"Family tree research is one giant step backwards and one giant step forward - usually at the same time." - Unknown

Spotlight on John (Jan) Lutovsky - The Father of Generation 0

Part 2 of 2

I figured John is the most obvious one to focus on first, since he was the first Lutovsky to come to the USA, and he was the first person who I was able to find a birth record for, as seen in the previous post.

Above is the immediate family tree for John with his parents, siblings and half siblings. His Mother died in January of 1875, and three months later his father remarried, as I spoke about in a previous post as well. I pointed out the two siblings who died as children above, and the others look like they all made it to adulthood since they were all married, with the exception of his half-sister Barbora. I haven't found any information on her yet, other than her birth and baptism record, so, I don't know if she lived or died young. I will update any info I find about her once I have more records.

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The graph above shows the infant deaths here in the US
starting in 1800 with 462.9 deaths per 1,000 births, until 2020,
where there are very few deaths these days comparatively. 

The reason why you can't assume that all babies lived during these years is because children dying young was extremely common. In fact, having 4 out of 6 babies live to adulthood is pretty good. I have seen families where only 2 or 3 out of 6 or 8 kids live. Most all of the statistics that I have read regarding infant mortality in the 1800's, are always between 30% and 40% of babies died prior to their 5th birthday. Unfortunately, from all the family trees I have created, I can see those percentages are accurate, and sometimes sadly, much higher.

The child mortality rate here in the US was 462.9 deaths per thousand births in 1800, which was exactly on par with what was happening in Europe in this same time frame. This means that for every thousand babies born in 1800, over 46% did not make it to their 5th birthday. Scarlet Fever was a big cause of premature deaths, as well as Diphtheria, Pneumonia, Dysentery and Tuberculosis. And of course, just a general lack of medicine and hygiene were also big contributors.

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One of the things that is so nice about the details in Czech civil registry records is they help give us a little snap shot into the lives of our ancestors. John, as well as all his siblings above, were born in the little farming village of Lom, House #8. However, his parents weren't from Lom. His Father, also named Jan, was born in Libějice, House #2, in 1828, which is about 1.5 miles from Lom...so that would literally be about 2 to 3 farms from each other. And John's Mother, Anežka was born in Radimovice in 1821, which is about 115 miles away.

This was a bit of a surprise, since 115 miles away was a very long distance before the invention of cars, train service and dating apps. That was also a long way to travel on your donkey, or by ox drawn cart. These little villages didn't have train service to them, due to them being so small. Slapy got a railway station in 1903, but this time frame was still 60 years or so, prior to that.

So, now we can start plotting our ancestors and see who lived where and when. I am going to create and maintain a time line just for our direct line Lutovsky ancestors. If I try and do them plus all their siblings, cousins and other extended family, that would be one massive time time, and hard to follow. So far, in our family tree, this is who I have in it so far, for the direct Lutovsky line.

This part of the tree shows John's Parents, Grandparents & Great Grandparents...taking us back to around mid-1700s in the Lutovsky line.

Here is what we know so far about who lived where and when. We know John and all his siblings were born in, and living in Lom #8 prior to his emigration from Bohemia. Prior to that John's Grandfather Vojtech, was living in Libejice, House #3, in 1805 when he was married and still in 1828 when Jan Sr. was born. I will keep adding updates to the time line below as I get new information.

And just for kicks, the photo below was just sent to my from another Lutovsky who lives in this area. We also don't know if we are related yet or not...but probably we are, and we are working on it. This is a current picture of Lom, Czech Republic. Lom was originally established in 1347.