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Welcome at Podoby předků (i.e. ”faces of the ancestors”), the lab of the Czech photogenealogy! Most of the site is only in Czech so far. However, you don’t need to understand much of it to find your way around here.

The idea is pretty simple: bringing old photographs back to those who care about them. In most cases, that is family: the descendants of the people depicted. We also think of other people concerned with history and genealogy, though.

Our focus is on the 19th and early 20th century photographs of people living in what is now Czech Republic (formerly Czechoslovakia, and, before that, the Austro-Hungarian Empire). Given the country’s history, this also involves an amount of German and Slovak inhabitants. Because of the later emigration processes, many descendants of the original persons may have ended up elsewhere in Europe or world.

We work to find and offer our customers the portraits of as many people as possible, and thereby cover some of their ancestors and other people of interest. Some are available as originals (carte de visite, cabinet cards), others in an e-copy (here the price is universal, 12 € per photo). Our complete offer in a text form can be found HERE. The offer so far only covers a small fraction of the past Czech population, and there is a considerable bias in favor of higher socioeconomic classes, as well as in favor of men.

When searching the offer, note the peculiarities of the Czech writing: Accented letters are separate entities in text search; the letters with “háček” (such as “č”, “ř”) come right after their non-accented variant in the alphabet, wheres vertical accent (such as in “á”, “í”) and “kroužek” (in “ů”) does not influence the order of the letter. Unlike in English, “ch” comes only after “h”. -ová is the most usual female suffix.

The main principle of our work is: we convey whatever information we have on the photo in question; you and only you decide whether the person is the one you are looking for.

As another project, we’re working on a catalogue of the Czech Carte-de-Visite photography from the early photographical era. We also offer some CdV material from today’s Austria and Germany.

With questions and orders, you can reach us at:

foto@podoby-predku.cz