Opava Provincial Archives, Czechia Church Records

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Church books of the Opava Land Archive that cover the time period 1650-1900 are being digitized and available on the FamilySearch website. The database is in English. To access the database clickhere.

Records Description

Church books contain baptisms (birth), marriage, and burial (death) information and are definitely the best source for identifying one’s relatives in the Czech Republic.

Entries are usually arranged in chronological order and, after 1784, in a columnar format. Sometimes, baptisms, marriages, and burials are kept all for all villages in a parish, for each year. Other times, each village has its own section of baptisms, marriages, and burials, listed chronologically. Some records are in preprinted forms. Most records include indexes. Czech church records are usually in one of three languages: Czech, German, or Latin.

While the books have been kept to the present, they are only available for research through 1905 because of privacy laws. The church books cover a majority of the population.

To read more about the records description click on the following link: http://search.labs.familysearch.org/recordsearch/start.html#c=1475346;p=collectionGuidance

Records Content

Baptismal entries usually contain the following:


 * names of the child, parents, godparents, and sometimes grandparents
 * date and place of birth and baptism
 * residence and religion of the parents
 * whether the child was legitimate or illegitimate



Marriage entries usually contain the following:


 * names of the bride, groom, their parents, witnesses, and sometimes grandparents
 * date and place of marriage
 * residence and religion of the bride and groom
 * age, previous marital status, and occupation of bride and groom [[Image:Czech Republic Church Burial.jpg|thumb|right|Sample of Burial Record with Translation]]

Burial entries usually contain the following:


 * names of the deceased and spouse/parents
 * date and place of death and burial
 * residence and religion of the deceased
 * age and cause of death of the deceased

To read more about the records content click on the following link:

http://search.labs.familysearch.org/recordsearch/resources/guidance/1475346/en/Czech%20Republic%20Church.pdf

How to access the records online

Click on the following link to access digital images of the original parish records created by local priests of each parish:

http://search.labs.familysearch.org/recordsearch/start.html#c=1475346;t=browsable;w=0;p=collectionDetails

Follow the instructions on the screen.