Czechia Beginning Research

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Introduction
Begin with family and home sources. Look for names, dates, and places on certificates, family Bibles, obituaries, diaries, and similar sources. Ask your relatives for any additional information they may have. It's likely that your second cousin, great-aunt, or other relative already has some family information. Organize the information you find, and record it on pedigree charts and family group records.

Select a specific relative or ancestor born in the Czech Republic for whom you know at least a name, the village or parish where he or she lived in the Czech Republic, and an approximate date when he or she was born there. It is also very helpful to know the names of other family members born in the Czech Republic.

As you look over your family group records, or pedigree charts, ask yourself “What do I want to find next?” Common goals might be:
 * The last person on a specific line of your pedigree chart
 * A missing parent on the family group record
 * A gap between the birth years of the children on a family group record (a wide enough gap that there may be missing children in between siblings)
 * Finding the last children to the parents (during the mothers’ child bearing years)
 * To find the birth date and place for an individual listed on the family group record without one
 * Locating the marriage date and place for the parents on a family group record

For suggestions on finding an immigrant ancestor's birthplace, see the "Emigration and Immigration" section through the Czech Republic Portal of the FamilySearch Wiki.

Next, decide what you want to learn about your ancestor, such as where and when he was married, or the names of his parents. You may want to ask an experienced researcher to help you select a goal that you can achieve.

Before You Start
Before doing Czech family history research, you will need to find:
 * The actual name of an ancestor
 * The date of birth, marriage, and death
 * The place of origin
 * The religion of an ancestor

Tips:
 * You can calculate an approximate date from other information you know. A birth date can be calculated from a persons age.
 * If you do not know where the event took place, back up to the place where you have some record of him or her and work from there.

Determine the actual name of an ancestor

 * Czech language is highly inflective - words may have different endings depending on usage.
 * Josef, syn Antonína Ryby a Anny roz. Novákové = Josef, son of Antonín Ryba and Anna Novaková
 * Manželství mezi Michalem Dostalíkem a Anežkou Marii Seidlerovou = Marriage between Michal Dostalík and Anežka Marie Seidlerová

Czech Given Names
Translation: Jan	 = 	John František = 	Frank Kateřina	 = 	Catherine Alžběta 	 = 	Elizabeth

Václav = Wenzel, Venceslaus, Wenceslaus (changed to a German or Latin form), William, Wesley, Wendel, James (changed to a similar sounding name)

Czech Surnames
Translation: Jablečík = Appleton Krejčí = Taylor Procházka = Walker

Changed for names that sounded similar: Kořista = Corrister Nožíř = Norris Hudec = Hudson

Spelling changed so it could be pronounced correctly: Kokoška = Kokoshka Kučera = Kuchera Jelínek = Yellineck

Determine the place of origin
You need to know the name of a village, town, or parish in the Czech Republic.

Many localities have similar names that may be easily confused.

Kámen, Kamenec, Kamenica, Kamenice, Kamenička, Kamenický, Kamenka, Kamenná, Kamenné, Kamenný, Kamienka

Kamenka, v Kamence, z Kamenky

Strategy
The Family History Library has microfilms of vital records from only a few German-speaking communities and a limited number of published census returns (which represents only about 2% of the records of genealogical value).

Presently, some Czech vital records are being digitized and being made available on the Internet. However, most of the Czech family history research still requires that you write to the Czech Republic for genealogical records. Please refer to the Czech and Slovak Letter-Writing Guide (36340) for detailed information.

Church Records
To find out which regional archive holds the records that you need go to http://www.ihff.at/indexstarte.htm. Click the gazetter and picture cards link on the left and then click continue link at the bottom of the page.