| On the following pages are the resources that I examined to find the information in the book. It is being organized at the moment, and more will be added. This page is updated as of October 13th, 2007 There were over 3,000 sources that I examined to find this information. Often if was just an index entry or a foot note. The property documents are contained in a database that will be on line shortly. Jim Hlavac |
Bibliography & Sources
THIS SECTION IS NOT COMPLETE,
I AM GOING THROUGH ALL MY NOTES TO COMPILE THIS INFORMATION.
Methods
This bibliography presents many sources, the vast majority publicly available. I spent
more than five years looking for this information. Strangely, I can recall only one research trip
to a library, courthouse or archive that resulted in nothing; every other time I found something
-- it was, all surprisingly easy to find. For books, journals and similar items there are the
standard specific citations. For specific stories about events covered in a newspaper I give
specific citations, such as for the Libuse and Kolin post offices and the New Orleans Trade
Mart fracas. However, the name of newspapers or the courthouses that I went to or
collections and archives that I accessed are listed generally. Listing every exact citation of
book and page number of a courthouse record, or page in a newspaper for an obituary, or
page and reel number of the census, and the precise location for some other fact for each
family or individual results in several enormous databases. I created and maintain these.
These will enable anyone interested in looking at the original documents to access them. For
those doing genealogical and other research I am more than happy to share what I have
found.
I do, however, feel that an explanation of how this information was found is necessary.
Chief among them is that as a starting point for my research in the many repositories where
this information is found I asked the person in charge "what information do you have on
Czechs and Slovaks in Louisiana?" Incredibly to me, to a person they not only said "we have
nothing," but many insisted they had nothing. This was true even in the courthouse barely 10
miles from the largest Czech community in the state. In fact, more than a few told me that
there were no Czechs and Slovaks in Louisiana at all.
For those who may desire to eventually write histories of the other admittedly small ethnic
populations in the state (Yugoslavs, Hungarians, Lebanese, Belgians, Syrians, Poles,
Russians, etc.) -- this method will work for you, too. I constantly ran across references to
these other immigrants (those naturalization papers in the Rapides Courthouse contain
dozens of other immigrants) -- this information is out there. Do not be daunted or
discouraged by those who say this information does not exist. There is far more to Louisiana
than just Cajuns, French, Italians, Germans and the American-English. Seek, and you shall
find.
I examined over 800 property records (and a few other documents) in the Rapides Parish
courthouse, from 1913 until the 1940s. The process I used was not much different than what
a professional real estate abstractor uses; and this is standard in every courthouse in
Louisiana (early New Orleans is a special case.) There are two indices - each arranged
roughly alphabetically in a large book about 3 inches thick. One index lists transactions by
"Vendors," or the people and companies that sold land; the other index lists "Vendees," or
those that bought. Essentially, this results in a cross-referenced index system. Each index
has four basic pieces of information: the names of both the buyer and seller, the date of the
transaction, and most importantly -- the number of the book and page for the the actual
document. The eight vendee and eight vendor indices that cover the 35 year period that I
looked at contain thousands of entries -- so one may wonder how I found the Czechs among
them: I already had names from the local histories published, names from the cemeteries and
names from the censuses -- but because Czech names are mostly "unusual" as compared to
the other entries, the names just jumped off the pages at me. When you see a name like
Hlobil, Skodacek or Zdarsky you know they're Czech.
An example of a book and page number is "78-145," and armed with this you can proceed
to the 4" thick "conveyance" books which are stacked (conviently in their own cubby hole)
about 15 high along several aisles. Pull out book 78 and turn to page 145, which is hand
stamped in the upper right hand corner of the page -- and you will find what are really typed
transcriptions of the original signed document -- there is no handwriting in them. They are all
on paper of uniform size and weight; the originals are stored in a secured archival area.
For people in Part One of the book I looked up specific individuals; I knew there were no
larger number of Czechs and Slovaks to search for. I followed the same procedure as in
Rapides Parish. Early New Orleans presents a special case because there is no index to
speak of; though they are working on this problem. Each notary kept his own records;
unfortunately some were lost to fires or floods, or were simply thrown out after a number of
years. What survived is in the New Orleans Notarial Archives; there are millions of
documents. Only a small percentage have been indexed in a searchable database, and
fortunately the records of the notary who the Kohn's used was indexed; I made copies of all
these documents. For others it is impossible to find documents at this point in time.
