Serfs register according to their faith from 1651

One of the oldest sources which covers most of Bohemia is the Serfs register according to their faith (soupis poddaných podle víry) which was created in 1651. It covers just Bohemia, not Moravia or Silesia. If your ancestors were from Bohemia, it is a wonderful source of information.

Specifics of records prior to 1784

Michaela wrote a huge post about the structure of the parish records, but there are some specifics worth mentioning in case of records prior to year 1784. Why this year? Because it was the year when parish books happened to become part of the official state administration even they were still administered by the church. A decree by the Emperor Joseph II. stated new structure of the records in 1784 so after this year all the records should contain the same information. Well, should - it took several years before this was fully in place.

One example of a record prior to 1784.

Guide to the Zámrsk archive website

The regional archive in Zámrsk has probably the most confusing system to access digitized materials of all Czech archives.

Area: In this archive are stored materials for North-East Bohemia and North-West Moravia. More precisely we are talking about areas of today Hradec Králové region (districts: Hradec Králové, Jičín, Náchod, Rychnov nad Kněžnou, Trutnov) and Pardubice region (districts: Chrudim, Pardubice, Svitavy, Ústí nad Orlicí), but as usual, there could be also areas from around borders of both regions (so from SOA Praha, SOA Třeboň, ZA Opava, MZA Brno) and vice versa.

Map of digitized parishes (and therefore of the area covered by Zámrsk materials.)

Farmer's life in 18th and 19th century

I was asked several times what everyday life in the 18th century was like. So, here is a very brief post about the farmer's life in 18th and 19th century.

It was in fact very similar to current life in rural areas, every day almost the same as another. The only difference was made by changing the seasons - life during the winter was much slower than in the spring and summer.

Shepherd, 1st half of the 18th century.

The day usually began at about 6 AM (or earlier during the summer, as soon as the sun was up) - animals prior to people, so first of all feeding of the animals, milking cows, letting chickens, geese and ducks out of the poultry-house, checking if all the animals are ok.

Josef Lada: Easter

Josef Lada is tightly connected to the Czech Easter traditions as he painted some of the most favorite Easter postcards we have here in the Czech Republic. 

Here are some of this paintings - they often show us a caroller (or more carollers) with pomlázka (a braided whip made from pussywillow twigs), a women giving him an egg or girl(s) running away. I wrote a blog post about Easter Monday traditions three years ago, here it is: Easter Monday.

Czech Traditional Costumes - Kroje, vol. II

I was asked about typical kroj for Eastern Bohemia and while I needed to do some research, I found another load of pretty old pictures of kroje. It from book called Národní kroje slovanské (Slavic national costumes) written by Adolf Liebscher in 1895/1896.

It shows not only Czech, Moravian and Silesian costumes, but also costume of Moravian Croatians, Polish, Ukrainian, Bulgarian and other costumes. But those from Bohemia, Moravia and Silesia are in majority. The book is available online in the digital archives of Czech National Library.

 Costumes from Domažlice and Pilsen area

 Costumes from Pilsen and Třeboň area

 Costumes of Moravian Slovaks (Slovácko)

 Costumes from Starý Hrozenkov and Vallachia (Valašsko)

Costumes from Vallachia (Valašsko)

Immigrants from Nový Hrozenkov, 1875-1880

Nový Hrozenkov belongs among those towns which are located in a mountain valley in eastern part of Moravia. It was very poor region where most of people worked in agriculture. Nový Hrozenkov was quite large town, it had about 3000 people in 1900, but still - there were not enough work opportunities for quickly growing population.

Nový Hrozenkov on historical postcard