Finding an Official, Present-day Village Website
Finding an Official, Present-day Village Website
Applies to: Primarily useful for present-day Slovak and Czech Republics
https://citypopulation.de/en/europe/
The web is an amazing resource once you get a handle on how to ride it. Once you’ve found your village name, it’s sometimes useful, and at least interesting, to see what’s going on in your tiny village today. Most all administrative districts have their own official website. Teeny-tiny villages are often grouped into small collections of nearby villages, It’s more effective than having an administration for every small hamlet. So, don’t be distressed if you can’t find your village called out by name, ind one close by. Bigger towns and cities have their own sites of course. The content varies depending on how much effort the village put into it, but you can often find nice little gems of information.
In the bad old days, I’d go searching for village websites one by one. Today, I stumbled across a useful resource which already has all the official village web site links. It works for Czech and Slovak Republics and Ukraine.
To use it, start here:
https://citypopulation.de/en/europe/
Select your country. Then just enter the present-day village name into the search box. Or just scroll down , select your region and view the list of villages. For the Presov district of Slovakia: https://citypopulation.de/en/slovakia/presovskykraj/ For the village, right below the major town statistics, you’ll see a link for “Official Website”. Click on it. It will take you to whatever the official/government website for the village. For my village of Zboj, it takes me here: https://www.zboj.sk/ Remember, it’s going to be in the local language, so use Google Chrome to translate.
While most village websites are directed towards residents, you often find gems that are useful to genealogical researchers. One of the most useful sections, if included is a section on history. It’s usually only a few paragraphs in length, but you can be sure it’s been vetted by the locals.
Some villages, like many I’ve found in Ukraine are in utter turmoil and may redirect you to a state-run web page. Sad but understandable.
I’m looking forward to hearing from those who’ve tried this site about their experience with it and useful tips, tricks and corrections. Good Luck! Bill Tarkulich