Background

In 1726, due the order of the Habsburg ruler Charles VI, the number of Jewish families was limited by quota to 8,541 in Bohemia and 5,106 in Moravia. To enforce this quota (or "numerus clausus"), a so-called "Familianten" order was issued. According to this order, only the first-born son of each Jewish family was given permission to marry (called a "copulatio consensus"). The permits could also be sold if there were no son to inherit them. The Familianten order was in force until 1848. As a result, many Jews who could not obtain marriage permits emigrated from Bohemia and Moravia. For example, by 1900 almost half of the Jews in Hungary were of Bohemian or Moravian descent.

One other result of the Familianten laws was that the government kept very good records of which families lived in which towns. The list of Familianten were collected in the Book of Jewish Familianten (also called "Mannschaftsbuecher" in Moravia). Records were collected in 1799 and in 1811 and updated until about 1830. Each record comprised the name of county, registration number of the family in the whole land (based on "copulatio consensus"), the registration number of family in the county (set up in 1725), name of the father, his wife, his sons and a few other family details. These records provide a very good resource for researchers investigating their family histories. For some families, up to three generations are included. The Familianten record books for Bohemia can be accessed at the Czech National Archives. http://www.badatelna.eu/fond/2098/. For Moravia, the surviving books are not collected in one place, but are available from the various regional archives, such as in Brno or Olomouc, or in the Czech National Archives or the Jewish Museum in Prague.

An index of all Bohemian towns with Familianten records in the Czech National Archives is available at http://www.jewishgen.org/austriaczech/familianten.html.

Julius Müller is working on an index of all persons mentioned in the Familianten Books. You can access his site at http://www.toledot.org/kraje.html.

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