Friday, July 18, 2014

Guide to Ostrava Town Archives - Censuses

As the Ostrava Town Archives website is not available in English, I have prepared a short guide showing how to search for censuses there. Censuses from years 1900 and 1910 are currently available for browsing - no name fulltext, but the censuses are nicely sorted by house numbers - each house number has its own "folder", so you don't have to browse all census sheets to find the proper house number.


This is what you'll see when you get to the website. Click on Procházet a hledat (Browse and search) tab.

Four possibilities will appear - the last one, Operáty (censuses), is the one you are looking for. When you click on it, two years will appear - 1900 and 1910. 

When you click on a year, it will show list of villages/town quarters which have the census for that year available. 

The list of house numbers will appear when you click on the village name.  

Choose the house number you are looking for and another screen will appear. To get to the census itself click on Zobrazit digitální kopie (show digital copies) - new window will open where you can browse the census.

Have fun! :)

1 comment:

  1. Well, now I wish I had ancestors from Ostrava so I could use that. :)

    A question for sometime when you are looking for topics: could you talk a bit about Czech military service? How common was it? Was it ever mandatory, and if so, for how long? Did they generally serve locally, or were they sent far away? Occasionally I see mention in the matriky that the groom or father is with this or that regiment (18th-19th centuries). How common was it for a soldier to marry a local girl? And did the soldiers bring spouses and children along? I know some about German soldiers in that time period, but nothing about Bohemian ones.

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