Once I found out that the Jelení parish records were online at the Pilsen (or Plzen in Czech) Archives, I headed over to the website, registered, and was all excited, thinking this was the big break. And it was, in a way. There was just one problem. The Jelení books were online, but the birth books (so far) only go up to 1887. Emma was born in 1892. Given that this was two months before Christmas, I was a little frustrated, to say the least, but upon some closer checking and e-mailing some of the archivists, I found out that the book I need, Jelení 22, exists, but only recently arrived at the archives and is still being filmed. That meant finding Emma's birth record, and those of her siblings, was put on hold for the time being, so I got a little bored, let the OCD take over, and set myself a mini-project.
It turns out that there are a LOT of Lihls in the Neuhaus/Hirschenstand area, so I decided to write down every Lihl in the books online by household (because the parish priests were wonderful and put the house numbers next to birth, marriage, and death entries), so that when I finally got the names of Emma's parents, I'd have her family back to roughly 1785. I could also see Emma's cousins, how all the Lihls were related, etc. Is it OCD? Sure, but so be it. It's also helping me stay really organised, and as part of this project is to see if Oma has any cousins still there, it works. I'm currently organising it into a database, to make it even easier on me. Ah, the practical benefits of OCD...:-)
Another good thing about the parish records, at least the Jelení ones, is that in the birth records, the priests usually added when that child was married and to whom, and frequently, when they died. It means that in one entry, you have most of a person's life, which makes research much easier. They also usually have an index in the back of each book. There are decided benefits to Austro-German bureaucracy and efficiency, I can assure you.
So now, I'm back to the waiting game. Once Jelení 22 is online, I can grab the records I need, find out about Oma's aunts and uncles, and get to work tracking down her cousins. Should be quite an adventure.
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