My ancestors in village Polom in Moravia house #9 first listed in archives as the house my 2nd gr. Grandfather was born in 1771, was #9 when my gr. Grandfather lived in 1893, dying in grandsons house #13 in 1894. #9 still stands today. Another house in Miroslav, Moravia I stayed in was numbered 125/9 which I understand was the result of re-numbering showing old and new #. Just another example, I am not an expert on this. > -----Original Message----- > From: List Administration [mailto:chook@starpower.net] > Sent: Saturday, April 17, 2004 1:54 PM > To: CZECH-L@rootsweb.com > Subject: [CZ] House numbering > > >From Karen Hobb and Joanna Donovan. These posts also would > be in the mail archives (2000 and 2001). > > Elaine > > ***************** > > > A few issues back someone stated that the House Numbers were off the > > churches > > and Number 1 was perhaps the home of priests. I have two reletives that > > the > > father born 1691 died 1790 lived in Tetin #1 Bartolomej Kaucky, the son > > Vaclav Kaucky, born 1736-died 1771 lived in house #3 Tetin. > > I wonder what the story was, and if the above theory was correct? > > Frank Kautsky > > > > I am no expert on this subject but I know that some places did not have a > chapel or church and the people attended services in another village/town. > One parsonage served as many as 10 villages in the surrounding area that > were > part of the parish community. I believe that house numbers were first > given > in about 1770 -- they were given by the imperial census commission that > visited every house in every village at that time. They were taking > census > to determine who was eligible for conscription. > > If a village/town had a chapel or church in 1770 they might have used that > as > a starting point for numbering but then you would expect the house numbers > to > follow one another in some sort of order. That generally is not the case > -- > the numbers in most villages are all mixed up with very few > consecutively-numbered houses being next to each other. I understand > that > happened because the houses were numbered in the order in which they were > built. > > There was a re-numbering of houses sometime after 1860 if I recall > correctly > -- maybe in the 1880s. If they still followed the old pattern of > numbering > based on the age of the house the re-numbering may have been necessary > because some houses had been replaced or abandoned and torn down over > time. > > All the maps I have of village layouts and location of house numbers in my > Mies Heimatbuch (showing villages as they were in 1945) have very few > houses > that are numbered in a regular sequence. Most of them seem quite random > as > far as house numbers are concerned. Based on those maps I would tend to > believe that there never was any attempt to make a numbering grid in these > villages. > > My ancestral house number 21 in Slavice (Mariafels) is on a glazed tile > set > into the second floor stucco wall. The exisiting residence was built in > the > 1930s but the farm buildings are much older. All of the documents I have > about my ancestors show that they already lived in house 21 in the 1770s > and > possibly earlier. The Sudeten Ortsbetreuer for Slavice tells me that that > farmstead was always number 21. This makes me believe that the number > on > that house was never changed. ( I don't know what the official number is > today.) > > The Bohemian villages were sometimes more or less cross or circular in > shape > and sometimes long and narrow with a few side streets. It would have > been > difficult to establish a grid for numbering in most of them. > > Larger towns and cities may have a grid system with consecutive numbers > now, > but I suspect that the original numbering system may not have been based > on a > grid even in those places. > > Karen > > ********* > > > I recently returned from a trip to the Czech Republic and the houses in > the > villages are numbered in what would appear to be a haphazard manner. We > had > to ride up and down the streets and lanes to find the homes of my > ancestors. > The suggestion that the houses were numbered as they were built makes > sense > to me. We found one house in Vcelnicka in which the front (and older) > part > was number 1 and the back part (an add-on used as a separate dwelling) was > # > 65. > > It was very helpful that the number of the house in which my ancestors > were > born was listed in the registers along with their other birth information. > You can imagine my delight when we found that the house that was the > birthplace of my great-grandmother, Josefa Vachuska, Slatina 28, was still > occupied by the Vachuska family. > > Joana Stuchlik Donovan > > > > > > > ==== CZECH Mailing List ==== > The mailing list is configured to reply only to the list. If you are > making a personal reply to a poster, it will be necessary to delete the > list address and add the individual's address.