I found an interesting article about House Numbering on wikipedia, with a whole section for Czech House Numbers. There are currently at least three kinds of house numbering in the Czech Republic: Popisné číslo – This is the “old” or “descriptive number.” Maria Theresa ordered the first descriptive numbering in 1770-1771. According to the article, “The…
Church Record Sunday: Valentin Folta’s birth record
In keeping with yesterday’s surname theme, I decided to do a transcription of Katařina Folta’s father, Valentinus. You can find his birth record here. Born/baptized on 8 February [1799][Clergy who baptized him:] Christianus Wayn, coop [this is an abbreviation for some sort of clergyman]house # 8 Vítkovicename: ValentinusMale, Catholic, LegitimateFather: Wenzel Folta, bauer [farmer]Mother: Theresia…
Surname Saturday: Folta
As part of geneablogger’s Surname Saturday prompt, I have decided to start a series in which I post a little bit about each of my Czech ancestral surnames. I decided to start with my 4th great grandmother, Kathařina Folta. Folta is a fairly common surname in the Czech Republic today, as you can tell from the…
Follow Friday: Carl Linert’s Czech Land Record Research Tips
Hey everybody! Today I would like to spotlight a fellow Czech Genealogist named Carl Linert. He doesn’t do social media, but is very involved in online Czech genealogy forums. He both answers and asks very pertinent questions, most notably about Czech Land Records (for example, this thread). I have come across his name dozens of time in…
Kolaches
Today I made a ton of bread and kolaches. Technically these are klobasnik, but in Texas Czech culture, they are called kolaches. Aka pig in there blanket. I used whole wheat flour. It is definitely not as silky delicious as a traditional kolache dough, but healthier and still very, very tasty. The sausage was from…
Step by step transcription of interchangeable letters.
When analyzing old Czech records, expect certain letters to be interchangeable. For example, there wasn’t a distinction between v and w. I have heard Texas Czechs from my grandpa’s generation say, “Vesele Walentine’s day.” Here is an example of a text that uses j, ý, y, i, and í almost interchangeably. This is from a…
Why You Should Index!
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…
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…