The family house and land on a map from 1837

One of the many remnants of the Kingdom of Bohemia are maps depicting its vastness. These maps served as the basis for the creation of a stable land registry and show where the family's house stood in a given village, what land the family owned in the village, and which of its members farmed it.

The Vachuška family has its oldest roots in the village of Sedlo, with the earliest mention of the family here dating back to 1642. From 1771 onwards, it is possible to identify the specific house that was the family home. It was Sedlo 12. And Sedlo 12 is one of about fifty houses shown on the preserved map. This house stood in the northern part of the village, and the house that stands on the same site today also has the number 12.

In 1837, which is when the map was drawn, the family of Jakub Vachuška and his wife Marie Magdalena, born Jandová, who was born a few houses away, lived here with their children Jan, Lidmila, Tomáš, Jakub, Veronika, Petronila, Marie Anna, and František Xaver. Veronika probably no longer lived in her family home in 1837, as she had married two years earlier and was certainly living elsewhere with her new husband.

Indicative sketch of the stable cadastre from 1837, part of the village of Sedlo

Map source: Indicative sketches. In: Geoprohlížeč Českého zeměměřického a katastrálního úřadu [online]. Prague: Czech Office for Surveying, Mapping and Cadastre [cited 2025-11-12]. Available from: https://ags.cuzk.cz/archiv/

The same map also shows that twelve larger plots of land in the vicinity of Sedlo were farmed by a member of the family. That member was Jakub Vachuška. Most likely, it was the aforementioned Jakub, husband of Marie and father of eight children. Less likely, it was Jakub's son Jakub.

The 1837 map recorded other plots of land farmed by the Vachuška family in the village of Slatina. According to this map, four larger plots of land in Slatina were farmed by Václav Vachuška in 1837. Since only one Václav Vachuška lived in Slatina around 1837, according to the sources examined, it is easy to determine who he was. It was Václav Vachuška, born in Dobrotice in 1801, husband of Johanna, born Rybáková, from Slatina. In 1837, Václav was already an adult, about 35 years old and the father of at least four children, so there is no doubt that he was the owner of these plots of land.

Indicative sketch of the stable cadastre from 1837, village of Slatina

Determining the house in which the Vachuška family lived in Slatina in 1837 is simple thanks to the map. It was Slatina 10. The name of Václav Vachuška is written at the house with this number, and that year he lived there with his wife Johanna, rozené Rybáková and children Vojtěch, Barbora, Matěj and Marya. The information from the registry offices, unlike the map, does not provide sufficient information to identify which house Václav lived in with his family that year. Their children Vojtěch and Barbora were born in 1824 and 1825 in Slatina 8, in the house where their mother Johanna was born. This reveals the likely story that Václav Vachuška of Dobrotice came to Slatina and lived with his wife Johanna initially in her ancestral home, and there they had two children, Vojtěch and Barbora. Their third child, Matěj, was born in Slatina 28 in 1828 and their fourth child, Marya, was born in Slatina 11 in 1830. Another Slatina-born child in the Vachuška family was not born until 1852. Therefore, it is not possible to say unequivocally from the registry records which house the Vachuška family lived in in 1837. This map does, however, contain this information.

In which house shown on the map from 1837 did your ancestors live? And how much land in the surrounding area did they farm?