I have a cup that belonged to my grandmother, and am told it was a wedding gift. The cup is inscribed "PRODANA NEVESTA". I believe NEVESTA is "Bride", but what is PRODANA? Thanks, Marylou Chapman (researching HESSEK and REZNY)

You have many choices depending on the language you use: cs in Hungarian = c^ (č) Slovak sounds like the ch in church cz in Hungarian = c in Slovak sounds like the "ts" in bets However, these are the most likely: Bocskay if it is a Hungarian spelling is pronounced - bow ch kah ee; Slovak spelling Boc^kay (Bočkay) Boczkay if it is a Hungarian spelling is pronounced - bowt skay (or boat shay); Slovak spelling Bockay (this is not a "common" Slovak name). Buchko - bootch koh; Slovak spelling Buc^ko (Bučko) Good luck. Dr. "Q" Donna Przecha wrote: > We finally seem to be settling into a fairly consistent spelling of the > surname we are researching. Can someone tell me how you would pronounce > Bocskay or Boczkay? In the US it became Buchko but pronounced Butch-ko. > > Thanks, > > Donna

Bill Thank you for the great information. I have printed and saved many of your e-mails. Mary Cmar

We finally seem to be settling into a fairly consistent spelling of the surname we are researching. Can someone tell me how you would pronounce Bocskay or Boczkay? In the US it became Buchko but pronounced Butch-ko. Thanks, Donna

Joyce, Thank you for your wonderful story. I hope to be on my way to the area, ONE DAY ! I will plan my trip via the Southern-edge, from Spisska Nova Ves thru Kosice, and down into Hungary-proper. BUT, not planned in the near-future. Regards, ====================== ( _ )||=\/|= (SteveBrickse@att.net)

If you can, put the following url into your browser: http://www.mapquest.com/maps/map.adp?addtohistory=&country=KZ&city=BUGAN &historyid=&submit.x=65&submit.y=9 Alternately, go to www.mapquest.com KAZAKHSTAN is the country, Bugan is the village to the east of the Aral Sea. KAZAKHSTAN was a republic within the USSR. Faaaaaar awaaaaay, about 2,000 miles to the southeast of Slovakia. KAZAKHSTAN is due north of the Caspian Sea and Iran. I hope this is what you need to know. Bill Tarkulich -----Original Message----- From: Djakef@aol.com [mailto:Djakef@aol.com] Sent: Sunday, August 11, 2002 4:02 PM To: SLOVAKIA-L@rootsweb.com Subject: map question I have found on a map, which is of somewhere in Europe, a place named BUGAN, KAZAKHSTAN. Does anyone know exactly where this is in Europe? I can not make out where but other place names are Karas Halan and Imeni Orozhqnikidzel. I came across this map by doing a Bugan search. I would love to know where this is. Thanks for your help. Darlene ============================== To join Ancestry.com and access our 1.2 billion online genealogy records, go to: http://www.ancestry.com/rd/redir.asp?targetid=571&sourceid=1237

Hi, Darlene. Kazakhstan is a former state of the USSR. BuKan is located in the north part. It is 170.8 miles SW of Moscow. Shtetlseeker will provide a map of its location. Joe

I have found on a map, which is of somewhere in Europe, a place named BUGAN, KAZAKHSTAN. Does anyone know exactly where this is in Europe? I can not make out where but other place names are Karas Halan and Imeni Orozhqnikidzel. I came across this map by doing a Bugan search. I would love to know where this is. Thanks for your help. Darlene

I have been reviewing records of my family from Malcov. I have a question regarding the way the names are listed in the records. I will use my GGF for an example. The record lists him as Georgius Petrik (hrabcsan). His father was Petrik and his mother was GRES. What does this other name mean? When he came to America, he is listed as this name in ( ) in the census. I thought it was his "real" surname and Petrik was a name he picked up as an "American" name. Then, I found his baptism (and marriage) record with it listed as above. At first I thought....ok, this is his mom's maiden name. Nope, his mom's maiden name is GRES! I am stumped! This reference is made with all his siblings also. I have not made if far enough back yet to see what the records say for his parents births. I do notice that in many of the birth records for this town, they have more than 1 name, either hyphenated or in brackets, that do not match the parents. In my other line, my GGM's, it is also done but it is the maiden name of their mother. I have also noticed in (some) of the entries, they interchange which name is put first. Appreciate ANY input! Thanks Jean

