Background

In 1783, a census was conducted of the Jews of Bohemia (outside of Prague). The census for each district (other than the Elbogen district, which is missing) has been indexed and published by Prof. Ivana Ebelova, and is available online from http://pvh.ff.cuni.cz/soupisy.htm. The index is searchable on JewishGen with links to the district census (which is a searchable pdf). In the census pdf, you will find the town names, which are not yet included in this searchable index. The entries in the pdf also include the marital status, number of children, occupation and amount of tax paid.

In 1783, most Bohemian Jews outside of Prague did not use surnames, so their second names are mostly patronymics (the first name of the father). Almost all of the entries are for male heads of household, but there may be some widowed women listed with the second name being the name of the deceased husband. Occasionally there are three names listed, which likely means that either the son or the father had a double name, but it is difficult to determine which one.

This collection includes 7,288 records.

For further information, please contact: E. Randol Schoenberg.

Searching the Database

This database can be searched via the JewishGen Austria-Czech Database or the JewishGen Unified Search