Czechia Genealogy
Guide to Czechia ancestry, family history, and genealogy: birth records, marriage records, death records, census records, family history, and military records.
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| Czechia Background | |
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Country Information[edit | edit source]
Czechia, officially known as the Czech Republic, is a country in Central Europe bordering Poland, Germany, Austria, and Slovakia. It includes the three historical territories of Bohemia, Moravia, and Czech Silesia. From 1918 to 1993, it was the Western part of Czechoslovakia. The official language is Czech.[1]
Getting Started[edit | edit source]
Getting Started with Czechia ResearchLinks to articles on getting started with Czechia research. |
Czechia Research ToolsLinks to articles and websites that assist in Czechia research. |
Finding Town of Origin[edit | edit source]
Records are created and organized on the local level. If you do not know the name of the village or parish your ancestors lived in, see
- Czechia Finding Town of Origin, using United States records.
- Czechia Determining a Place of Origin
- Czechia Emigration and Immigration.
| Once you have determined the name of the town, look it up in the GenTeam Gazetteer to find the archives where the records for that town would be found. |
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Czechia Clickable Maps[edit | edit source]
Archival Regions[edit | edit source]
Czechia records were created on the town or parish level, then collected and preserved on the archive level.
First use GenTeam Free Gazetteer to find out which archive holds the records that you need. GenTeam Instructions. Click on the archival region covering the location of your parish, either on the map or from the list.
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Districts (okresy, singular okres) Used by FamilySearch[edit | edit source]
In 1960, Czechoslovakia was re-divided into districts (okres, plural okresy). In the area of Czechia, there were 75 districts; the 76th Jeseník District was split in the 1990s from Šumperk District. Three consisted only of statutory cities Brno, Ostrava and Plzeň which gained the status of districts only in 1971. The capital city of Prague has a special status, being considered a municipality and region at the same time and not being a part of any district, but ten districts of Prague (obvody) were in some ways equivalent to okres. The older seventy-six districts lost most of their importance in 1999 in an administrative reform. [2]
However, the FamilySearch Catalog for the Czech Republic and the FamilySearch Historical Record Czech Republic, Church Books, 1552-1981 are organized by these historical districts.
For individual maps of each district, see Districts of the Czech Republic.
Additional Language Helps[edit | edit source]
Except for modern records of the 1900s, records in Czechia were written mostly in Latin and German. Other languages sometimes used in Czech records include Old Church Slavonic, Polish, Hebrew, and Yiddish.
- German Paleography Seminar - Lessons on German Handwriting
- Old German Script
- Czechia Handwriting
- Latin for Genealogists
More Czech Republic Research Strategies[edit | edit source]
Research strategies give guidance on how to research or what records to search for first. Below are additional research strategy Wiki articles for the Czech Republic.
- "How to" Guides
- Getting started
- What's the next step?
- Finding your ancestor in the records
- Tips for beginners
- If You Are Czech Citizen...
- Beginning Czech Republic Research
- Records Overview
More Czech Republic Research Tools[edit | edit source]
Research tools can include resources that assist in locating correct records to search and determining the correct locality to search in. Below are links and Wiki articles to research tools in the Czech Republic.
- American Friends of the Czech Republic website gives a brief how to and where to find your Czech Ancestors with links to sites.
- Reference Aids Overview at the Family History Library
- Prague Conscriptions (1850-1914)
- Jewish Registers
- Czech Family Tree
- Central European Genealogy Research Community on FaceBook - Scroll down to Archives for North Moravia - Czech Republic. You must be logged into Facebook to see this resource.
- Websites
FamilySearch Resources[edit | edit source]
Below are FamilySearch resources that can assist you in researching your family.
- Facebook Communities - Facebook groups discussing genealogy research
- FamilySearch Historical Record Collections
- Family History Center locator map
References[edit | edit source]
- ↑ Wikipedia contributors, "Czech Republic," in Wikipedia: the Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Czech_Republic, accessed 23 March 2016.
- ↑ "Districts of the Czech Republic", in Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Districts_of_the_Czech_Republic, accessed 7 October 2021.
