BERNI RULA – 1654

Prokosch Ancestry-BERNI RULA, 1654

Up to this point, the PROKOSCH surname has been tracked back to 1680 in the Village of Trohatin, (Drahotin, CZ), in the Province of Bohemia in the Austrian Empire.

Attached are two pages from the BERNI RULA, 1654, Plzensky II for the parish Drahotin or also known as Berni Rula von Drahotin (Trachotino).  The BERNI RULA, 1654 is a written alphabetical name list/index of Bohemian inhabitants whom had paid taxes.  It contains a total of 183,000 records. This is the earliest record that I have found to date of the Prokosch family.  So after some transcribing and translating, this is what is left.

Surname	Progos (with “v” over the s)*	Progos (with “v” over the s)
First Name	Vaclav	Jan
Village	Drahotin	Drahotin
Occupation	“chalupnici” (cottager, home owner)	“sedlaci” (large farmer, settler)
Roli maji in strich. (field, land)*	6 (4.3 Acres)	16 (11.4 Acres)
Osivaji (seed) zimu (winter)	3	8
Osivaji (seed) jaro (spring)	3	6
Strich Potahu (horse & cart/cow & cart)	2	5
Kravy (cow)	0	3
Jalovice (calf)	2	8
Ovec (sheep)	1	6
Svine (swine)	3	11

1). Vaclav Progoff, my researchers believe the double ff is a typo and that the publisher of the Berni Books, made an error in transcription from the original records.  In the old script records the V over the S looks like a ff.

2). In the Berni Rula von Drahotin (Trachotino), it is listed an Jan Progos (with v over the s) so once translated into German language, Progosch, and Prokoš (Prokosch)

3).  An old field measurement, 2877.32 square meters or in theory a unit of dry capacity about 93.5829 liters, stricken measure.   In heaped measure, 107.6 liters of seed…

4). There is another – Prokoš (Prokosch) shown in Mantov, Chotěšov (Chotesov) domain in Pilsen area.  I need to research further, likely a cousin.

5). Other occupations: Za = Zahradnici (gardener), Ro = Rolnici (small-farmer), Ch = Chalupnici (house-owner), Se = Sedlaci  (larger-farmer), Ho = Hospodar (innkeaper), So = Sousedi (neighbouring)

There is an earlier, 1651 Census (List of Souls). This census listed all people (man, wife, child, maid, servants, menial labors), religion, age, occupation.

The 1651 Census (two books) from the Plzen district has no mention of Drahotin (Trohatin) and no one is alive to explain why the village was omitted.