September voting about surname topic for October showed you are interested in surnames which were derived from water. So let's take a look on such surnames - and see how many of those we have.
Water is voda in Czech and Wasser in German. I'll use both languages as both were used here in the Czech Republic in the past.
There are thousands of first names today. But our ancestors used just a few tens of them. They wanted to fit in, not to stand out, because anyone who stood out was usually suspicious.
Records in Bohemia, Moravia and Silesia are usually writen in Latin between abt 1730 and 1784. And Latin uses declension and has six cases:
If you have thought about supporting this blog and its authors on Patreon, maybe you hesitated to sign up because you don't know what to expect there.
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Right now you can read the public posts. But there are also Patrons only posts. Curiosities from the parish books and other documents, but not only that. Photos from different places in the Czech Republic (such as Kutná Hora, Praha, Telč etc.). Polls about upcoming posts. Bonuses to the public posts. And of course, free record translation every month if you become Sponsor or Benefactor.
And here is an example of a post I would usually post for Patrons only - one of the curiosities from my own research...
Czech archives collect not only parish or cadastral books and other official materials, but also other documents.
This one is from the Opava district archives and it's a poster for the exhibition of hunting trophies and dog exhibition which took place in Opava on Sunday 22nd September 1895.
Do you like the drawings? I love them!
There is a very old blog post about how surnames were created. This blog post describes that sometimes the person received a surname which was funny because of his appearance or behaviour.
And there are surnames which were considered funny those days - and they still exist until today and still are funny. Here are some examples of such surnames - and I hope you'll have fun reading the explanation.
I mentioned in the previous post how to navigate in these oldest land registers. This time I'll describe the system of the measurements used in these documents.
So - it will be a bit complicated. I have to explain the measurements which were used in the past, as well as three different classes of the soil which were used to calculate the tax burden.
It's been 54 years since the Warsaw Pact invasion to Czechoslovakia. I was born in 1980 so I didn't live throught these events - but my parents and parents-in-law did. I asked them about those events and here is a story of my mother-in-law.
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Mandatory school education was a part of our ancestors' everyday life since 1869. The children were obliged to start the school when they were six and they were expected to complete 8 years of the basic education. And as schools were meant to be "the churches of education" many of them started writing chronicles in the 2nd half of 19th century. Since the first half of 20th century almost all schools had chronicles.
Religion and the church are very important for people in the U.S. To cite Wikipedia article about the U.S. and religion:
In one 2020 survey, about 65% of Americans report that religion plays an important or very important role in their lives, 43% report attending religious services at least monthly, 61% report praying weekly or more and 90% believe in God proportions which are unique among developed countries.
One of the sources I haven't mentioned before are Moravian land registers created between 1656 and 1676 (they are called lánový rejstřík or lánové rejstříky in Czech). It's the oldest Moravian register of dependent farms, houses and plots, from which the taxes were paid. It is similar to berní rula, which is the oldest Czech register of such farms and houses.
Last month poll decided that this month I'll write about those surnames which reffer to the physical appearance of the first person who got that surname. So - what kind of surnames we can find in this "category"?
Searching the parish books can be very time consuming. When you search for your ancestor who was born somewhere between 1820 and 1830 in one of the largest towns in the Czech Republic, let's say České Budějovice or Příbor, it could take going through hundreds of pages one by one until you find the record you are looking for.
It's been 80 years this year since the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich, the commander of the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA) and acting governor of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, took place. It was 27 May 1942 when two brave men, Jozef Gabčík and Jan Kubiš, attacked the head of the German "government" of the Czech lands.
Czech lands are a place where many different language elements meet - there si Czech language, but there were parts where German was the most common language till the half of the 20th century. How did this happen?
As you most probably know, one third of the Czech lands inhabitants were Germans till the second half of 1940s. This was caused by the large medieval colonisation when owners of Czech estates invited people from quite overcrowded Bavaria and other German speaking regions to come and settle in almost uninhabited regions of Bohemia, Moravia and Silesia. As these people were living in quite secluded areas (such as mountain valleys) they kept their language and spoke German.
When I was researching my own family I processed all the records from the marriage book of Dobrš parish between 1702 and 1784. Thanks to that I got a long list of grooms and brides - and I decided to do a word map (or a word cloud) for both male and female surnames out of it to see what were the most common grooms' and brides' surnames in this parish in 18th century.
And I decided to provide these word maps also to you - maybe your ancestors were from this area and you'll find some not-so-usual surnames you know...
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You have most probably seen such notes in the parish books - cause of death and then a number of a death survey card.
One of the church "dates" which you can see in the marriage books quite often is the Septuagesima Sunday (neděle devítník in Czech). It's often mentioned as one of the days when marriage bans took place. Marriage bans took place on three feast days prior to the marriage - and the feast day was usually a Sunday.
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If you post a comment please wait for its moderation and don't repost it. I usually check the comments every day, so it should take maximum of 24 hours before your comment appears on the blog.
Thanks for your understanding.
It's almost impossible to translate the sentence in the headline. It says "Even the old weaver sometimes weaves a yarn" - but it could be also translated as "Even the old weaver sometimes makes a mistake when weaving" as the word "splete" means both "weaves" and "makes a mistate". And you most probably already know what this post is about - weavers.
March poll about surnames on Patreon was won by an option to show surname changes on one surname. I have chosen surname Švejda which provides number of different possibilities how to write it.
Surname Švejda is said to have two possible different origins - it could come from the word Švéd which means Swede or Swedish, or it could originate from a personal characteristic - švejda meant someone who was big and/or clumsy.
There are different ways how to write this surname which is caused by the different ways how to write down letters as explained in one of the older blog posts. Here is an overview of those changes:
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When our ancestors were born one of the first things awaiting them was the baptism. It was one of the most important events of their lives - at least from the church point of view.
You have most probably heard about our former President Václav Havel - he is one of the best known Czechs of the end of 20th century.
His surname comes from the first name Havel. This name originated in Latin - word gallus from which it originated means a person living in the province of Gallia (Gaul in English). This province covered most of France, Belgium, parts of Germany, Switzerland and northern Italy.
For the last few months we repeatedly discussed our worries that we don't give our blog the attention it deserves. We have many ideas to write about, but each of them requires further research and we also need to do a paid work (like everyone does). As our group works very well as a cooperative community and you all look like you enjoy our blog, we decided to try Patreon and see if it could help us to create more regularly and feel more free to do so.
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You can find number of different notes in the birth parish books which were written there later, during the life. Those notes mention different life situations - confirmation, marriage, death, sometimes emigration and other events.
Barbora Sallaba, foundling No. 204 from Prague, by the family of Franc Vopravil, blacksmith from Petrovice,
brought here on Dec 11, 1840. 7 months old.
You might have noticed such records in the death books. A small town or a village in the countryside, often in Southern Bohemia. Small children, just a few weeks or months old, not related to the family they died in. Record saying something like "nalezenec z Prahy" or "nalezenec z Vídně". Who were these children?
