Číhalín
Číhalín aerial view in 1999.
Číhalín is a municipality and village in Třebíč District in the Vysočina Region of the Czech Republic. It has about 236 inhabitants. The first written mention of Číhalín dates from 1538, when the village was mentioned in an orphan book.
From the first mentions, Číhalín belonged to the monastery in Třebíč and subsequently to the estate in Třebíč. In 1556, Třebíč, including Číhalín, belonged to the Pernštejn family , later Třebíč belonged to Burian Osovské from Doubravice , his son Smil, and subsequently to the Valdštejn family , who owned the Třebíč estate until 1945.
We had gone to the town of Číhalín to see our ancestral homes for our Černík line as well as the Veselý line. The search for our Černík homesteads was the most disappointing of all our ancestors. Although Jan Černík, our 2nd-great-grandfather had siblings, very little is known about them. Jan’s father, Jakub, also had a large family, but we were not able to locate any of them before or during the visit.
The earliest Černíks lived in Číhalín, and all married others from that town. Jakub married Kateřina Šťávová from Račerovice. It was here that their oldest, Jan, was born. They moved back to Číhalín and had the rest of their children there. Jan would marry Rosalia Veselá of Číhalín, where they had those eight children they brought to America in 1875.
Mirek did his thing and knocked on some doors and found a Jírovský family who was remotely related. They told him of another house where a Veselý family lived and were also related to our Jírovský line. We went to house #3, where our 2nd-great-grandmother, Rosalia Veselá, was born.
They asked us to come back on our last day in The Czech Republic for a BBQ so that we could meet more relatives. Mirek translated for a few older folks, but most of the college-age adults spoke excellent English. As I did with most of the visits, I showed a huge printout of our family tree. By this
time it had been added to, corrected and all marked up. They also came with several additions to contribute to the printout. The food was great, and we drank a lot of Slivovitz.
Most of these relatives were from the Daněk family via our Jírovský line. The others were from the Ferda family via the Veselý line. One of those present at the BBQ was Klára Ferdová, our 4th-cousin-1x removed.
We had a Smith family wedding coming up in two months in Iowa, where Todd Smith and Regan Doyle were to be married.
Klára was heading to America to take some college classes in Kansas. We invited her to come and meet a WHOLE bunch of relatives, which she did.
Some brothers got incredibly drunk at this BBQ and regretted it while driving back to Prague to catch flights.
LOTS of beer bottles.
Daněk and Ferda family photo with our Veselý and Jírovský relatives.
House #3 Číhalín where Rosalia Veselá was born.
House #14 Cíhalín. Jakub Černík’s birthplace.
Our host, Stanislava Daněk.
More empties.
House #41 Cíhalín. Matěj Černík’s birthplace.