Bohemia - Country of Braunau

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Created on Friday, 22 April 2016 16:36
Written by Ursula Holz

 

Research in Bohemia – Braunau area

I want to dedicate the following pages to my ancestors from Bohemia.

The Braunau area (Broumovsko) is loacetd in the Nachod District in the Czech Republic. 

The different parish registers are archived in the State Regional Archives in Zámrsk. They were digitized some time ago and are now online. I have profited from them very much as I could grow trace my family tree over several centuries.

Sincere thanks are given to Roswitha and Klaus Dietze as well as to Ruth Schimann from Heimatkreis Braunau for their support and the supplementary documents. 

Here you find a link to the history to the former District Braunau, Province of the Sudetenland with its towns and communities.

http://www.heimatkreis-braunau.de/frames.htm

 

 

Richter

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Created on Friday, 22 April 2016 16:13
Written by Ursula Holz

 Church St.Margarethen in Schönau, Braunau Area

 

The family of my great-grandmother Anna Richter lived on the border of Lower Silesia in Braunau (Broumov), in the northeastern part of Bohemia.

In the book “Deutscher Familienatlas, Band 5 – Familiennamen nach Beruf und persönlichen Merkmalen” - von Fabian Fahlbusch, Simone Peschke, page 599, you find the following meaning of the name:

“In addition to multiple meanings in the fields of law, government and administration, the term has, especially in the area of today's Saxony, south of Saxony-Anhalt, south of Brandenburg and southern Silesia mainly meant the local representative".

In the Sudetenland, too, the name of the local representative  Richter  was quite popular in the 14th and 15th century, the name Schulze only in the Friedländer Zipfel, in the Braunau Area and in the Breslauer Bistumslande. (Schwarz 1957, 21f).

In the report of the Braunauer Rundbrief 2003-2007, 70/3 by Erich Stenzel  “Aus vergangenen Tagen: Schulzen und Dorfrichter”  we find the following meaning: “Is an authority based on location (castle owner) the local representative appointed by the castle owner was named Richter (= judge) in place of the title Scholze (=mayor), so e.g. in Adersbach”.

Johann (Jan) Rychter is my eldest ancestor known to me so far. In the tax payer register from 1654 for the  District Braunau Johann Richter is named as one of the larger farmers in Ledhuj, Politz on the river Mettau (now Police nad Metuji). That is especially interesting, because this town always had a Czech majority although Politz was located in the Braunau Area. Politz 15 km to the South.

Johannes Richter in the fourth generation, born October 23, 1692 in Ledhuj, married the widow Susanna Nasse from Schönau in the Braunau Area (now Šonov, Broumovsko) in 1725.  This Richter generation can be traced back to the year 1867 in Schönau.

Furthermore, I researched the following side line families:  Opitz (Hermsdorf, Ruppersdorf), Häusler/Heusler (Hermsdorf, Schönau) and Nasse (Schönau).

The research on the family tree will be continued as soon as the parish registers are available digitalized. I would like to come into contact and exchange information with other researchers of the history of the Braunau Area and researchers called Richter. If you have any questions about my research results do not hesitate to mail me.