In a message dated 5/18/2006 6:56:59 AM Mountain Standard Time, pam@ewebexpress.com writes: Re.Chronik.... yes some of it you can abstract in the general form from the Kreis Chronik, but you will have to go to the Village itself to find the individuals that lived there. By law every community had to have a local "historian" or chronicler. He was responsible to keep written records of community events. Community chronicles often have reports about who was chosen for a locall office, who went into or returned from the army, serious weather conditions, harvests, church news like how many attended a festival or pilgrimage, how much was collected in taxes and how it would be used (budgeted) for communtiy services, who was arrested or imprisoned for a crime, fires, epidemics, riots, crimes, visits by important persons or military units, etc. The chronicles I have seen have never listed members of the community. They only mention names when they are associated with something that was considered important to the community. For example they name the man who repaired the church organ (although he may not have been from the local area) or maybe name someone who has become a master craftsman or has finished high school. As time passed and rural literacy rates went up (after 1880) these reports may have been a little more detailed because more people could read them. I have heard that when the Germans were expelled there were sometimes Czechs who took over the community chronicles and now act as a village historian. Always find out who is the mayor of your ancestral village if you plan to visit and ask if anyone has copies of the old chronicles. If you plan to do this it would be a good idea to visit the village with an interpreter - guide. There are a number of researchers who will perform that service if you can find no one else. Otherwise ask if there is someone in the village who cahn speak English (usually someone in their teens or under 30) and offer to pay that person to interpret for you. The Collegium Carolinum at the Sudetenhas in Munich has a number of books of transcriptions of passages from old chronicles in their library. There may also be transcriptions in the Heimat books kept in the Sudetnhaus library which is more than 10,000 volumes. If you can visit there, make photocopies or digital photos of the pages concerning the years that interest you. Ewald Keil has transcribed the chronicles of Schonau (Kreiz Luditz) and there are lists of residents at that place at his website (Seelenlisten for 1651 and 1654). http://www.geocities.com/ekeilde/x01.htm His website is in German but if you go there via Google or Yahoo you should have the option [translate this page] on your "hits". You may have to search with his name to get that option. The Jeschken-Iser Yearbook ( http://www.heimatkreis.de/) always contained some extracts from their chronicles (going back centuries) which seems to indicate that the Heimatgroup has a copy of the chronicles. Other Heimat museums may also have them for the communities they represent. Chronicles are a good way to get an idea of what life was like in an ancestral community. All of the transcriptions are not "equal". For example the Mies-Pilsen Heimat stube has an old copy of Chronicles of Mies that has extracts about the familne of 1846-47. The copy of the chronicles of Mies at the Collegium Carolinum does not even mention the famile although it resulted in some serious riots and arson. Locals burned the Jewish quarter just outside the old city walls because they blamed Jewish grain traders for the high price of bread flour. I would think that was important enough to be included in any transcription of the chronicles but the book at the Collegium Carolinum made no mention of the famine, the arson, or the fact that Dragoons from Pilsen came in to control the situation. Karen Karen