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.

Here are some examples of such notes in the parish books. There are from different parts of the Czech lands and it doesn't cover all possibilities how to write these notes down: 

Most of these notes were most probably about issuing the baptism certificate for the marriage purposes. But there was number of other purposes as well - for education, work, military service, moving elsewhere (including emigration), also for official purposes such as an action in court or employment by the authorities.

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. 

You can find us here: https://www.patreon.com/czechgenealogy

The main topics we want to cover each month are:

• old spelling (and pronunciation) and other issues you may find in parish books and other sources;
• explanations of surnames or village names;
• everyday life of our ancestors, their customs, more about living conditions, occupations, clothing etc.;
• information about dominions, parishes and other types of areas, either from historical and "geographical" point of view.

After hesitation we decided to use three levels of regular support - 5, 10, and 20 USD. They each have benefits of preview and early access to the posts we create, the higher two have also options to affect topics of posts and some more advantages unrelated to the blog itself.

There is also an option to support our blog via direct smaller donations, but almost nobody uses it.

We certainly don't want to force anyone to use it and we also don't want any restricted sections of our blog, we want it to be available for each researcher who needs it. So your support doesn't only help us to write more, but also allows your fellow genealogists to have access to more information.

We really don't know how this experiment will turn out, but in advance, we would like to thank everyone who decides to become our patron.

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.

We explained the creative process of surnames in one of the 2012 blog posts and you can read there that surnames were often derived from the first names. 

So what are the surnames which has first name Havel as their base?

• Havel
• Havlíček
• Havlík
• Havliš
• Havlas
• Havla
• Havlát
• Havelka
• Havlín
• Havlena
• Havlásek
• Havlan
• Havlina
• Havelec
• Havlovic
• Havle
• Havlák
• Havrlík
• Havlátko
• Havlice (or Havlica)
• Havlišta
• Havela
• Havlis
• Havlů (or Havlůj)
• Havelek
• Havlata
• Havlen
• Havla
• Havlovec
• Havlovič
• Havelda
• Havelík
• Havrla
• Havlínek
• Havelčík
• Havlán

Wow. There are quite many of such surnames. But the reason is quite clear - there are tens of churches around the Czech Republic which are devoted to St. Gallus (svatý Havel). There were hundreds of boys who were given this first name - and it was necessary to be able to tell them and their families apart. And changing just a few letters in a name would do...

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When our ancestors were born one of the first things awaiting them was baptism. It was one of the most important events of their lives - at least from the church point of view.

There was always a risk that the child would die just after the birth - which was a case the church wanted to prevent. And it was also a reason to baptise the child as soon after the birth as possible.

And when I say "as soon as possible" I really mean it. Until the second half of the 19th century the child was fed by his/her mother, washed a bit, dressed in a shirt, wrapped in a scarf and/or a blanket and the godmother took him/her in the church usually just a few hours after the birth.

Usually it was just a few hours but there were cases when it took even two three days to baptise a child. It was a case of heavy snowfall or some other natural events which prevented our ancestors to visit the church - and it was much easier to wait until the conditions were better.

The time between the birth and the baptism prolonged as the medical care improved and less and less children died shortly after the birth. It was common at the end of 19th century that there was a two days gap. And in the first quarter of the 20th century it prolonged to two or more weeks.

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:

• Š to SCH or SS
• V to W
• J to Y, G or I

This means the surname could have been written as Schwejda, Schweida, Schwegda, Sswegda, Ssweyda etc. And here are some examples from the parish books and from different time periods:

1720

Pawel Sswegda (Pavel Švejda)

1771

Wenc. Sswegda viduus (Václav Švejda, widower)

1814

Franz Schweida Inman (František Švejda, farmhand)

1848

Joseph Schweyda Inmann (Josef Švejda, farmhand)

1876/1

Jozef Swejda podruh (Josef Švejda, farmhand, his own signature)

1876/2

Josefa, svobodná mžl. dcera Josefa Švejdy, podruha v Sedlištích (Josefa, unmarried legitimate daughter of Josef Švejda, farmhand in Sedliště)

The last example shows declension used in the Czech language - Švejda transforms to Švejdy (as of Švejda's).

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.

Weaving belongs among one of the oldest crafts - it exists since the beginning of yarn processing, we can find remains or imprints of cloth in the archaeological digs from the Paleolithical era (about 25 thousand years ago). It also became one of those crafts which were wide-spread among our ancestors as small looms were present in almost every household because people made their clothes from home-weaved fabric till the 19th century.

