Technical problems in the Czech genealogy

The Czech genealogy field suffers for longer time from many technical problems which make prime obstacles to public and professional researchers:

a) Bad quality of microfilms is the final product of the state effort to limit accessibility of original registers to researchers. It is a good idea to protect the national heritage, but researchers should be provided with appropriate readable copies (= microfilms) which could enable them to proceed their work without any considerable obstacles.

b) Lack of study room projectors used for microfilms. Their number is limited. In addition, most of the projectors are in bad conditions or out of service.

c) Insufficient number of places in study rooms requires to book a seat, even a few weeks or months in advance.

d) Inadequate knowledge or willingness of archive staff is the symbol of attitude in the Czech Archives. The same is valid for state clerks, especially at town halls, where newer vital registers are housed, and at cadastral offices. The problem is that laws are explained in many ways. That helps to clerks in making incomprehensible obstacles, usually regarding the access to registers (for data protection), refuse applications for copies of sought documents. Therefore, researchers do not have a large space to do their work as best as they could do.

These problems are contraproductive for the society as the interest in private history and self-education is increasing for the last 13 years.