Hi folks, I guess things are working now. If someone asked me what comes to mind when someone says "Slovakia" I would conger up images of mountains, deep forests, fields of tall sunflowers, castles, quaint villages and great food. We traveled from Bratislava to the far northeastern part on the border of Poland. I think the thing that surprised me the most about the country was the diversity it has for being about the size of the state of Michigan. Bratislava is a modern city (with a vary beautiful old section), Martin also seemed very much in the 21st century, Internet cafes, etc. On the other hand there are quaint villages that time seems to have forgotten. If you are into climbing castles, I think you will be satisfied. The thing that I couldn't get enough of (being into art history) were the churches, and there are plenty of them. There are the small wood churches, churches with 12th century fresco's still intact, there are large Gothic churches, Baroque churches, Catholic, Greek Catholic, Evangelical, Reformist and even Baptist churches. Every village has at least one or two, and they are all unique and beautiful. There is a sense of pride in the past and interest in preserving it through museums, festivals, and even some villages that keep some of the homes the way they were 100 years ago, like Cicsmany. And there is music. Just about every evening at dinner we were entertained by everything from Gypsy musicians to a couple brothers playing the violin, and piano who studied at the conservatory, and various types of folk music, depending on the area. Each place seems to have it's own unique style and it is kept alive. Of course none of this would be possible without the people, who I found vary friendly, extremely delightful, and unpretentious. If you go, get ready to be served some type of liquor the minute you walk in the door, along with open faced sandwiches and or pastries and bottled water or soda. I thought after months of planning for this trip and looking forward to it, and then actually being there that when I got back, I would feel like a deflated balloon. Quite to my surprise I didn't. I felt very full and enriched from the experience. I think it gave me a better understanding of my grandmother, aunts and uncles who came from there, and even myself. It was great to see the places I had been researching and to see how my relatives are living today who are still there. And, because of that, I plan on putting my grandmother's name on the Ellis Island Wall of Honor. Joyce

Hi folks, I see that Bill's post got through, I'll try again and see what happens. For the 3rd time: A couple people requested the web site for Jelsava and information on Helene's tours. www.jelsava.host.sk www.our-slovakia.com Bill, that was some good information. I just finished up a film that took me almost 10 months (about 4 -5 hours a week - to put it in perspective) and ran across just about every possible problem mentioned, and then some. Nevertheless, I was able to go back 5 generations in the Evangelical Church and hope to pick up in the Catholic church records where I left off with the Evangelical. If this post gets through I will put the conclusion onto my trip to Slovakia which I haven't done because of my posts getting bounced back, or not up at all. Joyce