But the demand was rising and there was cloth and fabric needed not only for personal use, but also for the army and for the upper class whose members were not used to do the work themselves anymore. That's why number of people specialised in the weaving and made fabric for sale - they fulfilled orders for the merchants or for the army and made their living thanks to that.

There was quite high number of weavers in Czech towns and villages. Not all the cloth was of the same quality, it depended not only on the material, but also on the skill of the weaver. Some of the weavers were working during the winter only because they were working in agriculture during the rest of the year. These weavers were usually producing lower quality fabrics. Professionals who were making fabric during whole year produced fabric of higher quality. It was, of course, more expensive and not everyone was wealthy enough to buy it. 

The looms became more and more automated during the 19th century and the production was moved from the households to the factories. This was one of the causes why the number of weavers was decreasing during the 2nd half of 19th century. Most of the production was done in the factories since the beginning of 20th century and the weaving craft almost disappeared. 

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Dear readers, due to the huge amount of spam comments lately I'm forced to manage all the comments and approve those which are connected to the topic of Czech genealogy - and delete those which are just spam.

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.

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.

Septuagesima means seventieth and it was the 9th Sunday before Easter. It was the beginning of the preparation for the Lent period - last three weeks to enjoy festivities, to celebrate, for weddings to be held. That's why Septuagesima is so often mentioned as a term for the marriage bans - it was the last change to have a wedding before the Lent and Easter period when weddings were forbidden as it was not allowed to celebrate anything.

There was number of customs connected to the Septuagesima Sunday. There were special prayers said and special masses held in the churches in order to remind people the Lent and Easter is coming. Saturday prior to Septuagesima was also originally the day when the Nativity scene (so called betlém) was shown in the churches and homes - it was usually displayed for such a long time (today we usually have it till the Three Wise Men day and not longer).

Today Septuagesima is not considered a special Sunday anymore in the Roman Catholic church. It lost its importance after the Second Vatican Council as the pre-Lent period is not anymore important for the church.

If you want to know more, there is quite comprehensive article about Septuagesima on Wikipedia.

You have most probably seen such notes in the parish books - cause of death and then a number of a death survey card.

These survey cards were issued for every cause of death since the first half of 19th century - exact date when they were mentioned in the parish books is different for each parish office, but we can see such notes in almost all of them after 1840.

What was written in these survey cards? 

Some of those cards were left in the Southern Bohemian parish books and then scanned when the parish books were scanned. Here is one of such cards from 1862:

Death survey card

Name and surname: Josef Šimeček
Birth place: Doudleby no. 27
Residence: Doudleby no. 27
Religion: Roman catholic
Age: 2 years 3 months
Last illness: measles
Doctor: --
Day and hour of death: July 5, 1862 at 10 AM
Day and hour of burial: July 7 of the same year at 8 AM
In Doudleby on July 6, 1862. Petr Birkl, councilman

As you can see there is quite a lot of information which is then written to the parish book. There was no medical doctor called for the child - as measles belonged to the most common causes of death of small children the doctor, which was quite expensive, was not usually called in such cases.

I have seen mentioned that the numbers in the cause of death column refer to some list of diseases and give the number of disease. This is not correct. The number in the cause of death column is a number of the survey card, nothing else. There were no official lists of diseases till the 1st half of 20th century.

The death survey cards are usually not available online - the card above is one of the cases when the card was forgotten in the parish book. These survey cards are usually stored in the parish archive in the State District Archives, so you would have to look for them offline.

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...

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.

This of course means they had German surnames. You can indetify these surnames quite easily if you speak both Czech and German. It's a bit more complicated for those who speak English only, but what could help is the fact German is related to English.

When we take a loook on the list of the most common Czech surnames and search for those which originate in German, we would be surprised the one which is the most common sounds Czech - it's Šmíd (or Šmídová in female form). This surname comes from the word der Schmied, which means a blacksmith in German (see similarity between German Schmied and English Smith).

Second most common surname with German origins is Müller (or Müllerová) - der Müller means a miller (mlynář in Czech). Again, there is a similarity between English and German word.

Third one is Kraus - a word kraus is an adjective which means curly (kudrnatý). It is similar to Czech surname Kudrna and it's a reference to the hair of the first man named this way.

Fišer is the fourth in the list of the most common surnames originating in German. Der Fischer means - what a surprise - a fisher. Last one I'm going to mention here is the fifth one - it's Richter, where der Richter was a village reeve. 

