Anyone looking for ancestors starts in the parish registers, and rightly so. How to search them is in our step by step guide. But sooner or later comes the moment when the register falls silent: a record is missing, a name does not fit, or the book begins only in 1690. Then it helps to know what else the authorities wrote down about people.
The census: who lived under one roof
A census shows the whole household on one day: parents, children, retired farmers, lodgers, servants. For each person there is the year and place of birth, religion, occupation and the home municipality. For a family tree it is often the fastest road to the birthplace of someone who moved in from elsewhere.
| Census | What it brought |
|---|---|
| 1857 (31 October) | the first census taken on a single day; the transition between the old population lists and the modern census |
| 1869 (31 December) | the first modern census, repeated every ten years from then on: age, marital status, religion |
| 1880, 1890, 1900, 1910 | added the language of daily use and literacy, later the full date of birth |
| 1921 (15 February) | nationality added |
| 1930 (1 December) | the sheets are in the National Archives in Prague, not in the district archives |
The census sheets of 1857 to 1921 were kept by the district offices and are today in the district archives. They survived unevenly: in some places every year, in others none. Online are mainly these:
- South Moravia and the Vysočina Region: the Moravian Land Archives in Brno has the sheets of 1857 to 1921 from fifteen district archives, from Blansko to Znojmo and Pelhřimov, on its website Sčítací operáty. Note that they are not in ActaPublica with the registers; they have a page of their own.
- South Bohemia: the DigiArchiv of the State Regional Archives in Třeboň has the censuses of 1857 to 1921 from seven district archives, arranged by district, year and village.
- Prague: the Prague City Archives publishes the censuses of 1880 to 1921 in its Archive Catalogue; of 1869 only a fragment survives. In addition the National Archives offers the Prague police registration forms of 1850 to 1914, searchable by name.
What the sheet for one house looks like is shown by the census of Horákov near Brno at the end of 1880:
Census of 1880, Horákov no. 44
[záhlaví:] Aufnahmsbogen – Arch popisní … nach dem Stande vom 31. December 1880 | Jméno | Pohlaví | Rok narození dle možnosti též měsíc a den | Místo narození | Příslušnost (právo domovské) | Vyznání náboženské | Stav | Jazyk v obcování | Povolání, hlavní výživa: postavení | majetek, postavení v práci — 1. Hromek Frant. | 27/1 1840 | Horákov | Horákov | ř. kat. | ženatý | český | rolník | ¼ láník — 2. „ Františka | 13/10 1847 | Hostěnice | dto | dto | vdaná | dto | polní hosp. | spolumajitelka — 3.–6. děti Josef (1875), Marie (1870, chodí do školy, žákyně), Anežka (1877), Františka (1879) — 7. Říčánek Thekla | 1816 | Hostěnice | Hostěnice, okr. Vyškov(?) | dto | vdova | dto | výměnkářka — 8. Hromek Anton | 27/10 1856 | Horákov | Horákov | ř. kat. | svobodný | dto | kovář | tovaryš(?)
In house no. 44 live the quarter-farmer František Hromek with his wife Františka, co-owner of the farm, four children and his brother Antonín, a blacksmith. The seventh person is Františka's mother Tekla Říčánková, a widow living in retirement on the farm, born in Hostěnice, where she also has her right of domicile. The headings are in German and Czech: name, sex, year of birth (month and day if possible), place of birth, home municipality, religion, marital status, language of daily use, occupation and position.
Moravian Land Archives, Brno, census of 1880, Brno district, Horákov no. 44, image 132
Tekla Říčánková is the same Tekla who took over farm no. 22 in Hostěnice with her husband in 1841, as the land register shows. After her husband's death she lives in retirement with her daughter in the neighbouring parish, but her home municipality is still Hostěnice. So a census shows both where a person moved to and where they came from. Take the dates of birth with care, though: the sheet was filled in by the household or the owner of the house, and the census officer took it over and corrected it; the facts therefore come from the people themselves, often from memory. For Tekla there is only a year. For dates the parish register is the authority; the census gives places and context.
