My grandfather,
Jeno” Major (pronounced "My-yor") and his wife, Anna Gávay,
immigrated to the United States from the Hungarian town of Szepsi in 1920.
Szepsi, now called Moldava nad Bodvou, is now in Slovakia (formerly part of
Czechoslovakia, formerly Hungary) near the city of Kassa (now Kôsice) in
northeast Hungary and Slovakia. The
Major and Gávay families lived along the towns around the Bodva River in the
former Hungarian county of Abauj-Torna, which now approximates the border
between modern Hungary and Slovakia.
In order to
trace your Hungarian roots from border areas that were once part of the
Austro-Hungarian Empire, you need to know the current name of the town. My
Hungarian ancestors came from towns that are now in Slovakia and are now known
by Slovakian names. You will need to know what the current name is.
A great web site
for the translation of old Hungarian village names to the current Slovakian
names is http://www.cisarik.com/index.html. Since my grandparents came from the old Hungarian
county of Abauj-Torna, click on the list of village names from that county: http://www.cisarik.com/0_former_Abauj-Torna_Abov-Turna_county.html.
Since I had
known that they came from the village of Szepsi, I just looked for that village
name and clicked on it. The current name of the village is now Moldava nad
Bodvou: http://www.cisarik.com/0_Moldava_nad_Bodvou_Kosice_okolie_KI_AbaujTorna_AbovTurna.html.
With the current
name of the village, now a search can be made for church records on https://familysearch.org.
Don’t look in Hungary! Look in Slovakia. Familsearch.org has the records
organized by the current village name and the current county. In my case I had
to search in Slovakia: https://www.familysearch.org/search/collection/location/1927146?region=Slovakia
and search on the Slovakia Church and Synagogue Books, 1592-1935. These are not
indexed, so you have to browse the images, and there are over 1.6 million
church images!
Click on the “Browse through 1,624,867 images” and
then click on the appropriate denomination. I knew my grandparents were Roman
Catholic, so clicking on “Roman Catholic
(Rímsko-katolícká cirkev)” presents a list of villages (in Slovakian). Now,
since I know that Szepsi is now Moldava nad Bodvou, clicking on that name provides
an additional list of villages in the area. I want Moldava nad Bodvou, so
clicking that presents the following:
There is some
overlap in the years for the various church records, so it takes some digging
to find the right records. Most of the
church records are clearly organized by Baptism or Marriage and then by dates.
Fortunately, most of the records are in Church Latin, and the handwriting is fairly
clear and precise (unlike those Irish parish church registers!).
An example below
is the birth/baptism of my grandfather, Jeno” Major
Item No. 20 is the
record of the birth and baptism of my g.grandfather. It reads:
Item
20. 1895, April 11 [born] 14 April [baptized] Jenó; fiu, a boy (son), törvényes
(legitimate); Parents: Major, István and Hágan, Maria; Home: Szepsi, House No. 131;
godparents: Tśinef Tómasi and Mária Tómasi; Presider: Joseph Kiss; Remarks:
indicates that Jenó married Anna Gávái 1920 Apr. 5, so a church official had
entered this information at a much later date.
Item No. 12 below is the marriage record of
my g.grandather István Major and Mária Hágan, 7 February 1875. István’s
birthplace: Torna-Ujfalu (a town near Szepsi); Maria’s birthplace: Szepsi.
István was 26 years old and Maria was 18. Witnesses: Kalmán Shakanls and Béla
Bartalos.
The old
Hungarian church records contain a wealth of information including birth and
baptism, parents names, mother’s maiden name and where they are from. Marriage
records contain the town where the bride and groom were born and ages. The
family had thought that István was born in Szepsi, but he was not. Since the
record indicated that he was from Torna-Ujfalu, that prompted me to search in
that town for additional family records (that town is now known by its
Slovakian name: Turnianska Nova Ves.
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