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How to Start Your Czech Family Tree Search Online

Graphic display of a family tree with connections in the MyHeritage interface

Creating a family tree is more accessible today than ever, but it is still a marathon, not a sprint. Arm yourself with patience—Rome wasn’t built in a day!

I have summarized how to get started into 9 steps. I’ll explain how to work with documents, how to interview relatives, and where to look in online vital records. All you need is a computer (though paper works too), a bit of curiosity, and a passion for research. But above all, be prepared to give your brain a real workout.

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Guide Contents:

Quick Start: Your Czech Family Tree in 5 Minutes

My hand-written family tree

No time to read lengthy guides?

Take these 4 steps and have the basics ready today:

1 Sketch 2 Family 3 Documents 4 Online Tree

Practical Example: You find out that your great-grandfather was born in 1892 in Radnice → you find him in the online register → you find his parents → you move back another generation.

Key Advice: WHERE!

The most important piece of information is WHERE, and only then WHEN. Record the place of birth, marriage, and death for every person. Without a location, you won't find anything in the registers.

The Basic Rule: From the Known to the Unknown

Always work backward from yourself into the past. Never jump straight to the 18th century without verified parents, or you will get hopelessly lost.

Tip: Always Record Your Sources

For every name, immediately note where you got the info (e.g., "Aunt Jane" or "Grandma's marriage certificate"). Otherwise, you'll be looking for everything again in a year.

  • Make a quick sketch (even if incomplete)

    Paper and pencil are the best way to start. Draw a family "spider web" of what you know, and you will immediately see where the gaps are.

  • Interview the elders

    Don't just stick to dry facts. Ask about family legends, stories, and past residences. These clues are often key when searching archives.

  • Search the drawers

    Find old birth, marriage, or death certificates. Every piece of paper you find saves weeks of waiting for responses from authorities or tedious scrolling through online records.

  • Start an online family tree

    Transfer your sketch to MyHeritage (user-friendly) or FamilySearch (free). You'll get an overview and stop searching for the same data repeatedly.

Hungry for a deeper investigation?

If you want to dedicate more time to research, continue with the detailed guide below. Step 5: How to correctly keep records and notes from online searches

Step 1: Creating a basic "temporary" family tree on paper

Family tree written on paper

To start, sketch your family tree on paper. Usually, you will know your father, mother, uncles, aunts, grandfathers, and grandmothers—and perhaps great-grandparents. If your parents are living, ask them about other relatives and add them to the same paper. Focus on places and dates of birth, marriage, or death.

Tip for the very beginning:
The most important starting information can be found on the birth, baptismal, or marriage certificates of your oldest living ancestors or your parents. These documents are the keys that will open the doors to a deeper past in the archives.

Step 2: Interviewing living ancestors and relatives

Historical black and white photograph of children from the Řábek family

Take your sketched family tree, documents, and photos and interview the oldest family members again, both close and distant. Carefully record, film, or photograph everything they tell and show you. Any detail can be important. Ask relatives about unknown people in photos or any uncertainties you have in the family tree.

Tip for better memory recall:
Always ask questions from the perspective of the person being interviewed. Instead of asking something complex like “What was your father's brother's name?”, it’s better to ask directly: “What was your uncle's name?”. This helps relatives recall memories much more naturally.

Step 3: Creating a home archive (documents and photos)

Marriage certificate Colorized historical photographs of the Pavlov, Jamrich, and Šupa families

To start, take your sketched family tree—it will be your starting point to help explain connections to relatives.

The foundation is any document available in the family: birth, marriage, and death certificates, purchase agreements, report cards, apprenticeship certificates, or old ID cards. Photocopies or digital versions are perfectly fine.

Similarly, compile a photo archive. Go through old albums and gather photos of ancestors, houses, and significant events. You will often come across photos where you no longer know who they depict—ask the oldest family members and try to identify the people while there is still time. For future research, it is ideal to scan all photos and documents.

Tip for digital organization:
Save everything on your computer in folders organized by surname. Name the files consistently and clearly, for example: 1920-wedding-stanislav-rabek-and-vera-zemanova.webp
For paper photos, write names on the back with a soft pencil.

Step 4: Transferring the family tree to electronic form

Sample hand-drawn family trees and ancestor lists in a notebook

I only kept a paper version of my family tree for my own basic overview. However, once you start getting deeper into history, paper records become complicated. My late relative, Mr. Viktor Kašák Sr., kept such a meticulous, hand-written family tree (see image above)—it is a beautiful memento, but for further research, paper is simply limiting.

Once you have gathered data on paper, it’s time to move it into digital form. Transferring it to a computer isn't just about convenience; it’s your first step toward building a real archive that won't get lost and can be easily supplemented, corrected, and shared. A digital family tree also opens the door to automatic record matching and connecting branches—something our ancestors never dreamed of.


