http://www.boehm-chronik.com/forschung/aufgaben-engl.htm

Guenter,

Bon voyage tomorrow. How exciting your trip sounds.

I found the link above that I found in your message below to be very enlightening about how one can possibly trace ancestors in Europe, not through church records that only go back to the Reformation in the 1400s, but through tax books, court records, minutes of manorial systems, subject lists, soldiers' pay books, mercenary lists, prisoner lists, etc. I also now understand how knights (professional soldiers) went into civil service as castellans (royal military civil servants, with no royal titles, of the sovereigns).

I have gained a clearer understanding of naming systems, etc. from one of your posts recently. I browsed through your website despite the fact it is mostly in German. It is so well organized and informative. I sure wish I could read your notes, or be in your class, about how these landless knights survived under the new feudal manorial systems when they had no wars to go to. I look forward to more information from you in the future.

Regards,

Emilie
Port Orchard, WA

-----Original message-----

Hola amigos de Nuestros Ranchos,

on the 15th of this month we will go again to the homeland of my family to preside among others an international competition of high school students in history from Poland, the Czech Republic and Germany. The title will be: "Silesian Castles and Palaces". The event will take place at Schloss Tannhausen http://www.jedlinka.pl/ . I will represent the family Boehm, owners until the end of World War II in 1945.

My contribution to this event will be:
How did the landless knights (castellan/burgrave) survive in the newly formed administration of the feudal countryside (manorial system/Grundherrschaft) around 1400 in Silesia?
more: http://www.boehm-chronik.com/seminars.htm

We will be back in the beginning of October.

Best regards from Upstate New York,
Guenter Boehm (*1939 in Silesia)