Czechia Genealogy

Guide to Czech Republic ancestry, family history, and genealogy: birth records, marriage records, death records, census records, family history, and military records.

Country Information
The Czech Republic is a country in Central Europe bordering Poland, Germany, Austria, and Slovakia. It includes the three historical territories of Bohemia, Moravia, and Czech Silesia. From 1918 to 1993, it was the Western part of Czechoslovakia. The official language is Czech.

Getting Started


Finding Town of Origin
Records are created and organized on the local level. If you do not know the name of the village or parish your ancestors lived in, see
 * Czech Republic Finding Town of Origin, using United States records.
 * Czech Republic Determining a Place of Origin
 * Czech Republic Emigration and Immigration.

Archives
Czech Republic records were created on the town or parish level, then collected and preserved on the archive level. Click on the appropriate archive in the map or in the list.

Archival Regions
First use GenTeam Free Gazetteer to find out which archive holds the records that you need. [[Media:1-Genteam_Gazetteer-Instruction.pdf|GenTeam Instructions]]. Click on the archival region covering the location of your parish, either on the map or from the list.


 * Brno Moravian Land Archives
 * Litoměřice Regional Archives
 * Opava (Olomouc) Land Archives
 * Plzeň Regional Archives
 * Prague (Praha) City Archives
 * Prague (Praha) Regional Archives
 * Třeboň Regional Archives
 * Zámrsk Regional Archives

Additional Language Helps
Except for modern records of the 1900s, records in the Czech Republic were written mostly in Latin and German. Other languages sometimes used in Czech records include Old Church Slavonic, Polish, Hebrew, and Yiddish.
 * Reading German Handwritten Records
 * Lesson 1: Kurrent Letters
 * Lesson 2: Making Words in Kurrent
 * Lesson 3: Reading Kurrent Documents
 * Old German Script
 * Part 1
 * Part 2
 * Czech Republic Handwriting
 * '''Latin for Genealogists
 * Reading Polish Handwritten Records
 * Lesson 1: Polish Letters
 * Lesson 2: Polish Words and Dates

More Czech Republic Research Strategies
Research strategies give guidance on how to research or what records to search for first. Below are additional research strategy Wiki articles for the Czech Republic.
 * "How to" Guides
 * Getting started
 * What's the next step?
 * Finding your ancestor in the records
 * Tips for beginners
 * If You Are Czech Citizen...
 * Beginning Czech Republic Research
 * Records Overview

More Czech Republic Research Tools
Research tools can include resources that assist in locating correct records to search and determining the correct locality to search in. Below are links and Wiki articles to research tools in the Czech Republic.


 * American Friends of the Czech Republic website gives a brief how to and where to find your Czech Ancestors with links to sites.
 * Reference Aids Overview at the Family History Library
 * Prague Conscriptions (1850-1914)
 * Jewish Registers
 * Czech Family Tree
 * Central European Genealogy Research Community on FaceBook - Scroll down to Archives for North Moravia - Czech Republic. You must be logged into Facebook to see this resource.
 * Websites

FamilySearch Resources
Below are FamilySearch resources that can assist you in researching your family.
 * Facebook Communities - Facebook groups discussing genealogy research
 * FamilySearch Historical Record Collections
 * Family History Center locator map