The last thing I would have thought that my "rage-citizen" post
would contribute are ancestry questions.
To anticipate any more open questions of folks across the pond re Central-European ancestry-line
or if you are faced with ancestry-questions
by your kids and you have no answer - like I did not have - here is a summary
of basic facts:
- The catholic church decided in a concilium that every
parish has to document birth,marriage, death, visitations
(i.e. catholic-head counting by the local bishop):
These documents go back 300-350 years (if not destroyed
during the wars) .
The first ca. 200 years in Latin, the last in local language
i.e. German, Hungarian, Czech ....
None of these are google-ized, nor digitized , just
handwritten folio-volumes stored in local bishop archives
or community sites.
Research therein is not a question of an e-mail to this
site or an extended weekend trip to Vienna/Prague/Budapest...
I personally needed for my paternal side 3 months IN SITU,
with a basic understanding of Latin etc..and got back to
1650. There are further documents ( in my case) in the
archives of the former landowning aristo clan going back
to ca 1500, but I decided not to pursue this trail anymore
- Some districs have very comprehensive Topographic
books with all the details (but not ancestry lines)
the local admin and their experts could gather starting
from neolithicum to yesterday...
- If your grandpa was killed in WW I on the eastern front,
there is a Polish !!! internet webpage (name/details forgotten)
which documents the 300+ WW I graveyards still existing/
known, some even with photos (but no detailed soldier names...)
Wish you good luck if you want to trace back you roots..
Happy new year
Felix
Last edited by felix; 01/01/17 05:05 AM.
