I added some information earlier in the blog about tracing your ancestors, but my wife mentioned I should let people know how I went about tracing mine. So I am going to put down the process I went through.
I first started out by writing down everything I knew about my ancestors. Next I put that information in a family tree program. I used Family Tree Maker, but there are other free ones out there that can be used. One free one that I really like is
MyHeritage Family Tree Builder. The reason I used
Family Tree Maker(FTM) is because it is made by Ancestry.com so it interfaces with their online database. FTM does cost money as well as a membership to Ancestry.com, but once you have your information in FTM and connect to Ancestry.com the software starts searching the online database for possible name matches and when it finds one it flags it in FTM by putting a little green leaf next to the name the match applies to. You can then click the leaf and inspect the hits it found in the database. If you do find the match you can import the information directly from the database into your family tree. That feature is really nice. Even if you do not keep the subscription to Ancestry.com you keep the account you created and FTM continues to monitor the online database and will still put the green leaf next to the names. That way if you decide you want to pay for another month of the subscription( which has a month by month plan) you can at your convenience. OK, enough of my advocacy for Ancestry.com back to the process I went through.
I then went back to my home town to talk with my relatives to find out what they knew. I took along my laptop, camera and scanner and any information and pictures they had I wrote down, scanned in or took pictures of. Just doing that I compiled so much information I could not believe it. You really need to go talk with and write down the information your older living relatives have, because once they are gone so is the information.
I put all that information in FTM and spent next few months searching through ancestry.com and found a lot of information about descendants of my ancestors, that I did not even know about. I was surprised to find out how many relatives I had out there. I then took that information and went and started calling some of those relatives. I called a number of them out of the blue and kind of freaked some of them out, sorry about that. I started out by telling them my name and that I was researching my family history. Some of them I told them what information I had and gave them enough information about me to calm their concerns about this unknown person calling them about their family. Some had to check me out first, some passed my information on to their parents and other where familiar with the last name and had no problem with helping. The nice thing was that eventually everyone I talked to got back to me. That was a huge step in the progression of my research. So again I loaded up my car with my laptop, camera, scanner and old photos my grandmother had kept and passed on to me.
My grandmother did a lot for my research by keeping all the old photos that we stored in the attic of the old farmhouse my great grandfather build and many of use grew up in. She had a lot of very old photos that I had never seen, even my dad and aunts and uncles had never seen. The only bad thing was that not all of them had names of the people in the photos. So I had to try and find out who they were. So with my car loaded up I went around to relatives I knew about and ones I just found out about and started collecting information and photos again. I met for the first time many relatives and reconnected with ones that I had not seen since I was a young boy. The information and new photos was overwhelming. I was able to get names of people in many of the photos, still not all, and received many more original old photos. I scanned in more photos, added pictures of heirlooms passed down and gained many stories about common ancestors. These visits led me to finding and meeting relatives all over Minnesota, Oregon, Wisconsin and Iowa.
I used the phone, e-mail and facebook to connect and talk with the newly discovered relatives. I created a blog, created groups in facebook, joined and created discussion groups in Ancestry.com and used google to search for all information Slechta related. Once I exhausted all these resources I took classes on searching your past at the Minnesota Historical Society, joined the Czech Genealogical Society International, went to county court houses and went to churches ancestors attended. Once I collected all I could find I then used ancestry to find records of my ancestors entering the United States. It was tough, but with tips learned from the classes I took, I was able to find their records.
The key to finding them was a this tip. Take your last name and any information where they may have come and find out how the name might have been spelled by the person recording the spoken name. For example I pronounce my last name Slechta as "Slek ta". I know my ancestors are Czech so I found out my last name in Czech is spelled Šlechta the Š in Czech had the Shhhh sound and the ch has the k sound like in loch, thus pronounced "Shlek ta". So if you look at how it would spelled in other languages by a person hearing it spoken you could get, for example, in German "Schlechte". This led to these variations: Slechta, Šlechta, Schlechta, Schlechta, Szlachta, Schlichta. Then there are spelling mistakes and handwriting interpretation mistakes: Slecta, Sleckta, Shlekta, Shlekta and it goes on. So you need to closely examine all these. Using a soundex is another way to help find a name that was misspelled. The soundex for Slechta is S423. Ancestry has a
soundex generator site that can explain this more. I did prevail and was able to find the lists and how last and first names where spelled and represented in other languages with the help of sites like this one
http://www.behindthename.com.
I was then able to hire a researcher in the Czech Republic to continue find information in the church archives in Prague. With information I gave him he helped me complete my trace back through Sadska and into the Prodebrady Estate where I am today. In that process I was able to connect with a distant relative still living in Sadska. She does not speak or read English, but with the help of google translate we were able to write simple e-mail messages and have then translated to each others language. I was able to have her translate documents I had found online and this helped us to connect our trees together.
So my hopes with posting my research process it to help other Slechta's trace their ancestry back to Sadska or the Prodebrady Estate. If anyone does trace their ancestry back to Sadska (a town) or Podebrady Estate( an area near Sadska with many other towns) please contact me to help link together. Having research done does cost money and the further back you get more it costs. So If I can link us together we can cut down the cost. I do have to thank my brothers and sisters along with their spouses for helping me with the costs of the research without which I could not have gotten back to the earlier 1600's without.
So again if you are researching back please feel free to contact me and I will help with what I can.
Thanks Paul
Born in Waterville, Minnesota, on May 26, 1913, Edna was the daughter of William and Martha (Spitzack) Schwichtenberg. Growing up, she attended country school and the North Morristown Parochial School. Following her schooling, Edna did domestic work for a number of households including the parental home of Bruce Smith (Minnesota's only Heisman Trophy recipient) in Faribault. On November 20, 1933, Edna was married to Joseph F. Slechta, Jr. in Waterville. Following her marriage she worked on the family farm, was a homemaker, a fabulous baker, and later became a loving mother and grandmother. Edna's husband, Joe, passed away in 1974, and in 1988 she was married to Elmer Hebel at St. Canice Catholic Church in Kilkenny. Later in Edna's life, she spent fourteen years working for Livingood Bakery in Waterville. She enjoyed baking, sewing, quilting, and her family. She was an avid card player and loved music and dancing. Edna was an active member of Holy Trinity Catholic Church and was on the Council of Catholic Women (formerly the Rosary Society) for over 70 years. She also spent many years on the funeral committee and with the quilting group.
