Translating Bohemian Records

I know I've neglected this genealogy blog for a while now, but the main reason for that is that anytime I find a spare hour or so to do genealogy, my mom and I have been getting together to work on our Bohemian genealogy research.  Since these records became available online relatively recently, there are so many "new" names to find and so much research to do that hasn't been done previously.  When my mom, my sister Michelle, and I started working on these records together in 2012 we found so much new information -- we were so excited that when Michelle was visiting San Diego the three of us would do research late into the night many nights in a row (often with one or two of us eventually falling asleep at the table as we tried to stay awake to find more).  We found so many new family members, that we would quickly write down the names and relationships, and which digitized book and page number where we found each one, and then quickly follow the clues on to find the next, and the next.  It was so fun, and so exciting to find so many new families.  But the result is that now we have a document that is currently 48 pages long filled with research notes, translations, and partial translations of the records. (I'm certainly not complaining -- what a blessing to be able to work hard and find so much!)

The big job now is to go back through our research notes, go back to each of those records we've found over the last two years, and translate, type, and enter all the source information for each record into our genealogy database.  Since neither my Mom or I are anywhere near fluent in German (or Latin), sometimes this process is slow going.  We have come a long way in our ability to "read" the records -- and figure out their meanings.  We have learned a lot about reading the old German Gothic alphabet and deciphering the old handwritings, and we are becoming familiar with more and more German and Latin words that were frequently used in those records.  So, we get together at least once a week to work on translating the records we have already found.  We have a page of sample letters in the Gothic alphabet that we frequently refer to, and we are always using Google Translate and other genealogy websites to help figure out unfamiliar words or town names.  Sometimes the hardest part is restraining ourselves to continue translating and recording the information from these records we have already found, instead of going on to the more exciting search for new information and new ancestors.  But we know now that saving the translation work for later results in a somewhat overwhelming backlog of work.  So once we get caught up and have translated all of these records, I think it will be easier to translate and record the info from each new record we find as we go along.

For now, we'll just keep translating.

This is the alphabet chart that we still reference regularly
when we get stuck on a word that is difficult to transcribe.

Just to give an idea of what kind of records we are working on:

This is a relatively easy record to translate -- good handwriting, short record, nice column format, nothing out of the ordinary.

The death record of [Johann] Fabian Panowitz, Archivni Vade Mecum [State Regional Archives in Litomerice website], <http://matriky.soalitomerice.cz/matriky_lite/pages/zoomify.jsp?eventPg=%3E&pageTxt=59&entityRef=%28%5En%29%28%28%28localArchiv%2C%5En%2C%29%28unidata%29%29%2815125%29%29>, Book 120/10, website image 59/66 (left side of page), folio 68.  (Translation by Amy Spohr Chidester & Stephanie Chidester Bradshaw, July 2013).

“Died 7 June 1800, Place: House No. 48, town: Rasitz.  Fabian of Adalbert Panowitz master tailor young son from Rasitz.  Priest Antonius Leonard.  Religion: Catholic, Gender: Male, Age: 4 years, disease and cause of death: ‘blattern’ (smallpox).”

This is a pretty average record -- it's medium-long (the Latin records are often more wordy compared to the German ones), the handwriting is still pretty good in this one, and it's in paragraph format (not as easy as column format), and there were a few Latin words that we had to figure out because they weren't familiar to us.

Birth record of Joanne Wenceslaus Khol, Archivni Vade Mecum [State Regional Archives in Litomerice website], , Book 139/2, town: Hetov, website image 15/233 (left side of page), page 21, folio 12.  (Translation by Amy Spohr Chidester & Stephanie Chidester Bradshaw, July 2014).

“Of Hettov: [Apr 1762] 10 Born and 11 Bilina.  Baptized is Joannes Wenceslaus Wenceslai Khol and Rosalia Parents subjects of Mileschoviensi [town Mileschau in Usti Region] legitimate child, Godparent holding the child: Wenceslau Prazan from Rasitz, Witnesses: Wenceslau Haÿmann, Antonio Hook(?), Virgin Barabara Elisabeth Törrin, and Anna Maria Mrazin all from Hettov. a R: P:(?) Antonio Ritter chaplain.”

And some of them are a bit harder to read.  This is a German one from the 1700s.  Once you get back into the 1700s or earlier, many of the records get much more difficult to read than this one, and it is much less common for them to list women's maiden names (or sometimes they leave the name of the mother out of the birth records entirely).  But you can see we were fortunate with this particular record -- we could have had the one up higher on the page with the big ink smudge, or worse yet, the ones on the opposite page where the ink has bled through and made it twice as hard to read.  Counting our blessings.  :)

Birth record of Adalberth Panowitz Archivni Vade Mecum [State Regional Archives in Litomerice website],   (Translation by Michelle Chidester Conde, March 2012).  Razice book 120/2, image 64/202, page 121:

“Razitz (town): the 7th of April [1756] Adalberty Pannowitz was born.  Father: Francis Pannowitz.  Mother: Anna Maria.  Held child for baptismal ceremony: Christoph Pannowitz from Razitz.  Witnesses: Mathis Wegwerth, from the same place & Maria Koritz(?) from the same place.”

Travel Log: October 4th, Part 2b, Carlsbad/Karlovy Vary -- Old Family Photos by the Carlsbad Hot Springs

I translated the photographer's printing on the two photos that we have of ancestors that were taken in Carlsbad (now Karlovy Vary, Czech Republic).

