The emancipation of the peasants of Silesia was set in motion by the Oktoberedikt of 1807. This edict brought many reforms which abolished the feudal system.  It freed the peasants as of St. Martin’s Day (November 11), 1810.  The emancipation set aside servile or compulsory labor and services of the peasant class.  Those peasants who did […]

While searching for my roots I discovered that eleven of my ancestors were on the BEN NEVIS that brought the large immigration of Wends to Texas in 1854.  There were seven on my father’s (Otto Biar) side and four on my mother’s (Lydia Biar, nee Moerbe) side. Three of the seven ancestor’s on my paternal

It is a pity that so much of the history written about the borderland between Slavs and Germans is steeped in bias and prejudice.  There were no early Slavic historians. Much of the early history of the Slavs was written by Germanic writers.  Since Germany was not a  homogenous nation, the early writers represented Germanic

Early German and Slavic tribes did not know the art of construction with brick and stone as the Romans did, but used wood.  Later on as wood became scarce a method usually referred to as “HALF-TIMBERED” construction was employed. In England it is also known as “WATTLE AND DAUB” construction and in Germany it is

Nearly all information for this article was taken from Die Ortsname der Oberlausitz (Place Names of Upper Lusatia) by Jan Meschang. (Please note that throughout this article the German Umlaut is used.  This simply means that quite often the diacritical mark (“) appears over the vowels a, o and u to indicate umlauts.  It would

The practice of assuming other surnames (aliases) by some of our Wendish or Sorbian ancestors in Lusatia makes research rather difficult at times. An example of an entry in the records that indicates an alias is “Jakob Dzick genannt Mitschke.”  It simply means that Jakob Dzick assumed the surename Mitschke.  In this case the surname

Besides written records, onomastics ( the science and study of the origins and forms of proper names of persons and places)  may be used to study and interpret the historical, linguistic and cultural development of an area.  Slavic tribes living in isolation fostered dialects, whose particularisms were reflected in names.  As tribes moved to new

There is some evidence that the mission of Saints Cyril and Methodius (born in Thessalonica in the 820s), the Apostles to the Slavs, reached the Bautzen area.  Their mission of evangelization, in the latter part of the ninth century, took them to Great Moravia, which, at that time, included Bohemia and other central European territory. 

Archaeological discoveries in Lusatia and surrounding territory have produced many artifacts and much valuable information of the early Sorbian tribes and their culture.  It appears certain that additional discoveries will yield many more artifacts and information.  Sites of old medieval fortifications appear to have the greatest potential. Prior to the Frankish conflicts the Sorbian tribes

The villages in which our ancestors lived in Lusatia were sites of manors.  These manors, or landed-estates, were in possession of noblemen for many generations. The manorial system in Lusatia began as soon as the Sorbs lost their independence.  Armed attacks against the Sorbs started in 806 under Charles the Great (Charlemagne) of the Franks