At last! Pustá Rybná. The goal of our pilgrimage. The documented location of our Teplys since 1600s.
I’m going to write some Pustá Rybná nibbles, just to get you interested.
Pustá Rybná is a charming village, set in hills and woodlands.
It’s a bit isolated, situated off the main road from Borová to Telecí.
Pustá Rybná includes some suburbs – tiny hamlets of less than a dozen houses. These include Kobylí, Betlém, Blatina and Světy.
Nibble 1: First mention of Pustá Rybná is 1392
From Wikipedia, the first written mention of the village dates to around 1400.
Pustá Rybná was owned in part by the royal town of Polička and in part by the Rychmburk castle in the village of Předhradí.
Nibble 2: Our First Teply citation is 1653
Our first documented family citation is 1653, when Jan was born to Vaclav and Vichla Teply. Vaclav and Vichla were likely born around 1630.
From the early citations, it seems there were two Teply families. They were probably from a common family earlier than 1650. Over the next 200 years, the Teply families stayed in the area and propagated.
Nibble 3: Teply was the most common name – by far
By 1829, Teply was the most common name in the village. Pustá Rybná and its suburbs had a population of about 1000. And about 140 were Teplys!
Can you imagine if there were 140 Teplys in Solomon, Kansas, or Lake Quivira, Kansas?
Nibble 4: Teply didn’t even make the Top 15 in other villages
Talk about an isolated village. The Teplys stayed home and did their births, marriages, and deaths in Pustá Rybná.
Nibble 5: There’s trouble brewing
The average age was low – 29 years. One third of the population was younger than 15.
The share of farmers was 19 percent, cottagers 32 percent and paupers 32 percent.
In each house two or three families lived together, mostly in two rooms only.
My earlier sentence about a charming village would ring hollow in 1829.
Nibble 6: Not many people or Teplys remain today
Whereas the population of Pustá Rybná environs in 1829 was about 1000, today it’s about 250.
And today Teply is less common.
Read these papers
Here are two papers by Karel Kysilka. They’re short. And they’re great.
They contain almost everything we want to know about village life in 1800s Polička area. You will learn a lot.
- Demographic and Social Structure of the South-west Polička Region Before the First Emigration Wave to the USA in the 1850’s
- List of Inhabitants of Villages on the Municipal Domain of the City of Policka From 1829
I hope you’re interested…
I’ll be writing a lot more about Pustá Rybná.
Sources
- Nibble 1: https://cs.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pustá_Rybná
- Nibble 1: Artwork of farming – Golden Crown school, classroom aid from 18th century, picture of agricultural work
- Nibble 2: Birth – Jan Teply birth – Zamrsk Archives, Czech Republic – s. 1652 – p. 40 – i. 24 – r. 2
- Nibble 3 and 4: Demographic and Social Structure of the South-west Polička Region Before the First Emigration Wave to the USA in the 1850’s – Karel Kysilka – 2003
- Nibble 5 and 6: List of Inhabitants of Villages on the Municipal Domain of the City of Policka From 1829 – Karel Kysilka – 1999
- Nibble 5 – Photo of family with children – Provincial Archives of New Brunswick Heritage Resources Saint John collection: P338-79
- Photos – Mark Jarvis – October 2019
Family Nibbles 