Litoměřice Archive Website Guide

A user on the Czech FamilySearch Communities recently expressed interest in learning to search for her ancestors using the website for the Litoměřice State Regional Archive (Státní oblastní archiv v Litoměřicích).  After searching online for a good guide to the archive website for English speakers I found that there are some really good resources, but unfortunately they were made a few years ago, and since then the archive website has been changed and those guides are no longer current.  

So I decided to make my own guide.  I ended up making a screen & voice recording -- this is my first time creating something like this (please excuse my pronunciations).  I'm hopeful that this recording will be helpful to those learning to navigate the Litoměřice Archive website.  It also contains examples & tips for those who may be new to searching for their Bohemian and Czech ancestors, regardless of which archives their ancestors' records are found in.

The the Litoměřice State Regional Archive website: http://vademecum.soalitomerice.cz/vademecum/index4Clear.jsp

Here is a break-down of the contents of this recording:

Table of Contents: 0:00​ Navigating the Archive website 1:00​ Searching for a Town 1:51​ Selecting a Book 5:22​ Details about a specific Book 6:44​ Looking at a Book: Website Tools 8:59​ Note: Saving a Direct Link to Scan 9:47​ I Found the Book, Now where is my Ancestor? 12:35​ Example: Searching for a Birth Record 14:37​ Column Headings for Birth Records 19:45​ Words Continued on the Next Line 22:55​ Getting Back to your List of Books 24:54​ Using Books with Indexes  32:33​ Page Numbers vs. Folio Numbers 35:25​ Example: Searching for a Marriage Record 35:41​ Column Headings for Marriage Records 42:25​ Meanings of "cross" or "X" Symbols 44:36​ Remember, Indexes Aren’t Perfect 46:12​ Example: Searching in a Longer Book with Many Towns 55:42​ Symbol for the Latinized name ending “us” 57:35​ Sources 58:32​ Example: Searching for a Death Record 58:47​ You CAN do This! (Even if you don’t know the Language) 59:27​ Recognizing Patterns  1:00:56​ Using Resources such as FamilySearch Communities  1:02:06​ Symbol indicating Abbreviations 1:03:29​ German Female Surname ending “in”  1:08:00​ How to quickly Find the Same Book Again

Sample Town Names & Family Names

Several years ago my parents called me and told me they were going to the Czech Republic and they wanted to visit some archives to see if they could find any records about our ancestors.  That was back before my parents learned to transcribe the old gothic script, and at that time they didn't have much experience finding the peoples' names & town names in the records.  So I prepared a quick list with sample handwritten names from some of the records that we had for them to reference on their genealogy trip.  It helped them to find the records of our ancestors which they photographed, and we were able to transcribe & later translate them after they returned home.

So if you are just starting out with trying to find the names of places and people in records with Gothic script, it's a good idea to keep copies of sample handwritten names that you have found so far and use them as a reference while you are becoming more comfortable with reading the script.