It has been a long time since the list discussed the J G Sommer books. List newbies may be interested in knowing more about them. I forgot to mention that there is a more extensive translation of Sommer's book about Elbogen Kreis by Urs Geiser http://home.xnet.com/~ugeiser/Genealogy/Bohemia/contents.html If an ancestral birthplace was in this district, the translation may include details about that place (in English) at the time the book was written. Each section about a noble dominion (Herrschaft) includes a history of which noble families owned it as landlords of enserfed tenants, some data about its productivity and main sources of income, and a list of all the places that dominion included (up to 1848). The details about places tell which parish each was in among other information. After 1848 the administration of Bohemia passed from noble landlords to "public" administrative districts -- Bezirke / counties. The counties may have been somewhat related to the old Herrschaft / noble dominions in size and shape but do not anticipate any direct relationship. There were about 80 counties in Bohemia in 1848-49 with the first reorganization but that number increased several times as the years passed. Modern counties of CR do not always resemble the original "Bezirke" of 1848-49. The books by J G Sommer are : Das Königreich Böhmen. Each has a "subtitle" naming the Kreis it includes -- i.e., Pilsner Kreis, Elbogner Kreis, etc. To select the right volume it is necessary to know in which Kreis an ancestral birthplace lay before 1849. These books are available via Interlibrary Loan from several university libraries. The CGSI library in St. Paul has a complete collection (photocopies) and the GBHS library in New Ulm has a partial collection. Sometimes a volume or two will come up for sale on an Internet antiquariat website like the ZVAB website. Use J G Sommer as a search word. Each book has an alphabetical place name index at the back. In some cases the index is incomplete or has some errors. Some of the errors for previous books are noted in the back of the next book published. It has been my experience that when a place name is not in the index of a certain Sommer book it does not mean it is not included in the book. When that occurs, look for the name of the Herrschaft in which the place was located, or for the name of a nearby place. If any place nearby (from a map) is in the index, go to the page cited and scan all the place names on the pages for the Herrschaft represented. There is a good chance the place missing from the index will be there. These books are in Gothic German (Fraktur) but the place names in them are still easy to read. Once an ancestral place name is found, copy all of the pages for the "chapter" in which it is found for reference material. As research progresses the names of other places near the ancestral birthplace may become important. The history of nobles who owned the place helps to select the correct manorial records to search for other data like land transactions, records of tax and robot payments, justice / court actions, etc. that affected ancestors. The books by Gregor Wolny about Moravia (Das Markgrafschaft Mähren) cited earlier are similar in format and contents. All of them are available for interlibrary loan from Harvard University at about $20 per book if requested by a public library. Brün Kreis has 2 volumes while all other Moravian Kreise have only one. Karen