Beginning in 1900 or so the records of New Orleans were indexed using a system similar to
the other parishes; after 1985 it is all computerized.
For the Czechs on the German Coast in the 1700s I went to the State Archives in Baton
Rouge, where all the originals of the earliest notarial and property records are being gathered
and then microfilmed. If they are not microfilmed yet, they are not available to the public.
However, there is an index of sorts that enabled me to look up the Touchet's and Novak's;
once I found the microfilm page number I simply located that on the reel. I did make copies of
these documents, and these, too, are available for those who wish to examine them.
Obituaries
The Alexandria Town Talk, and most other Louisiana newspapers, are unfortunately not
indexed. The newspapers of only the biggest cities in Louisiana have been mircofilmed.
However, since I knew the dates of death I simply searched the (microfilmed) paper for the
next day or so until I found the obituary; after all, they always appear a day or so after a
person's passing. There is an old fashioned card catalog index of obituaries for New Orleans
in the Loyola Avenue branch of the New Orleans Public Library; it is being put online now.
There are several newspapers that are referenced: Times-Picayune, States-Item, Bee, etc. I
looked up the name of every immigrant who settled in New Orleans and found the citation,
and then looked at the microfilm of the newspaper for the obituaries of those who died in the
city and for which an obituary was published. I made a copy of every obituary and article --
and these are available to those who wish to see them.
With censuses there was also a difference between the way I looked up people in Part
One and in Part Two. For those in the first part I used HeritageQwest -- a website available
through most of the state's public libraries; I used the State Library in Baton Rouge. This
website is searchable by several criteria: name, parish, city, and others: but most importantly
it can be searched by ethnicity. For these Czechs and Slovaks I used these search terms:
Czech, Slovak, Czechoslovakia, Bohemia/Bohemian, Moravia/Moravian and Slovak/Slovakian,
and also Slovakland (after I discovered a few entries with this made up name.) However,
because the census records sometimes listed a Czech or Slovak as coming from Austria,
Austro-Hungary, Hungary, and more rarely, Germany, I searched all these entries too -- the
Czechs and Slovaks were found by looking under the "language" column. Those who spoke
"Czech" "Bohemian" "Moravian" or "Slovakian" were the ones I sought. This website allows
you to see not only a computerized list of the entries, but also an image of the original
document. There was no one search term that brought up everyone I sought.
For Rapides Parish, I turned to the microfilm reels of the census records in the State
Library in Baton Rouge. This was in the days when a census enumerator went door to door --
and thus you can find everyone on a street or road listed one right after the other. Because
all the Czechs settled near each other once I found one I found them all -- they are in the
reels marked "Rapides Parish - Ward 9 & 10." Page after page are filled with the entries for
the Czech families; about 20 pages each for both the 1920 and 1930 censuses. There were
no Czechs prior to 1914, so I used HeritageQwest for earlier years; the 1940 census has not
been released yet. But all of these are also in the HeritagQwest website.
City Directories
City Directories list addresses and occupations for everyone living in a city at a given
date. There were three main repositories of City Directories that I accessed. The Historic
New Orleans Collection has those from the 1800s on microfilm, though only New Orleans had
city directories during this century. I looked at every directory available there for Czech and
Slovak names. It is only after 1900 that there were regularly published city directories; some
cities started later than others. The main branch of the New Orleans public library has the
directories for that city. The State Library in Baton Rouge has those for all the major cities of
the state (New Orleans included.) I was, of course, able then to simply look up the names I
sought in the alphabetical listing within the directory. For the 1900s the system I used was to
start with the earliest existing directory and then look at the succeding directories in five year
increments. The intervening years are almost all identical in the information they present;
where necessary I turned to these directories.
The Internet
The Internet was a wonderful tool for finding information -- but other than the website I
eventually set up myself as an overview of this subject (www.geocities.com/louisianaczech)
there is no one place where this information is available. Over a five year period I spent
hundreds of hours pouring over literally hundreds of websites -- they are not all listed here,
just the main sites. One thing I did do was search on both Yahoo! and Google for every
name in this book. References to individuals and families might have been on 5, 10 or 20 or
more websites; literally just a sentence here and a fact there (such was the case with the
Touchet's, among many others) -- very little of it was ever categorized or identified as being
Czech or Slovak.
