This page is still under construction

Within the Czech Republic the old / historical land records are normally stored in the corresponding district archives. The exect storage places can be obtained through the the archives administration at Prague or the corresponding district archives.

The land records for the county Sternberg (North Moravia) e.g. are stored in an archives in a castle near Römerstadt an can be seen after preceding announcement. (If this is also the case for the land records which have been new started in 1880 [see below] I don't know)

For research in the old registers and land records shall be pointed out to the article of Adolf Steis in the magazine 'Sudetendeutsche Familienforschung' [look al literature, VI], of which some of the following citations are taken.

For reseach in the land records it is recommended to start with the youngest and to trace back to the interesting period from that starting point with the there found informations. This especially out of two reasons: First the entires of the younger books are better understandable second the exact localisation of houses because of some numberings of houses in the course of the decimes is only this way possible.

For his reason the information on land records as following is not listed in chronological order:

In the year 1880 there have been starting new land records in whole Moravia. They are containing three sections:

- Page A: Gutsbestandsblatt

- Page B: Eigentumsblatt

- Page C: Lastenblatt

Page A is listing the parcels of land, but contains no size details. This details have to be taken from the tax records of the tax offices of this period. Page B contains the chronological order of owners, but mainly without famliy contents. This relationsships can be taken from the purchase and assignment contracts.

With the starting of these land records there have been normally introduced new house numbers in the single places. This numbers have been firstly introduced in Moravia 1770, in some places however before 1880 because of high building activities one or two times changed so that there can occur in some places up to three numbering systems.

The recording of land records has been before within the responsibility of the owner of the territories (normally noble families), with the consequences that the records have quite different qualitiy. In the year 1848/50 the farmers have been freed from the Robot duties and the recording of the land records has been transferred to the state authorities.

Since this time there are both partners in the marriage listed, before that period relative seldom, before 1770 never.

In the period of 1800-1850 there are frequently mentioned so called 'Ehepakte' [marriage contracts] in the records, which are stored in seperate books. If they are still existing today they deliver many additional informations for the genealogist.

It must be annotated that that the listed year of assignment in the records is not always inevitable equal with the date of the real assignment. It is possible that this did happen some years before. Steis is recommending to prove the living dates of the mentioned people parallel.

The wording of the contracts can be found in so called 'Instrumenten- und Urkundenbücher'.

To be soon continued .......