Czech Republic Censuses and Inhabitant Registers - FamilySearch Historical Records

Czech Republic

What is in the Collection?
These records are in Czech and in German. This collection will cover censuses from the Czech Republic between 1800 and 1990.

These are censuses images for the Czech Republic. For Northern Bohemia, the collection only includes those records housed in the regional archive of Litoměřice, for Eastern Bohemia--those housed in the district archve of Trutnov, for Southern Bohemia--those stored in the regional archive of Třeboň, and for Northern Moravia and Silesia--those found in the regional archive of Opava. The collection also includes images and indexed records for the Zámrsk area taken from the Zámrsk Archive. The images are in Czech and German.

More records will be added as they become available.

Sample Images
Population records usually contain the following information:


 * House number
 * Head of household
 * Names of members of the household (including servants)
 * Ages, occupations, religions
 * Relationships to head of household
 * Some also give date and place of birth.

How Do I Search the Collection?
This section provides information on how to search the collection, what to do with information once found, some tips on how to find records, and what to do if no record is found.

When searching: As you are searching, it is helpful to know such information as your ancestor's given name and surname, and some other identifying information, such as residence, age, estimated [event] year, and family relationships.

To browse the collection images, you will need to follow this series of links: ⇒Select the "Browse" link in the initial search page ⇒Select the "District" ⇒Select the "Place" ⇒ Select the "Census year" ⇒Select the "Archive number," which takes you to the images.

Search the collection by image, comparing the information with what you already know about your ancestors to determine which one is your ancestor. You may need to compare the information about more than one person to make this determination.

For Help Reading These Records
These records are in Czech (a Slavic language) and German. For help reading the records, see the following wiki articles:


 * Czech Republic Genealogical Word List
 * Czech Republic Language and Languages
 * German Word List
 * Germany Handwriting
 * Deciphering German Script (Kurrentschrift)

What Do I Do Next?
The census records link families together into family groups and greatly supplement the research process. They are extremely valuable in locating birthplaces, and determining ages, and relationships and lead to primary vital records sources, making them very valuable for pedigree links. Each census is important by itself, but each should also be used with church records and other censuses. A census can provide you with names and ages of family members, which can then be used to calculate birth or marriage dates. It can provide the county and town where your ancestor lived, people living with (or gone from) the family, and relatives that may have lived nearby. The census may identify persons for whom other records do not exist.

When you have located your ancestor in the census, carefully evaluate each piece of information about them. These pieces of information may give you new biographical details that can lead you to other records about your ancestors.

For example:


 * Use the age listed to determine an approximate birth date. This date along with the place of birth can help you find a birth record. Birth records often list biographical and marital details about the parents and close relatives outside of the immediate family.
 * Birth places can tell you former residences and can help to establish a migration pattern for the family.
 * If they are subject to military service, they may have military files in the State or National Archives.
 * Occupations listed can lead you to employment records or other types of records such as school records.

Tips to Keep in Mind
It is often helpful to extract the information on all families with the same surname in the same general area. If the surname is uncommon, it is likely that those living in the same area were related.

Be sure to extract all families before you look at other records. The relationships given will help you to organize family groups. The family groupings will help you identify related families when you discover additional information in other records.

Some other helpful tips to keep in mind are:


 * Married family members may have lived nearby but in a separate household so you may want to search an entire town, neighboring towns, or even a county.
 * You may be able to identify an earlier generation if elderly parents were living with or close by a married child.
 * You may be able to identify a younger generation if a young married couple still lived with one of their sets of parents.
 * Additional searches may be needed to locate all members of a particular family in the census.
 * The census may identify persons for whom other records do not exist.

What if I Can't Find Who I'm Looking For?

 * Check for variant spellings of the names.
 * Look for an index. There are often indexes at the beginning of each volume. In addition local genealogical and historical societies often have indexes to local records.
 * Search the records of nearby localities (counties, parishes, etc.).

Known Issues with This Collection
For a full list of all known issues associated with this collection see the attached article. If you encounter additional problems, please email them to [mailto:support@familysearch.org support@familysearch.org]. Please include the full path to the link and a description of the problem in your e-mail. Your assistance will help ensure that future reworks will be considered.

Citing this Collection
Citing your sources makes it easy for others to find and evaluate the records you used. When you copy information from a record, list where you found that information. Here you can find citations already created for the entire collection and for each individual record or image.

Collection Citation:

Image Citation: