Makov No. 8

Makov No. 8, the Smejkal family farm, is directly in the center of Makov.  There is a gate at the end of the short driveway and right outside of the gate is a parking area and the civic building.  We were there during  election day, and so a few cars were coming and going from the building.  On the outside of the building is a plaque featuring the town coat of arms - I don't have a photo but Dad does, so I will post it later - it has a picture of a poppy flower, because, as Jan Smjekal explained, Makov means "town of poppies"! But of course it does! Do you think that Grandma Bals made kolaches filled with poppyseeds on a whim?!

But back to the gate - it is located in the same spot that an earlier gate once stood. This earlier gate can be seen in one of the family's old photos, but it is also shown on the headstone for the Smejkal family plot that is in the cemetery at the church in Jistebnice, a headstone made by  J. V. Dusek, a well-known artist from Tabor.  Frank's (the Grandfather) wife died in February of this year and so she was buried here not that long ago.

It definitely stands out in the cemetery, as most of the others were more traditional. We did not ask which family member commissioned the headstone but we would sure like to find out. On the  headstone is a depiction of a sower; a sower which reminded us immediately of the sower on top of the Nebraska State Capitol building in Lincoln by Lee Lawrie. I wonder if some of the Makov locals made the same kind of comment as Ernie Pyle - click on the link below the photo to read what he said about the Nebraska sower.

 http://bisonwerks.com/SowerAscent.htm

I found another sower designed by Lee Lawrie that also resembles the Smejkal headstone, but it seems to be more classical and less peasant-like. It's on a building at Michigan State Univerity:

And this last sower doesn't really have anything to do with the trip to the Czech Republic, but I have to add it because it's very peasant-like and it's by my favorite artist, J. F. Millet:

As far as the sowers at Makov No. 8 - Zbynek has two more years of school - he is doing some sort of schematic design of heating and cooling systems? - and then he will take over at the farm full-time.  Right now, he works on the farm in the evenings and on the weekends. 

Jistebnice and Soccer

Today we went back to Makov.  We were planning to go to the special mass for hunter's being held at the Drazice church in the afternoon (this is the flyer), and we also wanted to see the cemetery in Jistebnice and the town of Hurka, but by the time we got to Makov it was almost noon, and we had been invited to the farm for lunch. Breakfast at the Pension Vternik consisted of your choice of the following: yogurt, mueslix, bread with butter, jam, Nutella, or cheese, a pastry, coffee or tea or hot chocolate, and soft-boiled eggs, bacon, and omelets. So I didn't think I was going to be able to eat again so soon, but when the plate of ham, a potato pancake, and the best sauerkraut I've ever eaten were put in front of me - no problem!

We didn't have time to go the mass in Drazice, but it didn't really matter to us. The church was sort of depressing anyway with the poor state it is in compared to the other churches we have seen. Instead we went to Jistebnice to see the cemetery, the church, the school, and the town center. 



Jistebnice Church



Jistebnice church and bell tower




Zbynek rode back to Makov with his dad and brother to get ready for the soccer match that the three Smejkal brothers were playing in at 3:30, and we did a little looking around for 45 minutes or so. 

Castle Buildings

  

Modern additions from the communist era in the castle yard.

 





Castle



Without the Smejkal's with us, we were not very popular with the neighbors, who were gesturing and speaking in angry voices in their yard while we took photos.  Zbynek had said earlier that the castle was empty, as the nobility were kicked out of the country at one point, and it was now for sale. We are not sure if this is the actual castle, or if it is just the stables and such. 

After looking around for awhile, we drove the few minutes back to Makov and went to the soccer game.

That's us with the Smejkal defense.

Little Smejkals.

Kolaches

We had a request for a Kolache photo, but, unfortunately, I didn't think to take one. Most of the time that the kolaches were on the table, I was looking at them and thinking how much I wanted to eat one, but was too busy, especially with my hands, trying to speak German and English and understand Czech all at the same time.

After searching through my photos, I think I found one that caught the kolaches.  You might have to zoom in, though, to see them. The prune tart, also pictured, was very good, too! 



