1900 was Czechoslovakia part of Austria.?

Question:Genealogy- On the 1930 census, my grandmother stated her parents were from Czechoslovakia. I found her parents on the 1910 census. They immigrated from Austria to the U.S. about 1897. Why two different answers?

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: Genealogy- On the 1930 census, my grandmother stated her parents were from Czechoslovakia. I found her parents on the 1910 census. They immigrated from Austria to the U.S. about 1897. Why two different answers?

On immigration paperwork, your grandparents didn't give the answers themselves. The ship's purser actually filled out the manifest, using passport/visa information, and then handed it over to the port authority or immigration officials when the ship landed. Because the Empire of Austria-Hungary ruled the land where your great-grandparents lived, they were carrying Austrian passports. That's why they're listed as Austrian on immigration paperwork.

The second part is that the Empire of Austria-Hungary disintegrated after WWI. Then everyone from all of those countries was free to use their own homeland's name as their ethnicity or place of birth. Czechoslovakia was only a united group of lands between the end of WWI and the fall of Communism. It's now 3 different countries. They were never all that friendly, but it was a bit of "economies of scale" that kept them together for convenience. But they were horrible allies.

The last part is that the Census was self-reported. If they wanted to call themselves Czech, Slovak or Czechoslovak, no one cared. The enumerator didn't go back to verify the information, and sometimes the information wasn't even given by the person in question. If they didn't speak English well, or they weren't home, the enumerator could just as easily get information from a friend or neighbor. The accuracy of the information was as good as the knowledge level of the person answering the questions.

Hope it helps clarify the confusion. The real answer is to see if you can identify whether they were Catholic, Orthodox or Muslim, then use ethnic resources in the area where they lived to help you find their hometown.

At that time, Czechoslovakia was still part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire (sometimes called Austria for short).

The following link gets you to a great map of europe in 1900

http://www.euratlas.com/big/big1900.htm

there are numerous places on the web that have "historical" maps you can check for this kind of information.

Yes, Czechoslovakia was part of the Austrian Empire until Nov. 14, 1918.