Czech Republic, Northern Moravia, Opava Archive Church Books, 1571-1905

What is in This Collection?

This collection will include records from 1571 to 1905. Entries are usually arranged in chronological order and, after 1784, in a columnar format. During certain times, one book was used to list all the baptisms, marriages, and burials for all the villages in a parish for one year. At other times each village has its own section of baptisms, marriages, and burials, which were listed chronologically. Some records are on preprinted forms, and most records include indexes.

A filmed security copy of each book is stored at each state regional archive, but because of poor film quality, some of these are unusable for research. Books from the early 1900s (even though they may have been started earlier) are still stored in local city halls or other institutions. The FamilySearch Library does not have filmed copies of the books but did begin capturing the images digitally in 2007.

For a list of records by religion currently published in this collection, select the Browse link from the collection details page.

The earliest Czech book was created in 1441 (a book of christenings from Horní Jiřetín). Books have been kept to the present, but because of privacy laws they are available for research only through 1905.

The edict of the Council of Trent in 1563, which mandated the creation of church books, applied to Czech congregations. Austrian Emperor Joseph II issued the Edict of Toleration on October 13, 1781, which allowed Protestants, Jews, and others to keep their own church records under the supervision of the Catholic Church. Though the Protestants were allowed to keep registers starting in 1771, they were copied into Catholic registers. In 1781, Protestants continued to keep registers under Catholic supervision.

Starting February 10, 1784, Joseph II required that all church birth entries include the full names of both parents and all grandparents, along with their towns of origin and their military conscription numbers or unique address, such as Plichtice č. 5 (č is an abbreviation for čislo, or "number"). The emperor also required that records be kept in Latin or German, though Czech was often used. Column headings, which had started around 1784 (sometimes earlier), became mandatory.

In 1790, the Austrian government (under which Czech records were kept) created a law requiring indexes to be kept. In 1802, another law was passed requiring all older matriky (church books) to be indexed. Only rarely are volumes not indexed.

Starting in 1869, the civil authorities took charge of the record-keeping of births, marriages, and deaths. However, individual churches continued to actually record these events. The official legal copy was kept by local officials when many of the clergy refused to perform Catholic rites for non-Catholics. Everyone was registered under this new system, not just those appearing in Catholic or Protestant registers.

The church books cover a majority of the population. Church books were first created to identify those who had received church sacraments. After 1869, they were also used as an official record of vital events by civil authorities. Additional records and/or images may be added to this collection in the future.

Reading These Records

These records are written in Czech, German and Latin. For help reading them see:

• Czech Genealogical Word List
• Czech Republic Language and Languages
• German Language and Languages
• Latin Genealogical Word List

To Browse This Collection

What Can These Records Tell Me?

The information in these records usually include the following:

Collection Content

Sample Images

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  1803 Baptism Record

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  1852 Marriage Record

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  1851 Burial Record