I also used the internet for much background and historical information, such as the
history of Czechs and Slovaks in both Europe and America, the history of Louisiana, and the
section on language and names. As anyone who has ever used the Internet for research has
discovered, you must use many variations of a search term to find what you are looking for:
Louisiana Czech, Louisiana Czechs, Czech Louisiana, Czechoslovakians in Louisiana; the
slightest alteration in a search term often turned up a completely different set of results.
Some Internet searches resulted in nothing; looking up "Bohemian Louisiana" brings you only
to sites that are related to the modern English use of the word "bohemian," (except the
Louisiana Czech Museum website and my own site.)
Descendants of the Immigrants
I came into contact with the descendants of Czech and Slovak immigrants in several ways.
In Rapides Parish I met these people as I was involved in organizing the Louisiana Czech
Museum. For the Czechs and Slovaks around the state they contacted me, wanting to share
their family history. Many of the daily and weekly newspapers around the state published the
query letter I sent them or a blurb about this book project: Damon Veach put my query in his
Louisiana Ancestors column in the New Orleans and Baton Rouge papers. Smiley Anders
mentioned my quest in his column in the Baton Rouge Advocate. The Blake Pontchartrain
column in New Orleans Gambit publicized my website and this project. The Cameron Pilot
placed a small article on my efforts to find Slovaks in that parish. The Times of Acadiana
(Lafayette) published my query as a letter to the editor. The Houma Courier posted a brief
blurb about my quest.
Some found me by doing their own search on their family histories -- they found my
website and contacted me. These were mostly descendants who no longer live in Louisiana.
In addition, several Czech and Slovak websites, like bohemica.com; the National Czech and
Slovak Museum and Library in Cedar Rapids, Iowa; and the Czech Center in New York
(operated by the Czech government) put overview articles I wrote or a link on their sites. In
addition, two Czech language newspapers published in America, Americke Listy (published in
Glen Cove, New York) and Ceskoslovenske Noviny (Brooklyn, New York) carried articles on
this subject. Even the Prague Post, an English language newspaper in the Czech Republic,
published something about this project. Each mention resulted in e-mails from either
descendants or others with information.
THIS SECTION IS NOT COMPLETE,
I AM GOING THROUGH ALL MY NOTES TO COMPILE THIS INFORMATION.
Methods
This bibliography presents many sources, the vast majority publicly available. I spent
more than five years looking for this information. Strangely, I can recall only one research trip
to a library, courthouse or archive that resulted in nothing; every other time I found something
-- it was, all surprisingly easy to find. For books, journals and similar items there are the
standard specific citations. For specific stories about events covered in a newspaper I give
specific citations, such as for the Libuse and Kolin post offices and the New Orleans Trade
Mart fracas. However, the name of newspapers or the courthouses that I went to or
collections and archives that I accessed are listed generally. Listing every exact citation of
book and page number of a courthouse record, or page in a newspaper for an obituary, or
page and reel number of the census, and the precise location for some other fact for each
family or individual results in several enormous databases. I created and maintain these.
These will enable anyone interested in looking at the original documents to access them. For
those doing genealogical and other research I am more than happy to share what I have
found.
I do, however, feel that an explanation of how this information was found is necessary.
Chief among them is that as a starting point for my research in the many repositories where
this information is found I asked the person in charge "what information do you have on
Czechs and Slovaks in Louisiana?" Incredibly to me, to a person they not only said "we have
nothing," but many insisted they had nothing. This was true even in the courthouse barely 10
miles from the largest Czech community in the state. In fact, more than a few told me that
there were no Czechs and Slovaks in Louisiana at all.
For those who may desire to eventually write histories of the other admittedly small ethnic
populations in the state (Yugoslavs, Hungarians, Lebanese, Belgians, Syrians, Poles,
Russians, etc.) -- this method will work for you, too. I constantly ran across references to
these other immigrants (those naturalization papers in the Rapides Courthouse contain
dozens of other immigrants) -- this information is out there. Do not be daunted or
discouraged by those who say this information does not exist. There is far more to Louisiana
than just Cajuns, French, Italians, Germans and the American-English. Seek, and you shall
find.