As you can see, 4 out of 5 surnames refer to the occupation of the first holder. There are other surnames which do the same, such as Vágner (German der Wagner, a wheeler), Šnajdr (comes from der Schneider, a tailor), Šustr (from German der Schuster, shoemaker), Weber (a weaver) or Šulc (refering to der Schulze, also a village reeve).

If you are not sure which surname has German origins, you could always ask here in comments. 

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.

There were tons of words written about these events - but I want to write about something else today. I want to take you to the crypt of the church of Saints Cyril and Methodius in Prague where the brave attackers and their helpers were hiding - and where they died on 18 June 1942.

It's a place I regularly visit - not only alone, but also with my kids. Because I think it's very important to pass on the story of seven paratroopers who died in the crypt. They died in their fight for Czech and Slovak freedom and independence.

The fight took place in the church directly - and the crypt was the last place of this fight. The crypt, which is today the National Memorial to the Heroes of the Heydrich Terror, was originally a place where were buried priests and monks belonging to the St. Cyril and Methodius church. Those boxes you can see on a photo above were used to store their bodies.

"They remained faithful" is an inscription on one of the memorials in the crypt. It refers to the death of those seven paratroopers who decided it's better to die than to be captured by Germans. Their names were Josef Gabčík, Jan Kubiš, Josef Valčík, Adolf Opálka, Josef Bublík, Jan Hrubý and Jaroslav Švarc.

The National Memorial is open for public and the admission is free. My friend, who is on the photos above, is one of the guides in the Memorial. If you travel to Prague, I highly recommend to stop in the crypt and listen to the story of the paratroopers and their fight.

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 complicated - but it was complicated in the past too. That's why the priests created indices to the parish books - alphabetical (mostly) lists of people who were recorded in the parish books. The indices are not available to all parish books. But some 50 % of all Czech parish books were indexed in the past - and these indices are available for the researchers. 

Some of the indices are in the books they cover. Other indices are in separate book, sometimes covering more parish books in one volume. 

Here is an example from the České Budějovice parish. This index is covering the birth registries from years 1870 to 1910. It's a separate book and it covers all the books from České Budějovice parish in one volume. The example below shows letter M and year 1910.

You can see a surname and a name of the people recorded in the parish books. Then there is an abbreviation for the place where the person was born - Bud. for Budějovice, Čt. Dv. for Čtyři Dvory, Hodov. for Staré Hodějovice, Rožn. for Rožnov. Follows number of the book - 3, 4, 43 etc. The last number states the page on which is the birth recorded. 

When we take the first name, Maňhal Karel, it is recorded in the book for České Budějovice no. 43, page 68 (year 1910). But be careful - the book number will be most probably different from the current numbering.  So you have to find a birth book for České Budějovice which contains year 1910. And there, at the bottom of page 68, you will find birth of Karel Maňhal... 

The newer the index is, the neater it usually is. Older indices are not so neat as the one listed above. But once you get used to the writing and how the indeces were created, it is easier to orientate even in those "not-so-neat".

This one comes from the Příbor parish. It shows letter K - surname and name and then the page number. It's quite easy to orientate in such index. 

Don't forget the indices were written by humans - and it sometimes means mistakes. If you are sure the person you are looking for should be in the parish book and you are not able to find him/her in the index - check the parish book. It's always worth a try.

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"?

There are surnames which mention something what was typical for that person. It could be hair, physical feature or anything else. One of the most common Czech surnames is Kučera - which reffers to hair. Kučera means a lock of hair, so the first Kučera was someone who had curly hair. If someone had a lot of hair, his surname might be Vlasatý (meaning hairy). On the other hand, someone with no hair was called Lysý.

If he had red hair, he might have been given surname Červený (meaning red), Rezavý or Rezek (both from the red hair). Black-haired people were often given surname Černý (meaning black). Bílý was someone who had fair, almost albino hair. And Šedivý (gray) was most probably someone whose hair turned gray in very young age.

Anothere surname of that type could be Silný - it has two different meanings, strong or obese. But if one was obese, he was most probably called Tlustý (exact meaning is fat as adjective). Someone who was tall was named Vysoký. Someone small was Malý. If someone was really thin, he was called Hubený.