Ahoj One and All, I have been preparing some material which provides guidance in the strategy of utilizing church records to locate ancestors. In the cours of this, I have been reviewing the National Archives of Hungary web site. In this site, is a very valuable discussion about church registers and the difficulties in using them. As most of our ancestors were under Hungarian subjegation for an extended period of time, this information is quite useful. As others have discovered, certain Slovakia (aka, Upper Hungary) records have a second (bishop's) copy remaining in a regional Hungarian Archive. This is admitted to in the Archives introduction text. Although the web site has an English section, which contains this material, I have posted it here for ease of reference: "... PARISH REGISTERS The parish registers are the most reliable and indispensable sources of family history research. It was Pope Pius IV who, as a result of the deliberations of the Council of Trent, ordered the introduction of regular registration in 1563. In Hungary, in the case of the Roman Catholic Church the Council of Nagyszombat ordered the introduction and maintenance of parish registers at the beginning of the Counter-Reformation in 1611, though sparse registrations occurred at some places before that time, too. Regarding Protestant churches, the full powers to keep registers was granted by Emperor Joseph Habsburg II, in 1785. However, at some special localities (loca articularia), registration had begun much earlier. In Hungary, the regular and compulsory registration of Israelite population was introduced as late as the Bach Era (July 1851), but in that case, too, there were places where registration had begun long before that date. The microfilm collection of the National Archives of Hungary holds the duplicates of parish registers from the localities of the present territory of Hungary, created by the historical churches - the Roman Catholic, Greek Catholic, Greek Orthodox, Calvinist, Lutheran and Israelite, before 1st October 1895. In addition, the National Archives, in small numbers, preserves microfilms of registers of the Baptist, Unitarian and Nazarene small churches. Some copies of registers from the territory of the historical Hungary, existed before the Treaty of Trianon, can also be found in the Archives: mainly from Upper Hungary (from the Csallóköz), Southern Hungary (from Bácska), the Northern Borderland (Burgenland), the Mura region (in Slovenia), the Drávaszög (the southern part of Baranya - today in Croatia), as well as some registers from ethnic Hungarian villages in Bukovina. Public (state) registration was introduced on 1st October 1895. From that date registers have been preserved at mayoral offices, whereas duplicates have been transferred to the competent territorial (county) archives. Before starting a research in the registers, researchers need to know the wanted person's or family's place of residence, religion, as well as his place and approximate date of birth/marriage/death. OBSTACLES AND DIFFICULTIES OF RESEARCH IN PARISH REGISTERS Of course, research is rarely as simple as that. Many researchers, for lack of proper information about their families, find serious difficulties even in tracing back their origins until 1895. If there is no indication at the last known entry of the place/date of birth or residence of the explored/found ancestor, or there are inaccurate data - that is where difficulties begin. These concepts were frequently mixed up and the priests who kept the records often used the definitions of the place of birth and residence, which were not the same in every case, inconsistently. In such cases, the most practical solution is to look over some years forward and backward in the registers of the last known entry, supposing that you are lucky enough to find the place of origin or birth of your explored and known ancestor's parents at one of his/her elder or younger brother's or sister's register record. According to the general practice, in the absence of definite birth/origin information, the great majority of researchers continues research in the registers of the appropriate religions of the surrounding localities. In many cases, taking the last known place as their starting-point, they look over all the registers of the localities situated within a radius of 10, 20, 30 kilometres or even more. This is an enormous work, and even this can turn out to be useless. Rarely but not impossibly registrations of one religion can be found in the register of another religion (e.g. a Calvinist in a Lutheran or a Greek Catholic in a Roman Catholic), as that denomination had no parish or church at the time or it was too far away from there. In some cases, supplementary genealogical sources may help to solve such problems (see the next chapter). Rare family names often encourage inexperienced researchers. The appearance of such a name in another place, county or region, and its unchecked use, in most cases leads astray and more rarely to the expected solution. At the same time, a too common surname (e.g. Horvát[h], Kis[s], Kovács, Nagy, Német[h], Pap[p], Szabó, Tót[h], Varg[h]a, etc.) can be equally deceiving. In such a case, the most advisable is to check such other data of the record as the address, street-number, names of the godparents/wedding witnesses, etc. These can be decisive in identifying the possible circle of persons. Sometimes, registrars used cognomens or nicknames as official family names, or used alternately and mixed actual family names and cognomens. Inaccurate, imperfect or missing register items can also put an end to a research or at least can make it extremely difficult. As mentioned above, in the 19th century and earlier, registration happened by oral declaration. As a result, especially in the case of outlandish surnames (German, Polish, Slovak, Croat, etc.) mis-spelling was very frequent. There are instances where a certain person's surname is differently spelt whenever it appears in the registers. Sometimes, the registration of a new-born baby had simply been missed out from the register. If a village or small farm lay far away from the parish-church, the baby was weakling and on top of it all there was a cold winter and huge snow, then the midwife fleetingly baptized the baby. If the parents later forgot to announce all this to the parish priest, the baby's birth simply could not appear in the register. Wars, revolutions and other unusual events also affected the accuracy of registrations. This way many persons were registered as legally dead 10-15 years after the actual date of their death, usually with the date and place where eyewitnesses had seen them to die in battle or last seen them alive. Even so, many of them were missed out from the registers of deaths and disappeared in the storms of history. Sometimes whole pages or years are missing from parish registers as a result of fires, floods or just for the lack of priests. If a parish priest died and there was no chaplain, registration stopped. Until the middle of the 19th century the parents of newly married couples were rarely indicated in the registers. For example, István Kiss, (20) and Anna Varga, (19) got married on 27 October 1842. Let us presume that, between 1822 and 1823, 3 Anna Varga-s and 4 István Kiss-s were born in the same town or village. As there is no information about the young couple's parents at the marriage registration, in the absence of identification data (e.g. street name, street-number, godparents, etc.) the research can stall. Registers of deaths can still be looked over to exclude some of the persons with the same names who possibly died before the date of the marriage. From the 80s and 70s of the 18th century backwards, there were frequent inaccuracies in the registrations of births, as well. Usually, the mother's family name was not recorded. For example, István (Stephanus), born on 15 August 1783; parents: Péter Sípos (Petrus) and Anna. In such cases, the researcher should search for the possible brothers and sisters of István in the registers of births created before and after 1783, supposing that, after all, at one of their records the family name of the mother appears. If this does not lead to the expected result, one should search for the marriage registration of Péter Sípos and Anna. If you have good luck and find it, usually there must be indication of the bride's family name. Even so, you can still find more marriages of persons with the same names. In that case, the "real" couple must be identified by means of other registry items. Similar inaccuracies may be found in early registers of marriages and deaths, too (e.g. on 2nd August 1775, János Farkas (Joannes) and Ilona (Helena) got married). When, at the end of the 18th century and the beginning of the 19th century, churches switched over from continuous registration to the registration with tables and columns, such inefficiencies became less frequent but did not completely disappear. As a general characteristic, the older the registers are, the more inaccurate they are, the less data they contain and the more difficult they are to read." ______________ Bill Tarkulich

