Plzeň Regional Archives, Czechia Census Records

Back to Czech Republic Page► Plzeň Regional Archives, Czech Republic►Plzeň Regional Archives Church Records

Step-by-Step Instructions for Using the Archives to Read Census Records
1. Go to Porta fontium Census. 2. In the chart, find the correct Judicial District and the year of the census you wish to study. Use the Former Judicial District from GenTeam. Click on the words "view/anzeigen". 3. From the list, choose the locality you wish to study. The scanned images will show next.

Reading the 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)
 * Online interactive slideshow lessons:
 * Reading German Handwritten Records Lesson 1: Kurrent Letters
 * Reading German Handwritten Records Lesson 2: Making Words in Kurrent
 * Reading German Handwritten Records Lesson 3: Reading Kurrent Documents. In this lesson, you will explore several types of German genealogical records, including birth, baptismal, marriage, and death records.
 * German Script Tutorial

This converter will show you how any phrase or name might look in German script:
 * Kurrentschrift Converter (enter German genealogical word, click on "convert", view your word in Kurrentschrift (Gothic handwriting):*Key Words and Phrases in Latin Records

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.