Sunday, February 9, 2014

Immigrants from Tasov, Hodonín, Moravia

Tasov is another small village on Czech-Slovak borders. It's located near Strážnice, well known for its open-air museum and festival of folklore traditions. Tasov is one of those villages where it wasn't easy to live in - poor part of country on the slopes of White Carpathians where the most common way of living was agriculture. Most of the farmers here owned just a small piece of land, usually about 5 acres. Many people from here left to find their happiness across the ocean - here are those whose birth record contain a note about their emgration. The timespan covered is between 1885 and 1900.

Testimonium matrimonii contracti

I'm preparing a blog post about immigrants from Tasov, Hodonín district, in Moravia - and I've accidentally bumped into one document I'd like to show to people who are interested in Czech genealogical research. It is "testimonium matrimonii contracti", which means testimony about contracting a marriage. Such documents were provided to people who wanted/needed to prove they were married. 

My experience is not many people know that church records (which are usually not available online) contain much more information than marriage licences (which are often available online). So if your ancestors were married in U.S. and you don't know where they came from - don't forget marriage church records. :)