Then there are surnames which reffer to some oddity in the appearence. Čtyřprstý (four-fingered) was someone who had just four fingers on one of his hands. Beznoska had very tiny nose (it means "without nose") - or he didn't have a nose at all, he might have lost it in a fight or battle. Jednooký was someone who had just one eye. Chromý was someone disabled - one of his legs was shorter, he wasn't able to use one of his arms etc.

There is number of such surnames and those listed here are just examples. Sometimes you need to know Czech very well to be able to decide if your surname falls to this category...

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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.

It was created in two versions, first one done in 1656-1657, second one between 1669-1679. The second one was needed because the first one had many mistakes and the tax system needed and accurate version.

This land register contains quite a lot of information about the farms and their owners. The 1669-1679 version is fully available online on the Moravian Land Archive website. And here is a short guide to these registers...

Here is the page you get when you click on the link above. The website is in Czech but it's quite easy to navigate there. First of all, you need to look up the town or village your ancestors are from - remember, these registers are ONLY for Moravia, not for Bohemia or Silesia. Fill in the place name to the search field at the top of the middle section - I chose Strachoňovice, where my ancestors were from. 

The place name has to be with all the proper marks, the best way how to get it is to copy it from Wikipedia or some other place where it's properly written.

Then press enter and the site will give you results of your search. If you are looking for a place which has common name (for example Újezd), you have to know to which estate the place belonged to determinate the right one.

When you have the right one, click on the icon of three sheets (marked by the red circle on the screenshot above) and you'll get the cover page of the register the place is in.

I wasn't able to persuade the website to show proper diacritics, so sorry for those wrong icons - it might happen to you too.

Check for the place name in the list of all places listed in the book you opened. When you click on the name, the book section of that village or town will appear.

It shows a list of people who owned farms and houses in the town or village. Now you have to go through and look for your family name. As the books were written in the official language, ie. German, it's written in kurent script and not so easy to read.

And what are all those columns there? More to come in another blog post!

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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.

As I have already mentioned in the blog post Czechs and religion which I wrote some 7 years ago, religion is not anymore important part of our everyday lives. And today I found this map which shows the importance of religion in the European countries - and the Czech Republic is not the only country which is not religious at all...

The map is based on a research which is 4 years old - and I suppose latest events such as covid pandemic situation, the war in Ukraine and the current rate of inflation could have changed the numbers a bit. We will see when some other research is available...

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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.

What was written in those chronicles? 

Usually memorable moments not only of the school life, but of the life of whole town or village. There were statistics of the school attendance, important education laws and regulations, composition of the school council, information about teachers and other things connected to the everyday school life.

Examples are the best way to introduce these chronicles. So - here are some clippings from the school chronicles...

1st National School for Girls in Prostějov

Beginning of the school year and miscellaneous events

School yeyars 1888-1889 began on Monday 17th September. The masses were held on 19th September because of Kermesse which took place during this time. Because of this event people from all around, near and far, came to the parish church and the church was fully packed with the pious people.

National school in Čížová

Death and burial of the headteacher Václav Neidl

When the headteacher Mr. Václav Neidl wrote down the last words into this book, he didn't expect that his death will soon confirm the words he wrote those days: "Oh, how everything is so pointless and quickly passing in this world."

Basic and national school in Němčovice

Book II

Rise of the basic needs prices

Since the beginning of the war in July 1914 the prices of all basic needs skyrocketed. Price of every item rised so high that we wouldn't expect even in our wildest dreams. Following overview confirms it:

Sugar / Suchong tea / Chocolate / Lentils / Margarine / Yeast / Beans / Peas (and much more in the chronicle, see the link above the picture)

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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.

She was born in 1943 and was 25 in August 1968. My parents-in-law were already married and were living in Roztoky, 20 minutes by train to the Prague center. She was expecting her second child and was working in the telecommunication services in Prague. 

We were both working in Prague, I had a night shift from 20th to 21st August 1968 in Československý rozhlas (Czechoslovak Radio),  Czech public radio broadcaster. I was working in the radio headquarters that night and we got an order to shut down the lines. We twisted off the light bulbs, which were showing which line is running, so it seemed from the outside the lines are off. 

It took them (the Soviet army) long time before they found us even the fact there was huge antenna on the building - everyone knew where the headquarters were but no one was willing to help the Soviet soldier to find it.

When the (Czechoslovak) police came to our work we thought in the beginning that it's some kind of exercises. Then we decided to secretly listen to the radio broadcasting, we heard the news and we then decided to cover that the lines are still up and running. 

