Regarding the questions about land records - I also had some research done which required their use and may be able to give some idea of their value and characteristics. Because for Czech-Americans, our ancestors, with very very rare exceptions, were peasants, I will not discuss land records dealing with members of the nobility. There were many different kinds of serfs, but for land records we are mostly interested in those who owned land. So if your ancestor is found referred to as a sedlak (farmer), chalupnik or domkar (cottager), then you may be able to find land records; on the other hand, if he was a farm laborer without land (ie, podruh), then there will not be such a record. The records were maintained by the feudal estate or manor, which was considered the "real" owner of the land. The serf's ownership was of a lesser sort, and its character varied from place to place and over time. His right in the land was subject to payment of traditional feudal dues to the lord, whether in money or goods, and was also subject to an obligation to perform labor for the feudal lord (known as "robota", source of our word "robot" thanks to early Czech science fiction author Karel Capek.) The land records can be very useful because, for the landed peasant, land contracts typically were used to arrange for the "inheritance" of the land within his family, and to arrange the details of the inheritance among his children and between them and the parent couple in their old age. Customarily, peasants tended to pass the land down to an eldest son, selling it to him during their lifetime and reserving for themselves certain property and payments for use during their remaining lifetime. The child purchasing the property was not uncommonly required to provide certain specified things for his siblings. All this is set out in detail in the deed. Similarly, the purchaser had to assume whatever duties of this kind were carried over from prior deeds, which may tell you a lot about family members from prior generations, for example if grandparents or uncles are still living. If there was no son to take over the farm when the couple retired, it might be sold to a daughter's husband. If the farmer died or became incapacited and his children were not yet of age, the land might be sold to neighbors who agreed to support the family and then to sell it back to one of the minor children when he reached the age of majority. I strongly recommend that anyone looking for such deeds use a well- qualified Czech researcher. They are extremely hard to read, being handwritten in the old writing, and a strong knowledge of the language is critical to make any sense of them at all. If anyone is interested I can post a translation of a deed from 1829 as an example of the kind of information you can get from them.