Immigrants from Žeraviny, Moravia

South-eastern Moravia was left by quite a large number of people heading to the U.S. They were looking for a better life, better living conditions as well as land to own. Some of them succeeded, some of them not that much. Anyway, some of these people were from Žeraviny, small town not far away from Hroznová Lhota or Kněždub (links go to the blog posts about immigration from these two towns).

Žeraviny on map from 3rd Military Survey. Source: Laboratory of geoinformatics.

People in the parish books: Midwives

I wrote a post about priests - but those are not the only people mentioned in the parish books. Another "unimportant" name you can find there is a midwife's name.

Midwives started to be mentioned in parish books after 1780 and later they were distinguished as certified and non-certified. Certified midwives had to complete a university course and have certain qualities - but it doesn't necessarily mean they were preferred by families or that uncertified midwives provided much worse care.

Serfs register 1651: A map of the regions

I was asked about a map of the regional division for the serfs registers, which was created in 1651. I already wrote a blog post about the administrative system of Czech regions and districts in 2015, but I haven't mentioned the serfs register there.

Estates II - How it all happened?

I explained what's an estate, in the previous blog post. But we have to start much deeper in the history to understand this system.

Hluboká castle and town on a map from the first half of 18th century.
Source: State Regional Archive in Třeboň.

All the land in the historical Czech lands was originally owned by the King. The King then gave the authority to administer the estate to his tenants - it could have been a nobleman (prince, count, knight), the church or a royal town (such as Prague, Písek, Hradec Králové; there will be another blog post about royal towns too).

30 years of freedom

The Czech republic celebrates 30 years of freedom today. It's 30 years from the beginning of the Velvet revolution. 30 years from the events of the Nov 17, 1989. 

Police agains students. Národní třída on Nov 17, 1989.

People in the parish books: Priests

There is quite a lot of data that can be found in parish books and are often ignored and/or might confuse the researcher - most common is a situation when the word after mother's first name is thought to be her surname but it is not, because surnames of mothers were not that important and the record simply proceeds to further information.

Michaela made a list of those data and also suggested how to use them, if possible. Here is the first blog post about priests.

Estates I - What's an estate?

I have mentioned the estates number of times in the past. But I think I never explained what they are. I know it's not easy to understand estate system in the Czech past, so I decided to write several blog posts concerning this issue. 

Úsov estate map from about 1700. Source: Land Archives Opava.