by Ellen Kozisek
We did only a limited amount of genealogy on our trip. I was not able to do any for my family, other than seeing towns where ancestors were from.
Our first archives visit was to the State Regional archive for Northern Moravia. This was supposed to be in Opava, according to the information we have. So we drove to Opava, about an hour from Olomouc where we were staying. We found the address of where the archives were supposed to be. No Statni Oblastni Archiv, but there was a Zemsky archiv. We went in the archive, and they said we needed to go to the Zemsky archiv in Olomouc.
We returned to Olomouc and went to the address they gave us for the archive. It was closed. We asked around, with the help of a Slovak student who was passing by, and discovered that the Zemsky Archiv had been moved. We went to the new location. Here was also the Statni Oblastni Archiv! It was a new modern building, and they had moved both the regional archives and the local Olomouc archives there. Unfortunately, they were closing just as we got there and were closed the next day. Luckily, someone said they would help us if we got there at 7:30 the next morning. Mike and Ed went bright and early, and were able to determine that the ancestor they were looking for, Ignac Pekarak, was not born there.
The other archives we visited were the State Regional Archive for Central Bohemia in Prague, and the State Regional Archive for West Bohemia in Plzen. In the Prague archives Mike found a birth record for his ancestor Katherine Milacek. He also looked for birth records of the Pekarak family and did not find any. He now plans to write to the Brno archive (southern Moravia) to look for birth records for the Pekarak family in Blatnice.
Mike spent a whole day in the Plzen archives researching Frank Kozisek/Flemming. We did not find a record for Frank Flemming before the day was up, but we did find a birth record for a Frank Kozisek whom we believe is related. Mike plans to write to the archives to check that town for a birth record for his ancestor Frank Flemming. Unfortunately, the record we had was in German, and was difficult to read. We were not able make a copy because it was a microfilm record and they did not have a microfilm copier.