Chart | Marriage | Naturalization | Death| Census

Immigrants from Bohemia. Earliest persons of this line.

These narrative reports include the source information for Jacob Dvorak and Mary Becnar

Chart

Proof that Jacob Dvorak married Mary Becnar

These baptism records say that Jacob Dvorak and Mary Becnar, his wife, are the parents of the person who is being baptized, and that the child is their legitimate son. Jacob is described as “stone mason of this parish.” Both records are from St. John Nepomuk, St. Louis, Missouri. (Notice the diacritical marks on the names. These are Czech language marks.)

The godparents of both boys were John Dvorak and his wife, Mary Lenz. So, there is a very close relationship between these two couples. Perhaps Jacob Dvorak and John Dvorak were brothers or cousins. I have no evidence of the relationship. Someone needs to go to Europe and find the records!

1857 Baptism of son John

St. John Nepomuk, St. Louis, Missouri
upper right corner
(film 008198618, image 34)

1860 Baptism of son Wenceslaus (William)

St. John Nepomuk, St. Louis, Missouri
upper right corner
(film 008198618, image 84)

1876 Naturalization of Jacob Dvorak

(film 007787200, image 3635)

1884 Death of Jacob Dvorak

St. Louis, Missouri
line 5
He was 67, occupation stone mason, cemetery New Picker.

1893 Death of Mary Dvorak

Death record of Mary Dvorak

St. Louis, Missouri
number 7973

1893 Burial record of Mary Dvorak

St. John Nepomuk, St. Louis, Missouri
number 65
(film 008132931, image 53)

Census Records

Four census records, and the last name is spelled incorrectly in all of them! These records were extremely difficult to find. The index to the census has a soundex feature that is supposed to help the searcher to locate common misspellings. However, for “Dvorak,” which sounds like “Tworschak” when pronounced by a Czech speaker, the search engine fails. I knew the family must be in that neighborhood of St. Louis because I had found the baptism records of St. John Nepomuk. They lived there since about 1857. To find them in the census I looked at every family in St. Louis with parents born in Bohemia. I finally found them by matching the names and ages of the children with the baptism records.

1860 Census

The name is Wureak.
Jacob is a stone mason. There are five children, including John, the youngest, who is three years old. Everyone was born in Bohemia, according to the census taker. The two oldest children have jobs. There is a pretty big age gap between John and his siblings. That suggests that Jacob and his wife might have been separated for a while or that there may have been children who died. (There is a baptism record for John from 1857 that makes it certain that he was born in Missouri.)
lines 1-7

1870 Census, page 1

The name is Dworak
lines 39-40

1870 Census, page 2

The name is Dworak
lines 1-4

1880 Census

The name is Dvorack
lines 43-46