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Question about Surname country of origin.

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Forgive me if the answer to my question is located elsewhere on this site. I just joined and my cursory search yielded no answers.

Since the people whose surnames I am searching immigrated in the 1890s, though where they came from would now be Czech Republic, they are listed in records as coming from Austria. Is it better to say they they are from Austria or Czech Republic in their listings? Thanks!

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Hello Emily:

As a practical matter for listing your surnames in the CGSI surname database, it really doesn’t matter specifically which ‘European Country’ you list, since these political territories have been changing throughout the past centuries and therefore the entries that people make in the ‘European Country’ field are all over the place, i.e. with a lot of variation—so they are not too reliable/accurate as a whole.

When you are SEARCHING the CGSI surname database it is in your best interest to just leave the ‘European Country’ field blank (i.e. don’t try to drill down/search on a specific country), as this would have the effect of narrowing down your search based on that selection.

What is more important is how you are spelling your surname(s) and the ‘City/village of origin’ and ‘Immigration area (US or other)’so that you maximize the probability that other researchers connect with you.

For example, here is what I did with listing one of my surnames:

Hudec Hudcova

Nyklovice, Vysocina, Moravia Czech Republic

Silver Lake, Mcleod County, MN, USA

For ‘surname’: I included both the masculine (e.g. Hudec) and feminine version (Hudcova) of this surname—since the default search parameter on the CGSI website is ‘contains’, anyone searching for the string ‘Hud’ will find the record. Some people might be uploading and/or searching for one version of their surname or the other, so it is helpful for you to learn all the alternative forms of your surnames in your postings and in your searching.

For ‘City/Village of origin’ I elected to describe my village name in the general form, ‘village name, administrative region, historical region, just in case there is another village with the same name in another part of the country (this is frequently the case in the Czech lands).

Same goes for the ‘Immigration area (US or other)’—I put my entry in the form ‘City, County, state abbreviation, country abbreviation’.

I hope this helps,

Best regards, Tony Kadlec CGSI Corresponding Secretary/Research Coordinator

Hi,

I too have surnames listed either as Bohemia, Austria and Czech. It is confusing. I have tried all 3 different ones and still have not found him on passenger lists. ‘James’ Eskra came over maybe in 1880 but cannot find name at Ellis, Galveston or Baltimore. I am searching for Eskra and Kral peoples. Let me know please if you have any luck with your search.

Never stop !

Beth