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From:
Subject: [CZ] More on Vienna Archives
Date: Mon, 1 Jan 2001 14:01:19 EST


One good source of information on your earlier ancestors are the old manorial
and court records and the copies that may be in the archives of noble
families that once administered Bohemia.

For example, I know that my ancestral village was Mariafels (Slavice) just
north of Stribro a few miles. At the time my great grandfather was born
that village was the administrative center for the estate owned by the noble
von Aehrenthal (Baron) family. That particular von Aehrenthal estate was
called Herrschaft Mariafels -- the von Aehrenthals also had a huge estates in
Eastern Bohemia. It included perhaps 2 dozen villages in the area
surrounding Mariafels. The Ortsamtmann (general overseer/ administrative
chief of the Herrschaft) lived in Mariafels and had his offices there.

During the period prior to 1848 the nobility was responsible to administer
justice as well as to administer land transactions, marriage contracts, last
wills, and other routine tasks that go with keeping track of what is going
on. The justice proceedings -- law suits, criminal cases, petitions are
kept in COURT records. The other Herrschaft records are called "MANORIAL"
records. They document anything that did not take a judge or magistrate to
decide. There will be tax records, records of who lived in what house in
what village and how much rent they owed (paid by cash, a percentage of
produce and forced labor on the noble lords own farmlands) as well as
documentation of who owns what piece of land and how it is used.

Each noble family had their own archives. Some of the descendants of the old
nobility still have their archives. In other cases the archives have been
turned over to the state. In many cases those archives contain copies of all
court and manorial records that go as far back as that family owned that
estate. I know that the von Aehrenthal archives are in Litomerice -- 132
boxes of them!!! Fortunately the boxes are indexed so the information I
want about the years when my great great great uncle was the Ortsamtmann of
Mariafels should not be too difficult to find. I plan to ask a professional
to work with me on this.

I mentioned above that the von Aehrenthals had more than one estate. The
estate in the west was at Mariafels and, in theory, the archive of choice for
those archives would be at Plzen. But the most important von Aehrental
estate was in the east near to Litomerice and that is why ALL of the archives
ended up in that city. The point is that when you are looking for noble
archives you might not find them stored "locally."

It can be important to your research to know the names of noble lords who
once ruled your ancestors. There is a history of the ownership of each
Herrschaft in Bohemia in the books "Das Königreich Böhmen" by J. G. Sommer.
The books are a survey of Bohemia written between 1833 and 1849. There are
16 volumes, one for each of the greater districts of Bohemia at that time.
There are about 8 research libraries around the US that will lend the books
on interlibrary loan. The CGSI library also has photocopies of all of the
books that were made by an American who purchased the entire set in a Prague
used book store. (His set may eventually be for sale)

Each book has a foreward section that describes the general geology, streams,
climate, flora and fauna of the greater district and then tells what
regiments are recruited there, how the population is made up of Germans,
Czechs, Jews, other and what religions are practiced there. There is also a
general assessment of the economic data -- what people do to make a living in
farming, industry and crafts or in the professions.

That foreward section is followed by descriptions of each Herrschaft in the
district with the history of noble ownereship, size, how the land is used,
number of inhabitants and their trades, etc. Each village town or city in
the Herrschaft is listed with a short description of its size (number of
houses and number of residents) and where the PARISH church for each village
is. (If the church is not in your village you go to the listing of the
village named and will find the name of the church there. That makes it easy
to ask for parish records.)

The books are in old Gothic German and are based on what it was like when
they were written. It is not too difficult to learn to read the Gothic type
(called FRAKTUR) with the help of Frank Soural's booklet or some of the aids
you find at the LDS. It is easy to pick out names of people (noble lords)
and places in the list of villages owned by the Herrschaft. You can also copy
the pages you need and then have them translated.

There are a series of similar books for Moravia by Gregor Wolny (Die
Markgrafschaft Mahren).

Karel Kysilka has a web site that has some rare and very valuable maps of
Moravia on it. The maps show the borders of the old noble Herrschafts prior
to 1848. Each one has the major administrative town marked and the location
of the parish churces (shown as either protestant or catholic) and any market
towns in the Herrschaft.

The maps can be downloaded and printed. They print very large, taking from
6-14 sheets of paper per map which can then be assemled into one large map.
It is not a good idea to try to reduce the size -- it skews the printing on
the maps.

To find Karel Kysilka's site about Moravia search on: Kysilka

I gave you his Email address earlier. If you cannot find the site, write to
him and ask the URL.

Karen


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