We left our workplaces in the morning of 21st August and left Prague with the last train which was going in Roztoky direction. The trains going through Prague were then stopped and it was impossible to get out of Prague by the public transportation.

When we were walking to the train station we heard shooting, we saw tanks in from of the building of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, we saw cars with the machine guns... We had to cross the bridge next to that building, all tanks had high revving motors which was scaring us.

We heard number of rumours from our colleagues in the next days - we didn't go to work and were lucky enough to leave it before the soldiers came. Some of our colleagues were threatened to be shot by the soldiers but they were still trying to keep the radio running.

It took several days before the Soviet army was able to shut the radio broadcasting completely down. There was a clash between the Warsaw Pact soldiers and people of Prague who were trying to protect the Czechoslovak Radio. It happened on 21st August and the Soviets thought they were able to turn off the broadcasting. But the Czechoslovak Radio was placed in number of buildings around Prague so it was possible to maintain the broadcasting and to inform people about the current events without propaganda.

But the broadcasting stopped after the Czechoslovak government was forced to agree with the invasion... My parents-in-law returned to their work in telecommunicaions but they were considered as unreliable because of their religious believes so after moving out of Prague they were working on other positions.

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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.

The register contains columns with information about the owners - but we will get to that in the third part of this mini-series. The important part of today are the columns on the right side of the picture above. 

There are five columns. The top of the first of those columns shows words Acker and Stuckh. Acker stands for fields, Stuckh means piece - the numbers in the column mean how many plots of fields had the owner of the farm. When we are talking about fields, imagine small pieces of land, not large plots as we know them today. Here is an example of such small plots on a cadastral map from the 1st half of 19th century: 

So if there were 16 or 17 plots owned by one farmer, it meant these plots were quite small. 

Then there are different soil classes. There were three of them - the first class, which is not shown in the register above, was the best, where wheat was grown. There was no such soil in Strachoňovice in Vysočina region where the register above was taken. The second class was soil where oats was grown. And the third class, which was the poorest soil, was the one where rye was grown.

The area of the plots was measured in the old measurement system which was so much complicated. And it's much more complicated when you try to convert it to imperial units. But I'll do my best to explain it.

There were two measurements - Metz (měřice in Czech) and Achtel (osminka in Czech, meaning both in Czech and German 1/8 of the Metz). I'll use the German words as it's easier to stick to one language. 

One Metz was about 0,19 hectar which is about 0,47 acre (20473 square feet). One Achtel was abt 2559 square feet or 237,5 square meters.

So if we take the first farm as an example: 

There were 16 plots of land, while there were 31 Metz and 2 2/3 Achtels of the second class soil and 15 Metz and 5 1/3 Achtels of the third class soil. So all together there was an area of 47 Metz (46 Metz and 8 Achtels, while 8 Achtel = 1 Metz). 47 Metz were 8,93 hectars or 22 acres.

Let me know if you were able to count how many acres of land your ancestors owned. And don't forget to check the third part of this mini-series which will be dedicated to farm owners and other information you can find in the register.

Don't forget to become my patron on Patreon. It gives me more time to write this blog and provide you more information about Czech genealogy and family history. See more on https://www.patreon.com/czechgenealogy

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.

Nechoďdomů - don't go home

Well. Is there any explanation needed? Maybe it was given to someone who used this phrase regularly. Or someone who didn't want to go home from?

Vosolsobě - salt it to yourself

This surname was given to millers as they had often the right to sell salt. It meant they had enough salt for their own use and used it a bit more than other people...

Skočdopole - jump to the field

Well. Someone who jumped to the field. But why, why? Was he forced to do so because he was running away from a wild boar and hid in the field? Or was he hiding because of the military recruitment? Or some other reason? Let your imagination find other reasons!

Vozihnoj - the one who carries the manure

The manure was very precious commodity. Really. It was. It added nutrients to the soil which were highly needed to have good harvest. The first one who got this surname was known for carrying (hauling) the manure frequently...

Nejezchleba - don't eat bread

Well, well, well. It seems there was someone who didn't want to eat the bread. Maybe he expected something better? Or was it someone who said this sentence often - the bread was expensive and our ancestors ate usually some mash or porridge and not bread...

Rádsetoulal - he liked to wander

Did he spent days out of the town/village? Wandering around the countryside? Or was his mind wandering around, thinking about something completely different than his work? 

Mrtvý - dead

Was he said to be dead - and then appeared again in the town, alive and healthy? Or did he look like a dead person, walking around all pale and way to skinny? 