Sorry about leaving out the date. The scheduled date is August 13, 2002. Terry -------Original Message------- From: Terry Iwaniw Date: Wednesday, August 07, 2002 01:43:33 AM Subject: Next Ukrainian Genealogy Chat The Ukrainian Genealogical Society is proud to announce the next chat session that it will be sponsoring: Ukrainian Genealogy Chat. From 9 PM EDT to Midnight Location: http://genealogy.about.com/gi/chat/cs.htm. Notes: Choose a Nickname by typing over GUEST, pick a birthdate (your choice!), and click CONNECT Terry Ukrainian Genealogical Society http://www.rootsweb.com/~ukrgs/

The Ukrainian Genealogical Society is proud to announce the next chat session that it will be sponsoring: Ukrainian Genealogy Chat. From 9 PM EDT to Midnight Location: http://genealogy.about.com/gi/chat/cs.htm. Notes: Choose a Nickname by typing over GUEST, pick a birthdate (your choice!), and click CONNECT Terry Ukrainian Genealogical Society http://www.rootsweb.com/~ukrgs/

Hi all, I received a couple requests for the Jelsava web site and for information on Helene's tours. I sent it out Sunday! Just tonight I got a Mailer Daemon, so I guess it wasn't posted either. I did see that my trip to Slovakia (3) made it. Rootsweb must be having some problems. www.jelsava.host.sk (click on the Am. flag for English version) www.our-slovakia.com We'll see what happens with this one. Joyce

O.K. folks, it obviously didn't get through. How strange. I will rewrite it later today. Thanks, Joyce

I didn't get it. Kate

Hi all, This may sound like a dumb question, but I'm not sure that part 3 got through, as I didn't see it come up in my mail. Could someone please let me know. Thanks Joyce

I didn't know until we got to Sumiac that they were having their annual folk festival that day. This was just too good to be true. We went to a building, it may have been a little town hall. There were displays of folk crafts, musicians dressed in the regional dress of Sumiac, music coming from the speakers on the telephone poles, and an air of excitement. My cousin has a firend, Maria, that has lived there all her life and we met up with her. Everyone was talking and Milan translated to me that Maria said that she was going to take me to the place my grandfathers butcher shop had been. I stood there in a state of shock, I couldn't believe what I was hearing. We walked across the town to a dirt road that ran up a hill. There were some of the old wooden houses I had seen pictures of. This place was definitely a mountain village, and at least that day, seemed like a place that time had forgot. It was a bit of a hike up the hill and when we got to the place she explained that there had been two houses side by side there and that the man died in 1930. I said to Milan that it couldn't have been my grandfather than, as he died in 1908. She replied that he was the only Kristofik and the only butcher in the town. I suspect that it may have been passed on to a younger half brother or nephew. But, that was the spot. We continued up the hill to the top where a stream comes out of the mountain. The water is crystal clear and one can drink from the stream. Amazing water, better than bottled. I was told that the priest from the church got his holy water there, and there was a small shrine near by. On the way back down the road I lagged behind taking pictures. Back by the spot of my grandfathers butcher shop I saw two young men across the road bailing hay from a wagon and piling it high with pitch forks, way over their head. It was definitely a scene from the past. Then I looked back up the road, and a young woman in her kroij (regional dress) was walking down the road. She was the only person on the road. This was a beautiful sight if I ever saw one. The music was playing in the background, she was walking toward me, and I thought this could have been my grandmother or great grandmother walking down the road to the village to church. Fortunately I got it on my camcorder. Back at the village we visited the Greek Catholic church and cemetery and found out about the museum of 1,000 bells. Maria took us there and it turned out to be a lot of fun. The owner of the little museum had it in the home of his parents. The central room was as it may have been back then, the one room house with the stove in the corner, the bed up against the wall, and the table and chairs. The two side rooms contained his bell collection. The bells went from floor to ceiling and wall to wall. I guess Milan told him that I was visiting from America, and that's all it took. He pulled us in the museum and proceeded to put on a show. He got out all the regional folk musical instruments and played each one, and talked about each one. Then he and his assistant put on a little concert for me with the bells. He showed us just about every one explaining where they were from, and enjoying every minute of it. It was getting time for the concert to start so we drove up the mountain as far as we were allowed and hiked up the rest of the way. From the top one could see for miles, and looking below, the entire village of Sumiac. It was so beautiful. Eventually the concert started. The sky was putting on a show also. On one side of me the sun was showing through the clouds brightly, and on the other side the sky was dark and threatening with thunder rolling in the distance. But then the music started, the dancers started, and a rainbow came out of the clouds and made it's way across the sky down to the end of the village. I'll never forget that moment. At the risk of sounding a bit "daft" I believe that day, and all it's joy, was a gift from my ancestors for all the time I have put into finding them, putting them in pedigree charts, studying their culture and history, and eventually passing all this information on to my family so they will know their past and heritage and keep it alive through their descendants. Conclusion tomorrow Joyce