Augusta, Gene, Jan, Marie, Zbynek, Grandfather Frantisek, Jan, Jill



Family Resemblance?

        

This was a pretty neat day. Olga took us to Makov No. 8 and the Smejkal family was there waiting for us. Two days ago, Olga had called them and told them of our visit.  It was the first they had heard that one of their relatives had gone to America, and they were a bit skeptical until Olga read names and connections from the family tree.

 We met Frantisek Smejkal, the man in the center of the photo above, who is 85 years old, his son Jan, Jan's wife, and two of their sons, Jan and Zbynek.  

And remember this photo we thought might be of the Novotny family? Well, this is the matching copy that the Smejkal's pulled out of their box of old photos, after Frantisek Smejkal identified his father as the one standing  fourth from left, in the back, looking over his father's left shoulder. His father was Frantisek Smejkal, who was Jan Smejkal's brother.  So that means that Frantisek (85) and Dad's grandfathers were brothers.

And as if there was any doubt, Jan's wife (we will get her name better tomorrow) pulled out a plate of kolaches as we sat around the table.  Now, I guess I already had a feeling that the best kolaches in the world would be the ones I remember eating at Grandma's, but these are definitely in the running for second place.

It's late, I'm tired, and Augusta is waiting to use the computer, so I will save the rest of the story for later. 

Prague in my rear view mirror...

Our exit of Prague today could be described as a logistical nightmare, with a GPS system that was not able to provide us with an alternate route for the tunnel that was under construction, or it could be seen as a daring feat of death-defying driving; either way, it was not the highlight of the day and it was soon forgotten once we found ourselves in the countryside with a real, fold-out map in hand that we bought from a nice Czech gas station attendant, who did not speak a bit of English but was still very helpful.

The drive was beautiful (we had just a little fog for "atmospheric" effect) through tree-lined roads and little villages. We finally made it to Drazice, which was more hilly than we expected, and rode around for a while looking for the church.  It is located at the top of the hill, and looks down on Drazice in the valley below.  Describing it as "picturesque" would be an understatement.  Tomorrow we meet Olga there and will see the inside. 

We didn't spend as much time in the Drazice as we would have liked -- we wanted to see Makov and Hurka also --but we will be back tomorrow, and besides, we needed to get to Trebon where we are staying for the night.  So we sped past Tabor and made it to Trebon about 2:30pm. 

This is the most amazing, and least pretentious, place I have ever visited. In short, it is a walled village from medieval times complete with castle, cobblestones, and swans.  (Fewer speeding Skodas would make it perfect).  We were not able to look around much at all, as it was getting dark and we had already skipped lunch.  We forced ourselves to go inside a restaurant and had a delicious meal of carp and trout and pasta, which we were not sorry for. The local Regent brew was not bad either. They've been perfecting it since 1379 so it oughta be good!

We are staying in a little Pension right outside the wall of the village. Trebon is a place that we must come back to sometime.  I can't believe we have to leave at 7am in the morning without spending more time here, but I'm glad that we saw what we did. 

And guess what?  The little German that I remember from high school, and from listening and repeating to the CD's in the car for the last month (go ahead, children, mock me now!) has actually come in handy!  Czech? Forget it. We can't even pronounce the names of the towns right.  And tomorrow I predict we will find out that we haven't been saying our own name correctly either, as Andreas pointed out to me in Germany!



The home of the Czech Digital Archives - Trebon District



Prague

Steps to the Castle

Today was our first full day here.  After a wonderful breakfast at Pension Vternik, we took the tram  into the center of Prague to do some sightseeing. The stop to catch the tram is a short walk from Pension Vternik where we are staying, and our host kindly provided us with tickets.The ride from Praha 6 to Praha 1 took about ten minutes. Once there, we walked around looking for the Old Town Center and found instead the Charles Bridge, so we spent some time crossing it, and then climbed up to the Prague Castle area. 