I examined over 800 property records (and a few other documents) in the Rapides Parish
courthouse, from 1913 until the 1940s. The process I used was not much different than what
a professional real estate abstractor uses; and this is standard in every courthouse in
Louisiana (early New Orleans is a special case.) There are two indices - each arranged
roughly alphabetically in a large book about 3 inches thick. One index lists transactions by
"Vendors," or the people and companies that sold land; the other index lists "Vendees," or
those that bought. Essentially, this results in a cross-referenced index system. Each index
has four basic pieces of information: the names of both the buyer and seller, the date of the
transaction, and most importantly -- the number of the book and page for the the actual
document. The eight vendee and eight vendor indices that cover the 35 year period that I
looked at contain thousands of entries -- so one may wonder how I found the Czechs among
them: I already had names from the local histories published, names from the cemeteries and
names from the censuses -- but because Czech names are mostly "unusual" as compared to
the other entries, the names just jumped off the pages at me. When you see a name like
Hlobil, Skodacek or Zdarsky you know they're Czech.
An example of a book and page number is "78-145," and armed with this you can proceed
to the 4" thick "conveyance" books which are stacked (conviently in their own cubby hole)
about 15 high along several aisles. Pull out book 78 and turn to page 145, which is hand
stamped in the upper right hand corner of the page -- and you will find what are really typed
transcriptions of the original signed document -- there is no handwriting in them. They are all
on paper of uniform size and weight; the originals are stored in a secured archival area.
For people in Part One of the book I looked up specific individuals; I knew there were no
larger number of Czechs and Slovaks to search for. I followed the same procedure as in
Rapides Parish. Early New Orleans presents a special case because there is no index to
speak of; though they are working on this problem. Each notary kept his own records;
unfortunately some were lost to fires or floods, or were simply thrown out after a number of
years. What survived is in the New Orleans Notarial Archives; there are millions of
documents. Only a small percentage have been indexed in a searchable database, and
fortunately the records of the notary who the Kohn's used was indexed; I made copies of all
these documents. For others it is impossible to find documents at this point in time.
Beginning in 1900 or so the records of New Orleans were indexed using a system similar to
the other parishes; after 1985 it is all computerized.
For the Czechs on the German Coast in the 1700s I went to the State Archives in Baton
Rouge, where all the originals of the earliest notarial and property records are being gathered
and then microfilmed. If they are not microfilmed yet, they are not available to the public.
However, there is an index of sorts that enabled me to look up the Touchet's and Novak's;
once I found the microfilm page number I simply located that on the reel. I did make copies of
these documents, and these, too, are available for those who wish to examine them.
Obituaries
The Alexandria Town Talk, and most other Louisiana newspapers, are unfortunately not
indexed. The newspapers of only the biggest cities in Louisiana have been mircofilmed.
However, since I knew the dates of death I simply searched the (microfilmed) paper for the
next day or so until I found the obituary; after all, they always appear a day or so after a
person's passing. There is an old fashioned card catalog index of obituaries for New Orleans
in the Loyola Avenue branch of the New Orleans Public Library; it is being put online now.
There are several newspapers that are referenced: Times-Picayune, States-Item, Bee, etc. I
looked up the name of every immigrant who settled in New Orleans and found the citation,
and then looked at the microfilm of the newspaper for the obituaries of those who died in the
city and for which an obituary was published. I made a copy of every obituary and article --
and these are available to those who wish to see them.
With censuses there was also a difference between the way I looked up people in Part
One and in Part Two. For those in the first part I used HeritageQwest -- a website available
through most of the state's public libraries; I used the State Library in Baton Rouge. This
website is searchable by several criteria: name, parish, city, and others: but most importantly
it can be searched by ethnicity. For these Czechs and Slovaks I used these search terms:
Czech, Slovak, Czechoslovakia, Bohemia/Bohemian, Moravia/Moravian and Slovak/Slovakian,
and also Slovakland (after I discovered a few entries with this made up name.) However,
because the census records sometimes listed a Czech or Slovak as coming from Austria,
Austro-Hungary, Hungary, and more rarely, Germany, I searched all these entries too -- the
Czechs and Slovaks were found by looking under the "language" column. Those who spoke
"Czech" "Bohemian" "Moravian" or "Slovakian" were the ones I sought. This website allows
you to see not only a computerized list of the entries, but also an image of the original
document. There was no one search term that brought up everyone I sought.
