As you know we our a society of volunteers. With that said we need your help. A few positions for our society need to be filled. The most critical positions are Program Chair and Education Chair. If you are interested in any of these positions or interested in helping your society in any way please contact me. Your Society needs your help. In most cases these positions only call for a few hours of work a month. For those few hours of work you gain a great feeling of accomplishment, by helping out our society.
This past May I visited the Czech Republic, and Slovakia on the Genealogical/Cultural tour. On the tour I as well as the others on the tour made some great connections in the old country. We not only met relatives, but also made friends at the archives. From these contacts at the archives I found out some very important information: some good, some bad. The first piece of information is that the Family History Centers (part of the Church of the Latter Day Saints (Mormons)) are not microfilming records in the Czech Republic and will not be allowed to do so in the foreseeable future. The good news is the Family History Center is filming in Slovakia and many of the microfilms are available already through the Family History Centers. The other piece of information is that for the Czech Republic Cadastral maps are available through the State Central Archives in Prague. Cadastral maps are tax maps made up for many towns. On these maps they have every house, barn, building, and field listed. With these maps there is also a listing of all the property owners by name. The reason these maps are very important is they go back to the mid 1600’s. As most of us know, birth, death, and marriage records only go back to around the mid 1700’s. So we need to use other means like these maps to trace our family’s even further. Unfortunately, Cadastral maps are not available for Slovakia.
Like always, if you have any comments or suggestions to improve our society, let us know. Please remember to renew your membership.
Nazdar,
Joe Hartzel