Augusta with St. Vitus Cathedral in background



There is too much to take in in such a short time, so  we did not tour any of the buildings or go into any of the museums.  We did, however, have a chance to do some bakery perusing, and came home with several varieties of kolaches to try.  After our dinner of Goulash and Dumplings for me and Augusta, and half of a roasted duck for Dad (and yes, beer!) in a Czech restaurant, we have been too full to even taste them, though. Although they do resemble kolaches, they look nothing like Grandma Bals', which may be another reason why they have not been consumed as of yet!  







Departure Day

We leave today for the Czech Republic.  Dad got an email from Olga this morning saying that the Smejkal houses at Makov 8 and Drazice 50 are still there, and a Jan Smejkal lives at Makov 8.  She has scheduled us to visit the houses and meet the owners, as well as visit with the local priest and see the church.

Just a side note on what a relief it will be to be on vacation.  I have been feeding and trying to tame the stray kittens in our back yard for the last two months.  We have adopted one kitty, one kitty hopefully is being adopted, and one kitty was put to sleep this morning with feline leukemia.  Now, as I try to write this last blog before I leave, the mother cat has a full-grown squirrel down on the ground with a deathgrip around it's neck. She is one tough mama.  Won't have anything to do with the Fancy Feast in the trap 10 feet away.

I think I will have to leave this for later.

How old is Jakub in this photo?

Jakub Smejkal and Rosalie Piskac were married in 1844. Jakub was around the age of 23, and Rosalie, we think, was around 21.  (Her birth as listed in the marriage record seems to be off by a couple of years). Here is a photograph with Anna Bals' handwriting on it that reads "My Father's Parents from Tabor, Czechoslavok" and "My Grandparents".

But is this Rosalie or Anna? We just recently discovered that Rosalie died at the age of 35. Could this be Rosalie in the photo? Or is it Anna, who married Jakub a year or so later, when Jan Smejkal was only two or three years old?

Jakub Smejkal & Hooked on Genealogy

Nancy and Dad did some good work on the Smejkal side this week.  They found a bunch of Smejkals in the Jistebnice archives, which led to Jakub and Rosalie's marriage record here: http://digi.ceskearchivy.cz/en/3359/40. 

It's fairly hard to read and you'll notice that Smejkal is spelled "Schmejkal".  Perhaps the variations in spelling depend on the nationality of the priests who kept the records? Jakub and Rosalie were married on January 23, 1844. The marriage record also lists the birth date of the bride and groom, so from there it's possible to find Jakub's birth record on April 27, 1822:
http://digi.ceskearchivy.cz/en/4507/88,

Go ahead and take a look at the entry (hopefully the links work for everyone), and you will see Jakub's name fairly clearly, but the last name is another hard-to-read variation of Smejkal.  (Once you see it written like that a couple of times, it does get easier to recognize.) So did you notice the father and mother's name in the birth record?  If you can't read it, don't despair, most likely Jakub had siblings!  By looking in the records two or three years on either side of the entry, you might find a record for one of them, and if you are really lucky, the priest who wrote that entry may have written legibly enough for someone sitting at a computer almost two hundred years later to be able to read it !  Heady stuff! Be careful, though, time flies when you're having fun! Why stop at Jakub's siblings, when you could meet his mother and father (in print, anyway) as well as his grandparents!  What does sleep matter when you're hot on the trail of your Great Great Great Grand Parents!!  Amazing!

Take a look at the newly-updated family tree when you get a chance: http://bals.info/smejkal_family/Relatives%20of%20Anna%20SMEJKAL.pdf

and Thank you, Czech Digital Archives!

Matej Novotny

Well, finally!  After 260 pages of Book 15, with only ten left, I found what I was after - Matej Novotny's date of death. He died on April 29, 1880 at the age of 62 years, 3 months, and 8 days, to be precise.  At least that is what the record says. When I do the math, it looks like he would have died the 26 of April, but maybe they accounted for a few Leap Years or something.  It also shows that he was married to a Katerina Petran of Hurka, so he must have remarried after Marie died.  Let's see if we can't find that marriage record real quick!

Hmm...can't seem to locate a marriage between Matej and Katerina in the Drazice records.  I'll have to ask Dad what he thinks. 

