Mohelnitzky Research

How the town Sedlčany was connected with our Mohelnitzky family.

Long after receiving the will of Vincensius Mohelnicky of Prague in 1999, I was in contact with a third cousin, Markus Mohelnitzky. After many emails going back and forth, Mark wondered if the Antonin Mohelnicky of Sedlčany listed in Vincensius' will could be the father or grandfather of our Anton Mohelnitzky who married Mary Ruskauff.

In December 2006, Mark did some research on the town Sedlčany and discovered that the German name for Sedlčany was "Seltschan" and may have had a phonetic resemblance to Frank Mohr's postcard in which he wrote "Selzan" as being the birthplace of Anton.

At the same time, I was busy trying to locate orphanage records in Milwaukee, and found all three siblings - Anton, Julia and Mary!

In the next few years, research ideas began dwindling. Sure, there were exciting records to be found in the USA (census records, city directories, marriage records, etc), but it seemed as if the parents and grandparents of Anton, Julia and Mary would never be located.

The brick wall tumbled.

I had just joined the Bohemia Mailing List on June 21, 2009, when on August 21, Czech researcher Blanka Lednická had posted a helpful guide for using the Moravian Land Archive in Brno. I asked Blanka some questions about the guide, and she helped me log onto the archives website. When I mentioned I was looking for Mohelnitzky/Mohelnicky in the towns Sedlčany and Mohelnice (Müglitz), Blanka said the Sedlčany records are in the Prague State Regional Archives, and Mohelnice records are in the Land Archives in Opava.

Blanka mentioned that she does professional research in Prague and said she could take a look to see if Mohelnitzky is in the register. At this time, I was not even 50% sure that Anton's family lived in Sedlčany.

Having reached a solid brick wall after many years of research, and not knowing for sure the names of Anton Mohelnitzky's parents or where they lived, the wall went tumbling down on September 16, 2009, when Blanka emailed that she had found the baptism records of not only Anton, but of his two sisters Julie and Mary Mohelnitzky as well. The records were located in Sedlčany church books at the State Regional Archives in Prague.

In a few short weeks, Blanka located many more relatives of Anton, Julia and Mary.

Places in Czech Republic where Mohelnicky names have been found so far are Sedlčany, Přibram, Prague, Mohelnice and Hranice.

Blanka Lednická - Family Research

I was very pleased with the research done by Blanka Lednická and highly recommend her services to others wanting to find their ancestors. The transcriptions and translations to English were very detailed and exact, and each church record included actual images from the books. The research was done quickly and efficiently. Blanka happily answered any questions and was very helpful. The reports were excellent and showed the history of the towns and churches, details of the families, and much more. She also made recordings of how to pronounce my ancestor names and towns - very nice! (Debbie Blau, Wisconsin)