Traps of old spelling: Voiced and unvoiced consonants

Parish books stored in the municipal offices (Zámrsk archive)

I often stumble upon a question where to find parish books which are not yet in the archives. I wrote a guide how to find in which municipal office the parish books are stored, but there are other ways how to find out. 

Zámrsk archive offers information about parish books stored in the municipal office - you can find it on their website. There is a list available which covers all the parish books till 1949 which are still stored in the municipal offices in the former Easter Bohemian region.

Oh no, that parish book is still in Municipal Office! (updated August 2020)

How well I know that situation. I need a record from the end of 19th or beginning of 20th century which should be in the archives - but it's still in the parish book which is stored in local municipal office. It's not so bad if the municipal office is near, but if I would have to travel 150 miles to get one parish record, I have to think about it twice. And this is still quite easy for me as I'm living in the Czech Republic. So - what to do in such cases?

Card indexes (Opava archives)

Opava archives (which cover central and northern Moravia and Silesia) contain quite much information. Such as... Tons of different archival sources, not only parish books or census records, but much more. One of those sources are card indexes - or registration cards of the people who lived or moved in the town. You can find similar resource in the Prague municipal archive - Prague conscriptions.

What does 2nd or 3rd degree of relationship mean?

This blog post was already moved to Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/posts/back-to-basics-110941770

Czech cemeteries - why there are no old gravestones?

You can find this post on my Patreon website: https://www.patreon.com/posts/back-to-basics-88281284

I'll be happy if you decide to become my Patron on Patreon. You'll get access to tens of Patrons only blog posts with interesting information about Czech genealogy and history - and if you become a Sponsor or a Benefactor, you'll get one parish record professionally read every month. Benefactors also get a research help when they hit a brickwall. See more on https://www.patreon.com/czechgenealogy

German-speaking inhabitants of the Czech lands

I found an interesting map of the percentage of native German speaking inhabitants in the court districts of the Czech lands before the WWII. It shows the density of the German speaking population in the border area - Czechoslovakia was forced to give up these parts of the country to Germany in the Munich agreement of 1938.