There are many platforms, but for those researching Czech roots, these two are key:

1. MyHeritage (Free up to 250 people) 2. FamilySearch (Free)

1. MyHeritage - The Intuitive Choice

MyHeritage.com has worked best for me due to its intuitive interface and design.

Pro tip for registration:
When you first register on MyHeritage, the system will likely ask for credit card details to activate a "trial version." Don’t enter anything! Simply delete everything in the browser's address bar after the slash (leaving just myheritage.com/) and press Enter. The system will let you into the basic free version without requiring a card.
  • Online Version: You can add up to 250 people for free. Larger trees require a subscription, which unlocks features like Smart Matches (finding matches in other trees) or advanced error checking.
  • MyHeritage Family Tree Builder: If you don't want to pay, you can use this PC program, which is free to download for an unlimited number of people, though without a paid account you lose online synchronization and automatic matches.
  • Collaboration: You can easily invite living relatives to your family tree via email to help with the research.

Benefits of MyHeritage Premium:

  • Smart Matches: Automatic search for matches among billions of profiles from other users.
  • DNA Genealogy: Detailed ethnic origins and searching for genetic relatives.
  • AI Photo Tools: Unlimited colorizing, sharpening, and animating (Deep Nostalgia™) of old photos.
  • Historical Records: Access to billions of documents (census, registers, military) from all over the world.

2. FamilySearch - The Global Free Network

If you are looking for a completely free option for building a tree online, FamilySearch is the best choice.

  • Everything is free: Unlike MyHeritage, there are no limits on the number of people or paid features for tree management.
  • Shared Tree: It works on the principle of one shared global family tree where you can come across data already processed by other researchers about your ancestors.
  • Massive Archive: Directly from your tree, you have access to billions of digitized vital records and documents from around the world, including the Czech Republic and Slovakia.

Step 5: How to correctly keep records and notes from online searches

Records of searched registers from SOA Plzeň and research in the Obsidian program

Without a proper system for records and notes, genealogy becomes chaos. Once you start leafing through registers, you'll forget where you left off and what you've already verified within two hours.

Tip: Record what you DIDN'T find too.
Knowing that a searched ancestor is NOT in a specific register is as valuable as a direct find—it means you'll never have to open that book again, saving you months of wasted effort.

The Golden Rule: Note it down immediately

Before you start searching, install the free note-taking app Obsidian or use Google Sheets. Without a note-taking system, you'll end up browsing the same pages five times.

1. Obsidian (Research Log)

In Obsidian, you don't store data, but a record of your progress. It’s your detective's notebook for the "dirty work."

  • Dead-end Tracking: An entry like „Chválenice 01 - N 1717-1732 / 1-170 searched entire book, Jan Vicherek not found“ is crucial. You never have to open that book again.
  • Save Points: If you have to stop mid-task, write: „Chválenice 01 - N 1717-1732 / 1-145 continue from here“. You'll resume in a second next time.
  • Context: Note observations about handwriting or local details (e.g., „The priest writes 'r' like 'v'“).

2. Google Sheets (Data)

Only clean, verified facts go here. It’s the archive ready for family tree creation.

  • Entry Structure: Event, names, date, village, register number, page/scan and detailed transcription (parents, witnesses, notes).
  • Wedding Entry Example: oo : Martin Řapek + Dorota Šimková (widow Kilpergrová) - May 1, 1787 Nezbavětice 5 / Chválenice 03 / 133 / Martinus filius defuncti Bartolomej Řapek sub Stahlavic, 30-0-0, single, bride: Dorota vidua post defunctum Adalbertum Kilperyn, 30-0-0, widow, witnesses: Antonín Řapek farmhand, Martin Horník farmer from Nezbavetic
  • Benefit: You have everything in one place. Once you transcribe a record like this, you never have to return to the archives for details.
Sample: Řapek Family Tree (Google Sheets)

Step 6: Searching for family trees and relatives on the internet

Sample search for ancestor Bohumil Řábek in the MyHeritage online database

After you transcribe everything your family knows, the real tree-building begins. Use the tools within genealogy portals as well as standard search engines.

Tip:
Don't be afraid to write anything in your online tree! Any observation or scrap of info (e.g., "was supposed to have 3 siblings in Pilsen") has weight and can point you in the right direction later.

Searching on MyHeritage

You can try the Discoveries / Instant Discoveries or Research sections. Finding matches is a good thing—investigate and message other users; it's very likely someone has already entered part of your tree before you.

Watch out for free version limits:
MyHeritage will show you for free that it found a match, but viewing details and confirming the match usually requires a paid subscription. Still, it's a great indicator that records of your ancestor exist in other trees.

Google - The alpha and omega of search

If MyHeritage isn't enough, www.google.com is next.


