Seigniorial Registers

Many of you have already noticed them - seigniorial registers which were published in the Třeboň digital archives. What are these registers? How can be used for the research? How to search them and what can be found there?

What are the seigniorial registers? 

Seigniorial registers are lists of dependent people, people who were subject to some authorities, to some domain. Administration of this lists (registers) was different on every domain. The list was usually created yearly but not all volumes were preserved till nowadays. The oldest registers were created in the second half of 16th century, the newest ones are from the half of 19th century.

The seigniorial registers were originally lists of orphans (as the oldest registers of Protivín domain) which developed into the lists of all dependent people on the domain. Great example of how the registers were administered is the Orlík nad Vltavou domain, property of the Schwarzenberg family. The books preserved from 1718 to 1780 - of course not all years can be found there but there are 41 books for those 63 years which is excellent number. 

Another example could be the already mentioned Protivín domain. First register comes from 1637 and it's the orphan's list. Regular dependent's list was firstly created in 1687 and since then there is book almost for every year till 1830. There are 200 books in this collection. 

What they contain and how to use them for research?

These lists contain all dependent people of the domain. Each village of the domain is listed. Every village is divided to three parts - housekeepers, hinds and orphans. Every part contains list of families and their members - head of the family mentioned in the first place, then his wife and children, often also other inhabitants of the house (parents, servants, cattle boys and so on).

Name and age of every family member is mentioned - and it's the perfect source for the genealogical research. If you have many books for short time span available, you can map the family from year to year and see how it grew, who died and who was born etc. This can help you when you are searching for family members in parish books which don't have indices - you know for whom you have to search. 

This can also help in case when surname after the house is used in the parish books. Both surnames, the "real" one and the one after the house are often listed in the seigniorial records.

How to search them? 

Seigniorial registers are usually divided into the smaller parts by the administrative units called "rychta" which were administered by reeve (rychtář). Every rychta was composed by few villages (often three and more). These villages are sometimes listed in alphabetical order, but more often by the geographical layout. 

There is a table of contents in the beginning or at the end of the register. Example can be found in the Orlík domain register from 1745. 

Table of contents in the Orlík domain register from 1745

This table gives you the name of "rychta" and then list of the villages which are administered by this unit. There is a folio (sheet) of the register mentioned next to every place - for example Milešov village can be found on folio 82. 

When you get to the village the families are then listed. You need to search family from family for the surname you are looking for, there is no other way how to search the registers. Here is an example of one of the families from the Orlík domain: 

Orlík domain register from 1725

First of all two numbers are listed. These are not house numbers as house numbers are used since 1770. These are internal numbers of the seigniorial records which means the page numbers of the cadastral registers where the house owner was also listed. 

Name, surname and age of the householder follows. In this case Gyržik Krotkeg (Jiřík Krotký), who was 44 years old. His wife is the next in the list - Alžbieta Žena, ie. Alžběta, wife, 43 years old. They had two children who were still staying with them - Gyržik (Jiřík), 14 years old, and Lydmila (Ludmila), 6 years old. They probably had some older children but those were probably already in service in some other house. Then there is a note "hosp." (hospodaří), meaning they are farming. 

Why are these registers useful? 

Information contained in the registers is great because even if your ancestors didn't have farm, they were just hinds or day-laborers, so you won't find them in the cadastral books as they had no land property, they still would be listed in the seigniorial registers. 

And these registers could be available even for time span where parish books are not yet available. It means they can help us mapping our family history before the era of parish records - of course only in case when the registers are available. Unfortunately there are too many domains where the registers are not available at all, so everything depends on luck...