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.
https://www.patreon.com/czechgenealogy
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.
This blog post is already available on my Patreon site. You can find it here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/moravian-land-of-69396101
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.
