Sunday, November 30, 2014

Fotohistorie.cz, old postcards and photos source

We have gone through parish books, censuses, school registers or maps, but there are many more online sources for Czech history. One of these sources is website Fotohistorie.cz which offers old postcards and photos from all around the Czech Republic. It's not a source covering every village and every town but it can provide very nice postcards for many Czech towns and villages.

Saturday, November 22, 2014

My great great-grandmother's cake form

I bake something sweet time to time and I usually use modern cake forms (or just plain baking tin). But there is one cake which is baked in a special form - bábovka. I tried to find English translation and Wikipedia gave me Gugelhupf or Bundt cake, which is correct I suppose.

I have three different bábovka forms at home - one modern which was bought to me two or three years ago by my husband. And two old ones, both about one hundred years old. My mum gave them to me as she got them from her mum, which got them from her mum, which got them from her mum, my great great-grandmother Marie Trojanová, married Musilová (born 1876).

Thursday, November 20, 2014

SRA Prague: Map of digitized parishes

State Regional Archives in Prague published a map where already digitized Roman catholic parishes are marked. You can find the map on their website. The map shows digitized parishes in yellow color - parish books from these parishes can be found on ebadatelna.soapraha.cz

State Regional Archives in Prague is publishing newly digitized parish books from time to time (currently every two months) and this map should be updated every time there are new parish books available for researchers.


Sunday, November 9, 2014

House numbers

Once upon a time there was an Empress (or more precisely a Queen) who ruled in the Central Europe. Her name was Marie Terezie (Maria Theresia) and she reigned in 1740-1780. She was very wise and made many changes in her empire. One of those changes was based on an act from February of 1770. This act set a frame for new system of house numbering in whole Cisleithania. As Bohemia, Moravia and Silesia belonged under this part of Habsburg monarchy, it also affected every settlement in this region.

Saturday, November 1, 2014

Rural settlement types

There are just few types of rural settlement all over the world - even the conditions in which the settlements developed were different. Czech environment knows three basic types - linear settlement,  nucleated settlement and dispersed settlement (oh my, it took me too many minutes to find English phrases!). There are almost no villages of clearly one type today, but let's take a look on these types using old maps.