Pre-1900 Czech Marek Families of Chicago
This is very much a work in progress.

I am a descendant of Josef Marek and Marie Wolf, who arrived in Chicago about 1880, apparently following their son who had come earlier. There were many Marek families in Chicago before 1900 census, and I think it is highly likely that some of them were related to each other. This web page is an attempt to foster the discover of those connections that may have existed. This main page will contain summarized information about the families, with links to pages and images with supporting information. -- Wesley Johnston

IMPORTANT NOTE: I am using the term Czech, but the families may have been from Slovakia or Moravia. Since Czechoslovakia did not yet exist, I am capturing all the families whose origin was Bohemia or Austria in the census.


Contents
Pre-1900 Czech Marek Families of Chicago

The Earliest Known Mareks in Chicago

I want to stress the word "known" and not just the word "earliest". It is very possible that there were Mareks in Chicago before these but that I do not yet know about them.

I know of only two Marek families who were in Chicago before the 1870 census.


The research steps and their progress

I am doing the research in the following steps, with no particular deadline, since this has to compete with higher priorities.

Note that the spelling of these families in the census are not all "Marek", due to non-Czech census takers writing down whatever spelling they thought they were hearing, but they all appear to be Czech Marek families.

  1. Find all the Czech Marek families in the 1880 Chicago census.
    This step is done and is in a spreadsheet. Click here for the spreadsheet (Excel 2007 format).
    These are these families, listed in order of enumeration district:

  2. Find all the Mareks in online Chicago city directories up to 1900. See how this information fits with the 1880 census information.
    This is done and is included on a separate page. Click here for the web page that shows the images of all the city directory entries.

  3. See if there were any Mareks in the Chicago censuses prior to 1880.
    There were none found in the 1860 census. The earliest are in the 1865 and 1870 censuses.

  4. Find the information in the 1900 census (Chicago or elsewhere) on the 1880 and prior census families.
  5. Find all the Czech Marek families that are new in the 1900 Chicago census (those that were not present in the 1880 census).
  6. Add the information from the Bohemian National Cemetery and Denni Hlasetel obituary indexes.

Related Links - Others

Contact Information

Email Send E-mail to wwjohnston01@yahoo.com

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Last updated December 2, 2020 - Remove postal address

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