GuidedResearch:Why Can't I Find the Record - Czechia Deaths

This page will give you additional guidance and resources to find death information for your ancestor. Use this page after first completing the death section of the Czechia Guided Research page.

Additional Databases and Online Resources

 * 1552-1948:  Czech Republic, Church Books  at Ancestry ($)

Images Only (Browsable Images)
Some collections may not yet be completely indexed, but are available to browse image by image.

Additional Records with Death Information
Substitute records can contain information about more than one event, and are used when records for an event are not available. Because the substitute records may not be created at the time of the event, it may contain incorrect information. Search for as many substitute records as possible to corroborate information found in substitute records to help improve accuracy.

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Tips for finding deaths
Successfully finding death records in online databases depends on a few key points. Try the following search suggestions:
 * An individual's name may be listed in Czech, German, or Latin in different records. For example: Vojtěch, Albrecht, and Adalbertus, respectively. Find and search by your ancestor's equivalent name in the other languages.
 * At marriage, the bride typically adopts the bridegroom's surname. After marriage, adapt your searching for women to include the new surname.
 * Your ancestor’s name and surname may have had many different spelling variations.
 * If you are not finding what you’re looking for, try using wildcard characters. That is, use an asterisk * to replace one or more characters.
 * You do not always need to search using Czech diacritics.
 * Try searching surrounding areas. Your ancestors may have died in another town than where they lived earlier in life.
 * Be flexible with year searches. Give a year range of about 2-3 years on either side of the believed year of the event.

Known Record Gaps
Records Start The Roman Catholic Church began requiring birth and marriage registers to be kept in 1563, but the earliest surviving records date to the 1590s. Death records required death registers to be kept in 1614, but they were not widely kept until 1620. Non-Catholic churches were allowed to keep separate records in 1781. Records Destroyed Some church records in the 1500s may exist, but the majority of the records were destroyed during the Thirty Years War (1618-1648). Records kept during and before this time period may or may not have survived.