There are a few more thoughts I would like to add to what I wrote below. Karel Kysilka has an excellent website on Moravian Genalogy and history http://zlimpkk.tripod.com/ A part of it includes a page with maps of the Kraje of Moravia in 1848 with the borders of the Herrschaft or noble dominions that existed before the 1848-49 rebellion ended noble landlord and serfdom. The dominions were replaced with counties around 1849 but the borders of the new counties could closely resemble an old Herrschaft. Each Herrschaft had an administrative center where the "Oberamtmann" or another overseer of the nobleman's business in his dominion had his offices and that place is shown on Kysilka's maps. In some cases that might now be a county seat if the place were large enough. However, some Herrschaft had only relatively small places within their borders and even the place where a nobleman's manor, palace or old castle was located might have a relatively small population. Kysilka's maps are at: http://zlimpkk.tripod.com/morava/kraje.html There is one for each Kraj. There is a map key on the page. Each map can be downloaded and saved in high resolution. Point at the map of a Kraj and it shows the large size of the original. On another of his webpages of place names from A-Z Kysilka has a link for Sternberg (near Olomouc) but when I clicked on it I didn't get much. Just do a websearch with the placename (Sternberk is the present Czech name so search with that and with Sternberg) and the home page for the town may come up. It is sometimes a good idea to go to: Shtetlseeker Town Search to get the latitude and longitude of all the possibilities in Moravia. Just enter the placename and Czech Republic. I did a quick search there and hit on about eigh placest, to include the one near Olomouc. The results give a link to a MapQuest map for each place. Just explore the site a bit. It is in English. Olomouc has a very important archive and I believe some of their records are now online. If Sternberg is very close it is likely that Olomouc is where the best records are located. When there was an Austrian King of Bohemia Olomouc was Olmutz and the site of a very important fortress that served as mustering point for the Austrian Army of the North in 1866. The army marched out from there, wandering westward and then back East to Koeniggraetz.. Prussia defeated Austria there after a series of blunders by the Austrian General Staff. My great grandfather fought there and could not wait to leave Bohemia once he mustered out. He no longer believed that the "higher ups" cared anything for the common man after his experience during that war. Its a good idea to assume that every ancestor who was not very well educated (professional) or very well off (a Burgher or better) served in the army around the time he was 20 years old. The LDS has filmed most of the military records for Moravia up to 1969 or 1870 and there may be some as late as 1885 in the film titled: Grundbuchblatter diverse That is a good starting point in a search for military records. If an ancestral name with the appears with the right place name, the record will also give the name of the regiment in which he served as well as other information. The film Grunbuchblatter Diverse may have more than one alphabetical order of soldiers' names in it. If you find nothing keep going past the last name in the alphabet to see if another alphabet starts. Karen -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] To: [email protected] Sent: Mon, Mar 29, 2010 12:21 pm Subject: Re: [GERMAN-BOHEMIAN] Theimer- Bohemian or Moravian ? Moses, The Kingdom of Bohemia included 16 Kriese (Kraj) in the province of Bohemia with Prague as the provincial and royal capital. The kingdom also included 6 more Kreise (Kraj) in the province of Moravia where Brno was the provincial capital. Each Kreis also had its own administrative central city. Today's Czech Republic is roughly the same territory but the political organization is somewhat changed. Brno is still the main archive for Moravian records and Prague is the central archive for old royal records up to 1918 when Czechoslovakia reorganized it all again. CZ included what was left of the old Duchy of Austrian Silesia in eastern Moravia as a sort of part of today's Moravia. Opava / Troppau was its political center and most of the old Silesian records are still there. Bohemian genealogy depends on doing one's map-reading homework. There are a lot of old Bohemian and Moravian and Austrian Silesia maps in parchement atlases online at various university libraries in the US. The maps are not only beautiful and worthy of framing but they show how the various Circles/ Kreis / districts within the province of Bohemia or Moravia (usually on different pages) looked at a time when many of our ancestors first settled in that kingdome after the 30-Years War. A little more research of old maps on the internet will show changes in the borders of the various "Circles" (Kreis) with some growing in size while others shrank a bit. All of that is significant when one wants to know in which archive one might find records. An ancestor may have settled in one " Circle" but ended up in another without moving anywhere. Moravia seemed to have a fairly stable political organization with the number of Circles there at six or seven just about forever, if I recall. There were 14 circles in the province of Bohemia in the 1620s but in 1848 there were 16. The number of counties (Bezirke, Obec) changed too from an early number of about 32 to well over 100 after 1918. So a map showing counties may also be helpful if one is looking for the FIRST location of the oldest records that were kept by County Commissioners -- often at the Rathaus in the county's central town. Many of the county archives have now been moved to regional archives but it is still worthwhile to ask at the county level (if possible) what is still there. It may be necessary to hire a Czech researcher to do that for you. Such a professional would also be able to tell you to where any other records were moved and might also be able to find what is needed at the new repository. Maps are an important genealogical resource and maps that represent the time period when one's ancestors were born, died, served in the military, married or emigrated would serve one much better than a modern map of the Czech Republic. Karen -----Original Message----- From: Theimer, Moses <[email protected]> To: [email protected] <[email protected]> Sent: Mon, Mar 29, 2010 10:10 am Subject: [GERMAN-BOHEMIAN] Theimer- Bohemian or Moravian ? Dear All: I just received some documents from the Czech Republic that my Grandfather Bruno Theimer was born in Sternberg. I always thought that the this area was Bohemian however I am finding out that it was Moravian. Can someone please clarify this and if this may be correct guild me to a website for Moravians. Any information is greatly appreciated. Thank you. Moses Major Moses C. Theimer Assistant Professor New Mexico Military Institute Communications Department 101 West College Boulevard Roswell, New Mexico 88201 (505)624-8202 [email protected] www.nmmi.edu Confidentiality Notice: This e-mail, including all attachments, is for the sole use of the intended recipient(s) and may contain confidential and privileged information. Any unauthorized review, use, disclosure, or distribution is prohibited unless specifically provided under the New Mexico Inspection of Public Records Act. If you are not the intended recipient, please contact the sender and destroy all copies of this message. German-Bohemian Heritage Society web site http://www.rootsweb.com/~gbhs/ ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to [email protected] with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message German-Bohemian Heritage Society web site http://www.rootsweb.com/~gbhs/ ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to [email protected] with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message