How to search effectively:

  • Quotes: Put names in quotes for exact matches, e.g., "Řabek".
  • Exclude words: Use a minus sign to filter out bad results, e.g., "Stanislav Řábek" -rabek -jeřábek.
  • Different variations: Search for all variants: Řábek, Řabek, Rabek and female forms (Řábková, Řabeková etc.).
  • Foreign countries: In foreign databases, always search without diacritics.
  • Slovak names: Watch out for differences, e.g., Pavel = Pavol, Ludvík = Ľudovit.
Does this feel like too much meticulous work?

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Step 7: Digitized vital records and documents

Entry in the birth register Radnice near Rokycany – birth of Josef Řábek

Here are links for basic archival searches in the Czech Republic and other useful sites. Many great articles exist about searching registers; just use Google.

Tip for faster research:
Before you start browsing a register page by page, check if the archive offers Indexes (often marked with the letter I). These are alphabetical lists of names for that register. You'll find the name, year, and most importantly the page number (folio), so you can go straight to the record. It saves hours of time.

How to find the correct Czech village and parish

  • Obce ČR - Database of current and historical municipalities in the Czech Republic
  • Heritagefilms.cz - Map portal showing parishes and churches in the Czech Rep.

Registers in digital archives

Warning: Privacy Periods (Active Registers) in the Czech Rep.

In online archives, you won't find everything up to the present day. Due to personal data protection, strict legal periods apply before a register can be digitized and published:

Birth Registers: 100 years
Marriage Registers: 75 years
Death Registers: 30 years

If you are looking for more recent records, they are not in the digital archive but still held at the local registry office. You can only view them there by proving a direct family relationship.

Official Archives in the Czech Republic

  • Prague - Archives of the City of Prague (capital territory)
  • Central Bohemia - SOA Prague (Central Bohemian Region and part of Vysočina)
  • Western Bohemia - SOA Plzeň (Plzeň and Karlovy Vary regions)
  • Northern Bohemia - SOA Litoměřice (Ústí and Liberec regions)
  • Southern Bohemia - SOA Třeboň (South Bohemian region)
  • Eastern Bohemia - SOA Hradec Králové (Hradec Králové and Pardubice regions, part of Vysočina - formerly SOA Zámrsk)
  • Moravia - Moravian Land Archive Brno (South Moravia, Zlín, and part of Vysočina)
  • Silesia - Land Archive in Opava (Moravian-Silesian and Olomouc regions)
  • Matriky.online - unofficial SOA Hradec Králové and MZA Brno (often faster than the official SOA HK)

Other and Foreign Register Sources

Records of historically linked persons - immigrants, soldiers...

General Genealogy

Step 8: Detective Work - When Online Records Aren't Enough

View of a historical register in an archive with a magnifying glass focused on the surname Řábek

If you haven't found your ancestors in the digitized archives from the previous step, don't despair. Either the records aren't online yet, or they fall under privacy periods. At that point, you become a detective who must contact specific authorities.

Tip: Before you go to an office or archive in person, it's best to call or email them first. Check if they still have the specific register book (or if it has been transferred to an archive) and, most importantly, ask if they are willing to search for and provide the data. This saves you a wasted trip and potential disappointment at the counter.

Investigating Registries and Offices

  • Periods: Remember that birth registers younger than 100 years (marriage 75 years, death 30 years) are still stored at the local registry offices.
  • Direct Line: For these "active" registers, the office will only provide info if you prove a direct family line (parents, grandparents). Have birth certificates ready as proof.
  • The Human Factor: At registries, one rule often applies: simply play on their emotions! A personal visit or a polite request over the phone can achieve more than a cold official email.

Step 9: Using AI in Family Tree CreationNew

Illustration of a robot with a magnifying glass reading an entry in a historical birth register using AI

Modern technology gives us tools today that our ancestors would have considered magic. Artificial Intelligence (AI) can be a great helper, but in genealogy, one rule applies: Trust, but verify!

Warning: AI Hallucinations
Never copy a family tree generated by AI without thorough verification! AI has a tendency to invent (hallucinate) data that sounds plausible but is completely false. Always verify every date and name directly in the original digitized register. View AI as your assistant, not an infallible historian.

Where AI can truly help you:

  • Translation and Grammar: AI (e.g., ChatGPT, Gemini, or DeepL) is great for translating Latin, German, or Hungarian terms in registers.
  • Photo Restoration: Tools for colorizing and sharpening old photos (e.g., features on MyHeritage or tools like Remini) can work wonders.
  • Transcription: Specialized tools (like Transkribus) use AI to "read" old handwriting in registers, significantly speeding up transcription.

Conclusion: A few parting words

Building a family tree is a long-distance run—it requires days, weeks, and often years of research. I hope you won't be discouraged by initial setbacks and that this guide has been a useful companion on your journey into the past.

I wish you unflagging endurance, a sharp eye for reading old records, and above all, the joy of discovering your family's history.

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Author: Stanislav Řábek (2013) | Last update: April 29, 2026

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