Translation of back of Photograph of 4 men in Carlsbad:

Front of Photo:

“Jerie

Carlsbad”

Back of Photo:

“Atelier Jerie

Carlsbad

nächst der Felsenquelle

Spezialitäten

Helio Miniaturbilder

Oelportraits

Sämtliche Aufnahmen mit Momentirockenplatten

Die Platte wird aufbewahrt

K. Krziwanek Wien”

“Studio Jerie

Carlsbad

Nearest the Source Rocks [Source of the Hot Springs]

Specialties

Helio Miniature Picture

Oil Portraits

All Recordings with Momentirockenplatten

The plate is kept

K. Krziwanek Vienna”

Translation of back of Photograph with Man, Woman, and Child in Carlsbad:

Front of Photo:

“Atelier Jerie

Carlsbad”

Back of Photo:

“Photographisches Atelier

JERIE

Carlsbad

nächst der Felsenquelle

Spezialitäten: Oelportraits, Heliominiaturbilder sowie Fotografien auf Porzellan.

Die Platte wird für Nachbestellungen reservirt.

Leopold Turkel, Wien”

“Photographic Studio

JERIE

Carlsbad

Nearest the source rocks [Source of the Hot Springs]

Specialties: Oil Portraits, Helio Miniature Pictures, and Photographs on Porcelain.

The plate is reserved for reorders.

Leopold Turkel, Vienna”

We still don't know who the people in the photos were.  But we do have a third photograph that appears to be of the same uniformed man pictured in those other two Carlsbad photos.  The fact that this photo was taken in a different location may give us a clue as to which part of the family he was from.

Photo of a man in uniform.

At some point this photograph belonged to my great, great grandfather, Louis (Ludwig) Spohr.

This photograph of the uniformed man has a photographer’s mark listing the locations of Leitmeritz and Teplitz.  We don’t have any ancestors (that we know of yet) who lived in Leitmeritz.  But Teplitz (now Teplice, Czech Republic) is a district that includes the town of Bilin (now Bílina).  Our ancestors who lived in the tiny villages of Razice, Mrzlice, Tvrdin, Merunice, Hattau, Radowesitz, Hrobcice, etc. were all in a little cluster, just south east of the larger town of Bilin.  So, assuming that the man in this photo was from that area (and that he was, indeed, one of our ancestors), it is possible that he was from one of our ancestral families from that area, including the Spohr/Spor, Panowitz, Kohl, or Moras/Mraz families.  We may never know exactly who the people in these photographs were, but at least we have a clue of which ancestral family they may have been from.  And who knows, maybe someday we’ll find another descendant who also has old family photos which could shed some light on the identities of these people.  Or maybe military records will end up giving us a hint, at least for the man in the uniform.  Only time will tell.

Czech Ancestors

This is from a post to our family blog.  More to follow, just wanted to post a little of what we've been finding lately:

. . . The biggest thing that has been consuming our time lately has been our Czech genealogy.  Mom and I asked Michelle [my little sister who is visiting from out of town] to come look at some of the records with us that we have been finding online (these ones are on the Litomerice archive website, matriky.soalitomerice.cz).  Within an hour or so Michelle was reading all the old Gothic alphabet as well as Mom and I (which took us much longer to get a hang of), and Michelle knows German so that helps too.  And since then I’ve joked that we’ve created a monster.  :)  Michelle has really gotten into the research, often staying up into the night hours later than Mom and I can last.  We’ve found so many records for “new” ancestors that we didn’t know of before, and there’s so much potential for possibly hundreds of more records to find, since these Czech records haven’t been available online in the past so much of this work has never been done before.  It’s so exciting! 

So I thought I’d share just one of the records we recently found, and I’ll eventually add all the other information to my genealogy blog once we get through translating them in the future.  Anyway, here’s the birth record of Anna Rosalia Moras (we’ve also found it spelled Moris, Mraz, Moraß [Morass], and Morias; and we’ve found her name listed as Rosalia in some of her children’s birth records, but more often listed as Rosina). 

It shows that Anna Rosalia Moras, my 6^th great grandmother, was born on 15 November 1722 in a town called Hettou (now called Hettov).  Her parents were Jacob and Catharina (unfortunately we’ve found in this book that the earlier  the records get, the less likely they are to include maiden names for the women or details such as house numbers or occupations, like we have found in the later records, but it’s still cool to find these records this far back). 

My grandfather is Carl John Spohr Jr., his father was Carl Sr., his father was Ludwig Spohr (who was known as Louis after he came to America), his father was Karl Spohr, his parents were Franz Spohr and Johanna Katharina Panowitz.  And in our recent searching we have found that Johanna’s parents were Adalbert Panowitz (we’ve found the following name variations for him: Adalberth, Panowitz, Panowetz, Panowicz, & Panowecz) and Barbara Elisabetha Kohl (also Khol).  Barbara’s parents were Wenzl (also listed as Joannes Wenceslaus) Kohl and Anna Rosina/Rosalia Moras from this record.  And, from looking at this birth record we find that Rosina Moras’ parents were Jacob and Catharina Moras (no maiden name listed for Katharina).  So, this month we have found 3 more generations (plus lots of siblings) on this line. 

This record is from a Catholic parish book that has birth, marriage, and death records from the town of Hettov and several surrounding towns between 1699 and 1759. http://matriky.soalitomerice.cz/matriky_lite/pages/zoomify.jsp?page=68&entityRef=%28%5En%29%28%28%28localArchiv%2C%5En%2C%29%28unidata%29%29%2810019%29%29

We’ve got a lot more information from these parish records, but I just wanted to show a little bit of what we’ve been working on.  It’s been so fun working on this with my mom and sister.