Soldiers
Military service tears family trees apart: a man disappears for years and comes back from somewhere else, or not at all. In the registers soldiers can be recognised by the words Soldat, Gemeiner (private) or the name of the regiment. Here is a groom from Horákov in 1867:
Marriage, Hostěnice, 1 October 1867
1. října 1867 | 44 Horákov | Hromek Franz, bis zur Einberufung beurlaubter Gemeiner des 8. Infanterie-Regiments, ¼ Lehner in Horákov … katholisch, 27, ledig | 22 Hostěnice | Říčánek Franziska, Hilfsarbeiterin in ihrem väterlichen Hause, ledige ehel. Tochter des † Tomas Říčánek ¼ Lehner in Hostěnic … | katholisch, 19, ledig | 13/10 1847 | Josef Theimer, Schlossermeister in Pozořitz; Jan Říčánek, Häusler in Hostěnitz | Albert Hodulka(?), Administrator | [pod zápisem:] Trauungsakten Fach III Fasc. A/1867 Nro 50; Bewilligung … Bezirksamt Austerlitz 18. Sept. 1867 Z. 6104
On 1 October 1867 František Hromek of Horákov no. 44, private of the 8th infantry regiment on leave until called up, quarter-farmer, aged 27, married Františka Říčánková of Hostěnice no. 22, aged 19, daughter of the late quarter-farmer Tomáš Říčánek, who helped on her father's farm, born 13 October 1847. Below the record a reference to the marriage papers and the permission of the district office in Slavkov (Austerlitz).
The regiment is a clue. Where to look next:
- Service records (kmenové listy) of soldiers from the Czech lands are held by the Military History Archive in Prague, up to the birth year 1910. But they survive only in part: the birth years 1750 to 1864 in fragments, and the years 1887 to 1900 and 1903 to 1910 were largely destroyed. The best chances are for men born from 1865 to 1886 and in 1901 and 1902. The archive needs the first name, surname and year of birth.
- Military registers (baptisms, marriages and deaths in the army) are in the same archive and have been digitised. The death registers of regiments and field hospitals from the First World War are online in the Digital Study Room of the Ministry of Defence.
- Databases of the Czechoslovak legionaries and of those who fell in the First World War are on the website of the Military History Archive. The database of the fallen has more than 186,000 entries, but not everyone is in it.
About the soldier of 1784 whose bride promised to follow him to the regiment, we write in the article on the year 1784.
Before the registers: surveys and cadastres
The state listed its subjects for tax purposes long before it began to read parish registers. These lists know nothing of baptisms or weddings, but they know the farmers, their farmsteads and sometimes whole families.
- The 1651 survey of subjects by religion (Bohemia only) is the most valuable one for family historians. In it the manors recorded the farmer, his wife, the children with their first names, ages and religion, and also the servants and lodgers. On some estates it was never made or has not survived. The National Archives published the surviving parts in eleven volumes, and the whole edition is free to download as PDF.
- The tax roll (berní rula, Bohemia, compiled from 1653 to 1656) gives only the farmer, the area of fields and the livestock. It has been published in print by region.
- The land surveys (lánové rejstříky, Moravia, 1656 to 1679) record the holders of farmsteads on all estates and, for each farm, the predecessor too. They are in the Moravian Land Archives in collection D 1 and can be viewed online in the ARON portal. A sample with one farmer of Bořitov is in the article What is a parish register.
- The Theresian cadastre (the first valid from 1749, the second from 1757) and the Josephine cadastre (decree of 1785) describe the land and its holders in the 18th century.
- Farmstead and land registers show how a farm passed from hand to hand, with prices and debts. We give them an article of their own.