Cotobědotoho - why do you care

I think I know exactly how this surname originated. The one who got it was asked by someone what's his name. And he answered something like "Why do you care? It's none of your business!" And there you are, new surname is here.

Do you want to decide the surname post topic too? Become my patron on Patreon and vote every month about the monthly surname post! Click to become a patron of Czech Genealogy for Beginners: https://www.patreon.com/czechgenealogy

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 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:

• nominative
• genitive
• dative
• accusative
• vocative
• ablative

You can see usually three of them in the records - nominative, genitive and accusative. Nominative is the name itself, genitive is usually used for "son/daughter of someone", accusative for "son/daughter after someone". It seems complicated but it's not that bad.

Names ending with -us

Here belong names such as Josephus (or Iosephus), Petrus, Paulus, Bartholomæus, Martinus, Carolus, Antonius, Franciscus or Jacobus.

For genitive and accusative, -us at the end is dropped. For genitive, the ending is -i, for accusative, the ending is -um. So, what are the forms of the mentioned names?

• Josephus - Josephi - Josephum
• Petrus - Petri - Petrum 
• Paulus - Pauli - Paulum 
• Bartolomæus - Bartholomæi - Bartholomæum 
• Martinus - Martini - Martinum 
• Carolus - Caroli - Carolum 
• Antonius - Antonii - Antonium 
• Franciscus - Francisci - Franciscum 
• Jacobus - Jacobi - Jacobum

Names ending with -as

You can find names such as Lucas or Andreas. The declension is a bit different, only the -s is dropped. For genitive, the ending is -ae, for accusative it's -am.

• Lucas - Lucæ - Lucam
• Andreas - Andreæ - Andream

Be careful when reading the records. The æ is offen written very quickly and it's sometimes hard to say it's there. At least some experience is needed to be sure what belongs there - if a or æ.

Names ending with -es

This category is much smaller. In fact, I can think of only one name belonging here, Joannes. Maybe I'll find some more in future, but right now there is only this one.

In this case, -es is dropped, genitive ends with -is and accusative with -em.

• Joannes - Joannis - Joannem

There are other names which were not mentioned in the list above. Most of them belong to the -us category. Anyway I'll update this post time to time so the names list is better. Hope this helps in your future search in the Latin records. :)

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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. 

And also Voda is one of the basic "water" surnames. There are some 750 people having both male and female form of this surname - Voda or Vodová. Diminutive from Voda is Vodička or Vodenka.

Vodička (small water) is very common name, about 4500 people have Vodička or Vodičková surname. Vodička was someone living next to a creek or other "small water", or someone who handled water - so this surname was usual for millers.

Vodák or Wassermann (waterman) was someone who was taking care for ponds and creeks, who was responsible for dams and banks of ponds and for availability of drinking water to public. Vodáček was smaller or younger Vodák.

There are other surnames with the root vod-, for example Vodný, Vodice, Vodal and others.

There are also names which has other root, but are still mentioning some form of water. Říčný is someone who lived next to a river (řeka), Potočný someone who lived next to a creek (potok).

And there are tons of surnames which are not directly derived from water, but are closely connected to it. Rybář is a fisher, Rybný or Porybný is someone who took care for estate ponds and fish. There are tens of surnames derived from fish names - Bolen, Hlavatka, Hrouzek, Ježdík, Kapr, Karas, Lín, Losos, Parma, Piskoř, Plotica, Vokoun, Vranka, Štika..

Do you want to be one of those who decide about the surname post topics? Become my patron on Patreon and vote every month!

I've mentioned the Patreon site before - and since October I'm writing new blog posts mainly there, publishing them here with a delay. Usually because I just forget to transfer the posts here. Of course, some posts are patrons-only, but there is still a number of public posts there, so I recommend to follow my page there: 

https://www.patreon.com/czechgenealogy

I'll be more than happy if you decide to become my patron there because it will unlock you more posts and possibilities.

I'll be happy to help you with that! 

I'm transcribing and translating parish records (and not only those, but also cadastral or estate records, chronicles, census records and much more) all languages that were used in Bohemia, Moravia and Silesia in the past - from Czech, German, Latin or Polish. You will receive not only a transcript and translation of the recording, but also explanations of unusual words and other explanations.

The flat rate is $8 per parish record. The rate for other resources depends on the resource - and I'll provide you an estimation before the translation is done.

If you are interested in translations, contact me on e-mail info@nase-koreny.cz.