For Rapides Parish, I turned to the microfilm reels of the census records in the State
Library in Baton Rouge. This was in the days when a census enumerator went door to door --
and thus you can find everyone on a street or road listed one right after the other. Because
all the Czechs settled near each other once I found one I found them all -- they are in the
reels marked "Rapides Parish - Ward 9 & 10." Page after page are filled with the entries for
the Czech families; about 20 pages each for both the 1920 and 1930 censuses. There were
no Czechs prior to 1914, so I used HeritageQwest for earlier years; the 1940 census has not
been released yet. But all of these are also in the HeritagQwest website.
City Directories
City Directories list addresses and occupations for everyone living in a city at a given
date. There were three main repositories of City Directories that I accessed. The Historic
New Orleans Collection has those from the 1800s on microfilm, though only New Orleans had
city directories during this century. I looked at every directory available there for Czech and
Slovak names. It is only after 1900 that there were regularly published city directories; some
cities started later than others. The main branch of the New Orleans public library has the
directories for that city. The State Library in Baton Rouge has those for all the major cities of
the state (New Orleans included.) I was, of course, able then to simply look up the names I
sought in the alphabetical listing within the directory. For the 1900s the system I used was to
start with the earliest existing directory and then look at the succeding directories in five year
increments. The intervening years are almost all identical in the information they present;
where necessary I turned to these directories.
The Internet
The Internet was a wonderful tool for finding information -- but other than the website I
eventually set up myself as an overview of this subject (www.geocities.com/louisianaczech)
there is no one place where this information is available. Over a five year period I spent
hundreds of hours pouring over literally hundreds of websites -- they are not all listed here,
just the main sites. One thing I did do was search on both Yahoo! and Google for every
name in this book. References to individuals and families might have been on 5, 10 or 20 or
more websites; literally just a sentence here and a fact there (such was the case with the
Touchet's, among many others) -- very little of it was ever categorized or identified as being
Czech or Slovak.
I also used the internet for much background and historical information, such as the
history of Czechs and Slovaks in both Europe and America, the history of Louisiana, and the
section on language and names. As anyone who has ever used the Internet for research has
discovered, you must use many variations of a search term to find what you are looking for:
Louisiana Czech, Louisiana Czechs, Czech Louisiana, Czechoslovakians in Louisiana; the
slightest alteration in a search term often turned up a completely different set of results.
Some Internet searches resulted in nothing; looking up "Bohemian Louisiana" brings you only
to sites that are related to the modern English use of the word "bohemian," (except the
Louisiana Czech Museum website and my own site.)
Descendants of the Immigrants
I came into contact with the descendants of Czech and Slovak immigrants in several ways.
In Rapides Parish I met these people as I was involved in organizing the Louisiana Czech
Museum. For the Czechs and Slovaks around the state they contacted me, wanting to share
their family history. Many of the daily and weekly newspapers around the state published the
query letter I sent them or a blurb about this book project: Damon Veach put my query in his
Louisiana Ancestors column in the New Orleans and Baton Rouge papers. Smiley Anders
mentioned my quest in his column in the Baton Rouge Advocate. The Blake Pontchartrain
column in New Orleans Gambit publicized my website and this project. The Cameron Pilot
placed a small article on my efforts to find Slovaks in that parish. The Times of Acadiana
(Lafayette) published my query as a letter to the editor. The Houma Courier posted a brief
blurb about my quest.
Some found me by doing their own search on their family histories -- they found my
website and contacted me. These were mostly descendants who no longer live in Louisiana.
In addition, several Czech and Slovak websites, like bohemica.com; the National Czech and
Slovak Museum and Library in Cedar Rapids, Iowa; and the Czech Center in New York
(operated by the Czech government) put overview articles I wrote or a link on their sites. In
addition, two Czech language newspapers published in America, Americke Listy (published in
Glen Cove, New York) and Ceskoslovenske Noviny (Brooklyn, New York) carried articles on
this subject. Even the Prague Post, an English language newspaper in the Czech Republic,
published something about this project. Each mention resulted in e-mails from either
descendants or others with information.
| A Hidden Impact The Czechs & Slovaks of Louisiana From the 1720s to Today. Bibliography & Sources |