But I think I'm about done with research - we leave in a little over a week.  It might be time to start memorizing some important Czech phrases, such as "Where is the nearest kolache bakery, prosim?"

Marie Pazourek cont.

I think Dad has figured out the mystery of the double entry in the death record for Marie.  He found a birth record for June 12, 1865, but the baby apparently did not survive.  The baby's death entry is on June 12, 1865, right above Marie's.  We will ask Olga to translate to see if we are right.

Marie Pazourek

Tonight I found the record for the death of the maternal grandmother of Anna Bals.  This is Anna Novotna's mother Marie, married to Matej Novotny. She died on the 18 of June, 1865.  The record says she was 45, but we have her birth record of 1823, so I think she was only 42. When we first started looking through these archives, it seemed as though these families were fairly large;  there was a birth almost every two years like clockwork. But as we fill in the dates of the deaths for many of the children, it strikes me that the families were not so large after all.  Many of the children died very young.  And the children, like Jan Smejkal and Anna Novotna, who did survive, did not know their own mothers for very long.  Anna was only 9 when Marie died.

Drazice Registry D Book 15 Image 133.

Note:  There is sort of an "out of the ordinary" entry for Marie that is directly above her death record.  We may have to ask Olga to translate that one for us...

Rosalie Piskac

More bad news from Book D - the death records.  In  1851, the twins Anna and Veronika of Jakub and Rosalie died at 7 and 9 days old. But I also found that Rosalie, Jan Smejkal's mother (Anna Bals' grandmother) died on October 15, 1858 at the age of 35.  That means that Jan was only two years old at the time.  That explains why Jakub Smejkal has a new wife, Anna, in 1859.
http://digi.ceskearchivy.cz/en/3363/103

The record also says that Jakub Smejkal, Rosalie's father, was a "gruntovnik" and I found a site that translates that as "farmstead owner".  The "domkar" we see in many records translates as "crofter" or "cottager". I'm going to link to that site because it has some other translations we may need:

http://kotrla.familytreeguide.com/showsource.php?sourceID=S114&tree=T1&PHPSESSID=5a54c62013194a82d40afb5985a06922

Grandma's brother Frantisek

Wow. I think I found a brother of Grandma's born in Drazice in 1882 to Jan Smejkal and Anna Novotna, but he only lived for 28 days. In the death notice archives, you can actually see what was the cause of death, for instance in 1884 there was an outbreak of smallpox "nestovice".  One of the most common I can't translate though "psotnik" (sp?) It may be about spirits or something.

Photography Studio in Tabor

Dad - you are going to have to write this blog entry!  Good job finding the photograhy studio in Tabor where the Novotny family was photographed.  http://sechtl-vosecek.ucw.cz/en/muzeum.html





And what a incredibly convenient coincidence that the they will be having an exhibition about historic Tabor at the same time we are there! We have had some very good luck so far.

(Is it possible that Grandma Bals has her hand in this?! Maybe she is baking kolaches for friends in high places!!!  )

We should definitely contact them and make an appointment or see when someone will be available to talk to us.  Maybe they have more photographs of the family!

It looks like we may need to stay another week!

Klokot

It's 5 o'clock and I'm taking a break from errands and all that work stuff before I go play a tennis match at 6:00.  I've been talking to Dad about deciphering the names on the Marie Pazourek entry.  He said he can sometimes recognize names, even though he can't read every letter, because many of the people in Crete, Nebraska had the same names.  He also suggested looking at the old maps we found on the Internet; sometimes the towns are called "extinct"in the records. One map in particular is a historic and beautfully drawn map of the Czech Republic that would make a great game board. I was scrolling around on it in the Drazice and Tabor area and found "Klokot"!  That 's the word I was looking for! That's definitely where Matej, Marie's father, lived with his parents before Drazitz, or Drazice.   I suspected the word started with a K, because it looked the same as the first letter in "Katerina".  It will be interesting to see if it is still on the current maps.

Here is a link to the maps: http://www.mapy.cz/#mm=RTtTcPA@x=133292032@y=133406720@z=7
This is the Historika 1836-1852 map.

