"We're all ghosts. We all carry inside of us people who came before us." - Liam Callanan

Let's be Frank...or should I say...Let's be František?

Part 1 of 2

I have seriously struggled with this very simple concept...is it wrong to poke fun of your ancestors from a couple hundred years ago..........if they were dumb asses? Of course, I'm sure that they didn't think they were dumb asses, and that they were just dutifully following traditions. And I know that they couldn't possibly have known that 300 years in the future they'd have an even bigger dumb ass descendent with a computer powered by electricity doing genealogy researching trying to piece their lives together...and then teasing them for naming their children all the same names. But this pretty much sums up this post I am typing right now. They clearly loved the names František and Anna.

In all fairness though, it wasn't just the people in Bohemia who would give all their children the same names. I'm battling with this same thing with my Mother's Italian ancestors. Most of them were named Giuseppe. My head could explode if I come across one more. It's exceptionally difficult to do research when everyone has the same name. When I find info on Giuseppe Medica, I have no idea which one of the 87 Giuseppe Medicas the information applies to...or maybe there's really 88 Giuseppe Medicas?

And no, I'm not exaggerating. Here's a screen shot of the search I just did for Giuseppe Medica in my Italian genealogy tree...and there are 87 Giuseppe Medicas so far. And this blog post is about my Czech ancestors doing the same thing..so let's start building our family tree.

John Lutovsky & his Children Frank & Anna

Let's start with John Lutovsky (born 1863) since he was the first Lutovsky to emigrate from Bohemia. John had 16 children (generation 0), two of which were named Ann (as I explained in an earlier post. The first Ann passed away), and a son named Frank, which is the American version of František. I don't really know at this point whether Frank was actually named Frank or František, since North Dakota has no record of Frank's birth.

Birth registrations became a law in 1893 in North Dakota, however, the law was repealed and not re-enacted until 1899. In these early years the registration was poorly done and not a lot of people were in compliance. Most births started to be recorded around 1908, but it wasn't until the 1920's that birth registrations became about 90% complete. (Also, if you click on any of these graphics, a larger one will appear.)

John Lutovsky with his children, Frank & Anna,  from Generation
0, and his Brother & Sisters, also named František & Anna

Side Note: As you have probably noticed, the surname Lutovsky in Bohemia is spelled slightly differently than the Americanized version that we all know today. Surnames in Czech Republic are gender specific. The suffixes are altered for females, so you know the gender of the person just by looking at the last name. Female Lutovskys' surnames are Lutovská and males are Lutovský, with an accent over the y, but I will cover this more in a future post.

John is one of six siblings. Two of his siblings died as children, and then he also has two half-siblings. John's Mother died young, at age 54, so his Father, also named Jan, married his 2nd wife (who was 21 years younger than his 1st wife) three months after his 1st wife's death. And they had two children together.

John's sister who didn't make it was named Anna, so the next child born was also named Anna. And of course he had a Brother named František.

The red heart above shows the marriage between František
Lutovský and Anna Lutovská...and two of their children,
František and Anna. Nothing confusing about this family tree.

John's Brother František got  married. Guess what his wife's name  was? If you guessed Anna Lutovsky (with

Lutovsky being her maiden name), then you are correct!

Two years after František and Anna were married, Anna gave birth to their first daughter, who was named...wait for it...Anna! And a son 4 years later, who they named...Yes!...František! They had two other children also, but weren't named either František or Anna, so really, we don't care about them here.

So, who is this new Anna Lutovsky, bride of František Lutovsky? I did more research (and still have a lot more to do to unravel this mystery) and I discovered something so remarkable that it's unbelievable. The parent's of Frantisek's bride, Anna Lutovsky, are none other than another František Lutovsky and Anna Lutovsky (Lutovsky being her Mother's maiden name also). Like the saying..."truth is stranger than fiction." So, two František/Anna, František/Anna Lutovsky/Lutovsky marriages in a row.

