September 18, 2011

Below are the notes that Petra created that provides further detail on our families...

In early documents it is writen that Jirík Karas owned 13,5 hectares of fields and 4,5 hectares of woods. Later, in 1838 Josef Karas is listed as a farmer and Jan Karas as a cottager. You will soon get the right information from the archive, but according to financial circumstances of the following generations I suppose that Jan Karas is a more probable ancestor. (Václav Karas (1825) lived in a poor – house and Matej Karas Sr. was registered as a cottager. )

The house 35 in Olešná was a poor - house. There were 4 rooms for four families. This house belongs to history of Karas family – Václav Karas (1825) family, (Matej Karas Sr. was born here), Matej Karas Jr. family and later Antonín Karas Jr. family.

The house 38 in Olešná was the home for cottagers Marie and Matej Karas Sr. The owner of the house was Marie Karasová (Kolárová). She owned ľ of the house. The remaining part belonged to Krupicka family. (The Krupickas lived in the front part of the house.) Matej Karas Jr. left in 1909. America was the most common place to find a better job and life. In Olešná were not good living conditions.

His brother Antonín stayed in his parental home together with his parents, his wife Marie and their children till 1945. Then he sold his part of the house (1/4) with a small piece of land and moved with her family to Trávník in Sudetenland, where they got a house after deported Germans. In 1911 Matej and Marie also took their third son Josef and his wife Marie (Kubícková) in after their wedding. They got one room. Marie Karasová also agreed with a house extension for the newly married couple.

Later Josef moved to Olešná 49. He became a publican in the village. The youngest son Václav took his wife Anastázie to the house 38 too. Anastázie brought money to this family, so she and her husband Václav could afford to built a new house (Olešná 75). Marie Karasová (Kolárová) assigned all her property to her daughter - in- law Anastázie Karasová. Anastázie and Václav took care for Matej and Marie who spent the rest of their life in Olešná 75. After Marie´s death in 1934 Anastázie sold the house 38 with its fields. Matej lived in number 75 till 1938.

Matej Karas Sr. was born on 1 September 1861 in Olešná, he died on 19 September 1938 in Olešná. Marie Karasová (Kolárová) was born on 4 September 1862 in Chotebor, she died on 19 May 1934 in Olešná. They got married on 28 September 1885.

At the present the owners of the houses 35, 38 and 49 are not the Karas´ relatives. Olešná 35 and 38 are occupied by their owners at weekends and holidays, inhabitants in Olešná 49 live there permanently. The house 75 belongs to our family, but nobody lives here.

In Olešná all the Karas´descendants live in four families. Válcav Karas family, Josef Dundácek family, Novotný family( Václav Karas Sr.´s great-granddaughter, Anna Štefánková´s granddaughter) and Doležal family (Josef Karas´great-grandson).