Thanks to Marlys, one of our blog readers, we have some links to share with you related to Bohemian genealogy. In regards to the term “Bohemian,” let us be clear in saying that we are NOT talking about Beat poets dressed all in black and smoking cigarettes. Here’s what Marlys had to say:
“Since Fr. Pierz came from Bohemia, a LOT of settlers here [Morrison County] are from that part of the world too (ethnic Germans living in what is now the Czech Republic.”
Yeah, those kind of Bohemians.
The website (http://digi.ceskearchivy.cz/index.php?doctree=1nr) Marlys gave us is one that contains digitized church records from Bohemia. It is definitely not written in English. Marlys indicated that German, Czech, and Latin were the languages used on the church records, so you’re going to need a way to translate the site if you aren’t familiar with these languages. (From my investigation, it appears that the website is written in Czech, though the records themselves may have included the other languages.) Head to Google Translate for help. Its automatic setting is to translate from Spanish to English. There are drop down menus next to both Spanish and English. Select Czech under Spanish and then select the language you want it translated to under English. Then, go to the Bohemian website and select the text you want translated. Copy it and paste it in the box on Google Translate. The translation should appear to the right of the box.
Marlys gave us three other helpful websites, two for figuring out the handwriting . . .
http://www.suetterlinschrift.de/Lese/Kanzlei2.htm (for German – if you have dial-up, this takes a while to load)
https://www.familytreemagazine.com/ (also appears to be German, plus variations)
Plus one with maps of the 1st Military Survey of Bohemia from the 1700s . . .
http://oldmaps.geolab.cz/map_root.pl?z_height=600&lang=en&z_width=1024&z_newwin=1&map_root=1vm
What great online resources. Thanks, Marlys, for the tip. If anyone else has suggestions for useful genealogical websites, let us know.