An excellent resource for those just getting started in Czech genealogy is the Czech Genealogy for Beginners blog.

Here is a post everybody should read from the site. It answers the following questions about house numbers:

- When did house numbering begin and why?

- How were house numbers first given?

- How did the systems change over time?

- How frequent were house renumberings and how did that work?

- How can I know which house number I'm looking at?

I have personally wondered this, and posed this same question to many different people both in the United States and abroad. 

It seems that the answer is, "Not traditionally, no. This is more of a Protestant tradition."

But there are exceptions. On a visit to NCSML I was allowed to look at the stacks in the back of the library, and I found a Czech prayer book with a written genealogy in it.

Perhaps we can discover whose it is?

Or perhaps you have more insight into this issue?

If you've been to Prague, most likely you've been to St. Vitus Cathedral (I mean, it's rated #1 of 1,220 things to do in Prague on Trip Advisor for a reason). It's a prominent historical and religious site worth seeing for the art, majesty, culture, and experience.

Here is a photo of some of the stained glass (though it's not by a long shot the most popular piece of stained glass art in the place; that spot is probably reserved for the masterwork of Mucha which you can look at here).

When I was in Prague, I tried to take the best photo that I could of some of the stained glass.

Somebody on Wikipedia took a much better photo.

Each of these represents an important figure in Catholic iconography and culture. It is worth knowing a little bit more about each of them. Here's a place you might like to start about Svatý František z Assisi, Svatý Petr, and Svatá Alžbětá. If you are using the Chrome browser, you can right click and these Czech Wikipedia articles will give you a translation to English. You'll probably be interested to note that they are not exactly the same as the English articles; if you have Czech ancestors, there's no doubt that you have at least one ancestor named František. Why not learn more about the history of the name?

In Czech, the abbreviation for Saint is not "St." but "Sv." - which is very important general knowledge to have when reading the land records!