As we were driving out of Telecí, Jan made a turn up a country lane. “Let me show you a tree that I’m sure your grandparents knew well.”
We walked up a path and around a house, and beheld the Lukas Singing Linden Tree.
“This tree is over 700 years old. So I’m sure your grandparents knew this tree.”
The tree was spectacular, and the story intriguing.
The first story is why the tree is “singing”. It’s a bit long, but it also refers to the time of the Patent of Toleration. So I’ve included the whole story. Read on.
The second story may be more interesting to us. The tree was named after Joseph Lukás, of the old Lukás family of Teleci.
And we can be pretty sure Jan was correct when he said our grandparents knew this tree. Why?
Because the Teply and Lukas families had lots of intermarriages and births.
As I research and find Teply citations, I add them to a spreadsheet. Later I can search, filter, and sort to extract interesting data. Here an excerpt from that spreadsheet.
It shows relationships between Teply and Lukas families around Teleci. There are a lot. And notice that Teplys also lived at house 16 in late 1700s.
Note
Here’s a good web site hosted by the Dvorak family, current owners of the land where the tree is located. Click on “The Lukas Family” to see an interesting history of their family and marriages.
https://zpivajici-lipa.webnode.cz/
Sources
- https://zpivajici-lipa.webnode.cz/
- Old photo of Singing Linden Tree – 1920 – fotographie.cz
- Photos – Mark Jarvis – October 2019
Family Nibbles 
I liked the Singing Linden Tree story. I’m betting that is the true origin of the name.
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I have a family Bible dated 1807 and it has roots growing through it from having been buried to protect it from confiscation.
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Amazing. Are there any family people written in the Bible?
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