The above graphic shows the parents of Anna Lutovsky,
who are another Frantisek Lutovsky and Anna Lutovsky.
Both couples are marked with a red heart.

I'm curious to know how many arms did the children of František and Anna have....like six? You're probably thinking which František and Anna are you referring to? I'm talking about the František and Anna who each only had 5 arms here. And in my next post....Part II of this post, I'll be introducing you to another Frank & Anna marriage here in the USA!

The Anna Lutovsky who married Frantisek, the Brother of John Lutovsky, was born in Slapy, house #27. The Father of this Anna, the Frantisek Lutovsky born in 1840, was born in Slapy, house #12, butt then moved to house #27 at some point in his life prior to his children being born. His wife, Anna Lutovsky, was born in Slapy, house #30. This is very interesting given that in 1932 the village of Slapy had grown to 44 houses, as I have mentioned in the previous post.

So, the next step in research would be to find both sets of parents for František and Anna, (meaning the parents of Anna Lutovsky, who married the František who is the Brother of John Lutovsky) which I have done, and luckily, none of them are another František and Anna combo. However, František's Mother was named Anna Podrhazská, so once she married her husband Jozef Lutovsky, then she became another Anna Lutovsky, which is good because it would be a shame to ever see a generation of Lutovsky without most of the women being named Anna...and the guys František.

Jozef's parents were a bit of a shock. I couldn't imagine that I would stumble on another Lutovsky/Lutovsky marriage....but here we go again...another Lutovsky/Lutovsky marriage. His Father was Jakub Lutovsky, who married another woman named Anna Lutovsky (and just to clarify...Lutovsky was her maiden name also). Does everyone have this straight? Simple...right? It's easy to follow...Out of 4 generations in a row of women named Anna, and 3 out of the 4 generations being Anna Lutovskys, all 4 generations of Annas married Lutovsky men. And only one of the Annas wasn't an Anna Lutovsky marrying another Lutovsky. So, two out of the three generations of Anna Lutovskys married men named František Lutovsky. Now that I've made this easy to understand, let's move on.

This branch of the tree shows the 3 out of the 4

generations of Lutovskys marrying other Lutovskys.

Each marriage is depicted with a pink heart.

This last graphic on the left shows the unbelievable trend that we can see in the late 1700's up until the mid 1800's ...Lutovskys marrying other Lutovskys. Three out of the four generations of Anna Lutovskys have married men with the surname Lutovsky as I clearly explained above. The good news is none of us are descendants of that branch of the tree! And in fact, given all these facts now laid out before us with all this new information, I think this officially makes us the normal ones. Did anyone ever think they would hear that? "We're the normal ones?" We are the normal branch of the Lutovsky tree.

These aren't the only Františeks and Annas in our family tree. There are many others, and I have no doubt there will be many more.

Just one last note: I have mentioned in another post that Latin had an influence on Czech society since Bohemia was an Imperial State of the Holy Roman Empire until 1806. The František listed above, who was born in 1840 and died in 1918 and married to one of the many Anna Lutovskys, was actually named "Franciscus Seraphinus Lutovsky." That's a name with a heavy Latin influence...but he went by František.

Luckily, none of our current generations have named any kids Frank or Anna. I think there should be a embargo on those two names. It makes genealogy research highly complicated and sometimes seems nearly impossible. What I would give for one completely unique or unusual name...like Potato Head Lutovsky. Why didn't anyone use that name? I'm sure you're thinking don't be stupid. Nobody in Bohemia would have named their child Potato Head since that's an English name. And if you are thinking that, you are correct. The name in the Czech language would have been Potato Headska. Moving forward, I think any Lutovsky who is going to have a baby should run the name past me to make sure that we're not duplicating names anymore. And then I can remind them that Potato Headska Lutovsky is still available.

The naming of children in Czech Republic is a very different process actually, to how we name children in the US. And I will be covering that in another blog post.