I respond when I find out someone’s ancestors were on Schindler’s list?
I had an interesting genealogy experience yesterday. I did some transcription work for a Jewish man whose recent ancestors were on Schindler’s List. I’ve been thinking about this question ever since – what is the correct response to learning this? Obviously, you can’t say, “That’s awesome.” It isn’t. The fact that Oskar Schindler saved ~1,200 Jewish…
Frančiscuš [Černy] birth record
The Roman Catholic Parish of Zbečno (Zbečno, Raknovík, Czech Republic), Zbečno Deaths 1844-1869, digital image 49, page 46, first entry, Frančiscuš [Černy] entry, 18 December 1856; “Zbečno 08”, State Regional Archives of Prague (SOA Praha), Praha, Czech Republic; SOA Praha, Acta Publica (http://actapublica.eu/matriky/praha/prohlizec/8853/?strana=49 : accessed 13 December 2013). Rok, měsíc a den narozeni a křtu…
Surname Saturday: “Kreczmarska”
This post is about the surname “Kreczmarska”, otherwise known as Krečmar. My fourth great grandmother was Anna “Kreczmarska”. This is the spelling variation that was in the records my dad gave to me when I first started doing genealogy. This spelling is probably based off information found in the book, “A History of the Sumbera,…
Excerpt from “Bohemia and the Čechs” that discusses land ownership
Here is a really interesting excerpt from the book Bohemia and the Čechs, the History, People, Institutions, and the Geography of the Kingdom, Together with Accounts of Moravia and Silesia, by Will Seymour Monroe. This book was published in 1910. I have found it a fascinating read, especially from my vantage point in history. There…
My Human Context for Austerlitz
I disliked “History” as a subject yet love Family History. I was reminded of why this is yesterday while doing some research on Austerlitz. In most of my High School/College History classes, there was a huge focus on political movements, aka wars. And I could never keep them all straight in my mind, because there were…