Grandma's Grandma

It's past midnight, but I just got the Internet connnection to work and I can't seem to stop!  This is more fun than looking at leases at an abstract company!  I just found the 1823 birthdate of Marie Pazourek in the index, who would have been Grandma Bals' grandmother.  Now I take her birthdate and look at the birth record itself to find HER parents' names. All of the clues have come off of the immigration papers that Dad has for Anna Novotna and Jan Smejkal.

Wow. Twenty minutes later (it would have taken Dad only a few minutes) I find the actual birth entry. This priest must have been really old or very arthritic - it's almost impossible to decipher the writing.  If I didn't know the dates, I wouldn't have been able to even recognize the name.  But reading her parents' names is going to be even more difficult.  It's good to know we will have Olga when we get there.

(I think the priest made a mistake and put the mother's name in the father column and vice versa.  Can't wait to tell my co-workers at Element that I found a mistake in an official document from 1823!)

Czech Digital Archives!

Another late-night frolic on the world wide web yielded a super bonus prize!  Who knew that scanned images of the Parish Records for the Tabor District were available on the internet?! Amazing. I sent the link to Dad before I went to sleep last night, after my few attempts at searching for names came up with "nothing found!".  By noon today, Dad called and had located the birth record for his grandfather, Jan Smejkal! And, what's better than finding one relative?  Finding two relatives! Jan Smejkal was a twin!  I'll post a link to the record here soon.

The fact that we can sit here in our living rooms and look at these beautiful scanned books, handwritten in the German Gothic Script, or whatever it is called, on our computers, and see records of these ancestors is astounding. Dad is right when he says Grandma (Smejkal) Bals would think it is a miracle.  But the thing I am the most flabbergasted by today is not the wonder or convenience of the computer age we live in, but by how the heck Dad -- who has just had cataract surgery and is functioning with only one contact lens --  can see the dang computer well enough to not only find his way around the website, but to find, in the blink of that eye, the right search fields to come up with the answer he is looking for! His agility on the computer may have surpassed his abilty to find deals on big ticket items at Sears.

But as his eyes tire tonight, I carry on.  After a lesson on how to search the archives, I've found the birth record indices of 10 children born to Tomas and Katerina Novotny, who lived at Drazice 14.  One of them was Matej Novotny, who was Anna Novotna's father. Anna was married to Jan Smejkal and is Grandma Bals' mother, Dad's grandmother. I also found the indices for other Novotny children born to a Tomas and Katerina, but they lived at other numbered houses in Drazice, so I'm assuming they are not the same Tomas and Katerina.  It seems that there were about five first names in circulation at the time, so it can be rather confusing. I'm to start a spreadsheet with all of the names and dates, and Dad will fill in the family tree.

Translator/Interpreter

Last night, in a late-night web-browsing session, I googled "Tabor" which is one of the places we will be going to look at records and found this blog.

http://kathiebczech.blogspot.com/2009/08/ancestral-villages-kozlany-church.html

In one of the photos, there is a translator identified who is from the Czech Republic and traveled with the party, aiding them in talking with the locals.  Dad mentioned that we would need the same if we have any hope of talking to some of the older people in the villages we will be visiting.  So, I did a search for the translator, and lo and behold if she doesn't have a website advertising her services as a researcher and translator!  But even more amazing is that she appears to live right in the area we will be visiting!!  Dad is going to email her and we will see if we get a response.  Here's a link to her webpage:

http://www.koliskova-familytree.cz/en/index.html

Disclaimer!

This is my first attempt at blogging. I'm not sure I shouldn't just be keeping an old-fashioned penned journal, but we'll see how it goes. The nice thing about this, it seems, is that I can easily paste photos and links to other sites as I go along.

And I can share the experience with all of you.

The Trip

Dad, Augusta and I are really going! We have been batting the idea around for some time now - but kudos to Dad for actually booking the trip to the Czech Republic!  Dad's on a mission to find the ancestors - maybe even some living relatives - but Augusta and I have an agenda all our own -- Finding the perfect kolache!!

Seems like there's a lot to do to get ready - but at least we already have passports!