The registers of other faiths are in the archives too. The Jewish registers of 1784 to 1949 are held by the National Archives in Prague and have been digitised. Protestant registers are with the respective archives next to the Catholic ones, in ActaPublica as separate record creators.
Dead ends and how to get out of them
A line most often does not stop because the ancestor "was not there". It stops because they were recorded differently, elsewhere or inaccurately. Five situations we meet all the time:
1. The wedding is not where the family lived
Weddings were usually held in the bride's parish. If the family lived in Horákov and you cannot find the wedding there, look in the village the wife came from and in the neighbouring parish. The groom from Horákov (parish of Tvarožná) in the sample above married in the parish of Pozořice, to which the bride's Hostěnice belonged.
2. The name is spelled differently every time
Říčánek appears in the books as Rzitschanek, Rzizanek, Řičanek and Ričánek, Odehnal also as Wodehnal. The scribe wrote as he heard, and according to whether he was writing in German or Czech. Search by house number and the parents' names, not by exact spelling, and in the indexes try every letter the name could begin with.
3. The record says something that is not true
Registers make mistakes. František Hromek of Horákov no. 44 married for the second time in September 1835, but the marriage record lists him as single. That he was a widower is revealed only by the book of deaths from April of the same year:
Death, Horákov, April 1835
April 4/6 | 44 | Josepha Eheweib des Franz Hromek Viertlers v. Horakow | 1 – – 1 | 30 | Geburtsschmerzen(?) | Peter Kostroschitz Coop.
Died on 4, buried on 6 April 1835, house no. 44: Josefa, wife of František Hromek, quarter-farmer of Horákov, aged 30, apparently after childbirth. Buried by the curate Petr Kostrošic.
Josefa died eight days after the birth of a daughter, and five months later the widower married again. Anyone who trusted only the marriage record would not assign František the older children from his first marriage. The rule: check every fact in at least two records.
4. A child born out of wedlock
For children born out of wedlock the father is often missing, and the line ends there. Not always. The father could come forward before the priest and two witnesses and have himself recorded, at the baptism or later. If he then married the mother, the priest legitimised the child with a note:
Baptism, Horákov, January 1856, with a note on legitimation
7/8 Jänner, Johann Nowotny Coop. | 44 | Maria | Mädchen | unehelich | Vater: Thomas Havlík, Taglöhner in Kobeřitz(?), unehelicher Sohn der Apollonia … | Mutter: Anna, ledige Tochter des Franz Hromek, Viertlers in Horákow … | [vlevo:] Durch die am 2. November 1856 erfolgte Verehelichung der Eltern … legitimirt
Born on 7, baptised on 8 January 1856, house no. 44: Marie, girl, born out of wedlock. Father Tomáš Havlík, day labourer in Kobeřice(?), himself the illegitimate son of Apolonie. Mother Anna, unmarried daughter of František Hromek, quarter-farmer in Horákov. Note: legitimised by the parents' marriage on 2 November 1856; Havlík declared himself the father before witnesses and asked for the entry himself.
If no father is recorded, continue through the mother. A child born out of wedlock is usually recorded as "son of Apolonie, daughter of Martin", and so points to the grandfather. That is exactly how the father of little Marie is recorded above: Tomáš Havlík is himself the illegitimate son of Apolonie, daughter of Martin Havlík of Kobeřice(?). He has no father, but his mother and her father are there by name, and the line goes on one generation further.
5. The book begins late or is missing
When the parish register begins only at the end of the 17th century or part of it burned, the manorial sources remain: farmstead books, the land surveys and the estate rent rolls (urbáře) in Moravia, the 1651 survey and the tax roll in Bohemia. They will not tell you when someone was born, but they will tell you who held the farm. And with a little luck, who held it before them.
And the youngest records?
Start with the nearest generations and the papers at home, as the page Getting started describes. Compare each new record with what you already know about the family.
And when you get stuck, write to us. We will find the first record of one ancestor for free and tell you which way you could go on.