Started out Sat. with a tour of Jelsava. When Gita was growing up in the town she said it was a very pretty town with a population of 5,000. I don't know the year the factory went up during the communist era, but it was put up outside of the town and makes some chemical that is used in fire brick. As a result it has polluted the town and the population is down to 3,000. I would have not noticed had it not been brought to my attention, not having known what the place looked like before. Like a lot of other smaller towns and villages in Slovakia the young people have gone to Bratislava or further west for jobs and these places are now mainly old people and Gypsies. And, so it was with Jelsava. The town was a mere shadow of it's former self. The buildings were run down (except city hall) and I found it somewhat depressing. We just looked at the outside of the Evangelical church and Catholic church, as the next day I would be attending services at the Evangelical church. The Manor House was not much more than a shell as was the big old church school that had been part of the Evangelical church. Walked up the hill to the cemetery to put some flowers at my grandfathers grave. It was all the way at the top of the hill, at the very end of the cemetery. You could look over the entire town from there. The cemeteries I saw in Slovakia are not that large. The space is leased out for about 25 years. If the lease is not renewed, or the grave area is not kept up, it is leased out to another family. From what I have read, the remains are put in a common grave, the tomb stone is broken up, and someone new moves in. Pretty depressing to me. My grandfather died in 1908, and at the very most, my grandmother could have renewed the lease when she went back to visit in 1931, but that is still over 60 years ago. I asked Gita why his grave was still there. Her remark was simply that probably no one wanted it. The prime real estate area of that cemetery was down at the bottom of the hill. There were just a few old graves at the top where my grandfather is. The entire family was with me, including Rasto and we all walked around looking for Tomazy, Gettler and Kristofik graves. Aside from Gita's father, and 2 other Kristofiks, from the 1930s and 1960s we found none. I have about 150 death records of my Kristofik, Tomazy and Gettler family, who must have been buried in that cemetery and not a one is to be found in that cemetery today. The only reference to them ever having existed, to my knowledge, is church records. In two generations, their existence is all but forgotten and unknown by their descendants in this country. Pretty sad, I am trying my best to do something about it. From there we went to Gita's mothers house and I met her and Gita's sister, Janka. I enjoyed walking down that old street, knowing that probably a great many of my family had lived on that street. They came out of the house to greet us and we went in and once again, I was treated to a small glass of liquor, pastries, and other drinks and goodies. The grandmother gave me a tour of the back of the house, the garden, chickens, and 2 out buildings that had been used for making leather. They were still there and looked untouched since Gita's father died. Processing leather and making various things from it was common business in that area. Lots of boot makers, etc., listed in the church records. Across the street from the houses is a canal that they got the water from to soak the leather. Our next stop was Muranksa Dela Luka. My grandfather and great grandfather seem to have bounced back and forth from Sumiac and Jelsava. While in Sumiac, most of my dad's older brothers and sisters (8) were born. If one attended the Evangelical church, they had to go to the one in Muranska Dela Luka, as it was the closest one. Still, it was about a 15 mile trip from Sumiac. We were greeted by the minister and his wife. He took us into the church and spoke at length about it. It is in great condition. It has a sister church in FL that has donated money for the restoration and up keep of it. Then he took us to the rectory where we were served a small glass of liquor, pastries and other drinks. He brought out the church annals (like a diary of the church) that went back to the late 1700s. He brought out the communion cup and plate that had 1791 inscribed on them, and it was all very interesting, and I was a bit overwhelmed, but the best was yet to come. Tomorrow, Joyce