Preface    
It was October of 2002 when my daughters and I (MaryAnn Samek Ault) were at my parent's house (while my husband hunted in western North Dakota) when a faint spark ignited the beginning of this book. I thought it would be a "neat" idea to put together a nice little one page family tree that included names and dates of our ancestors to put in my daughter's baby book. Ha!
I remember mom and I going through some old papers and the Bible to fill in the missing pieces. In what seemed like a matter of minutes, we became completely hooked and wanted to find answers to the multitude of questions we had. I felt like a kid again asking my mom a thousand questions - Why? Why? WHY?! !
Fast forward three years, a mess of research folders in Rubbermaid storage con- tainers and 680 pages - and you hold in your hands the answers to many of our questions.
The purpose of the book is to have one central location that includes all of the Ficek, Samek, Stransky, and Zastoupil information that our families have collected to date. The data contained in the book came from several different sources; other family history books, biographies, obituaries, gravestones, newspapers, research papers, Internet sources, certificates, personal research and more.
Our goal is for the book to be a family heirloom that is passed down through the generations so that they too can understand the history of our family.
The scope of the book is customized to include straight blood-line ancestors and descendants of James Frank Samek and Mary Agnes Zastoupil. The book layout provides each ancestor generation with its own chapter. The children of James and Mary each have their own chapter which includes their descendants.
You will note that for all females within the book, the maiden surname is used. This is standard genealogy procedure which our software program supports. From time to time you will see these abbreviations used, "b:" which stands for born, "d:" which stands for died, and "m:" which stands for married.
And lastly, the disclaimer, genealogy is our hobby, not profession. Every effort has been made to include factual information including spellings, dates, locations and such. However, keep in mind that research is only as good as the source, and for as many times as the book has been proofread, it is inevitable that some errors were made. Our apologies in advance.
We hope you enjoy reading this as much as we truly loved putting it together for you. We present to you, "The Ancestors & Descendants of James Frank Samek & Mary Agnes Zastoupil." Enjoy!