Slovakia Place Names

Finding Your Ancestors' Town in Slovakia: Your Place Name in the United States

 * Genealogical records are organized by geographical locality. Civil registration (government birth, marriage, and death records) and church records (christenings/baptisms, marriages, and burials) were kept at the local level. To search these records, you must know the town where your ancestors lived.
 * If you do not know your ancestors' town, follow the advice in the Wiki article, Slovakia Finding Town of Origin to search a variety of records that might provide that information.

Variations in Reported Place Names
Your immigrant ancestors may report in United States records that they were from Austria, Hungary, Russia, Ukraine, Ruthenia, Slovakia, or Czechoslovakia.
 * Slovakia, officially the Slovak Republic, is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is bordered by Poland to the north, Ukraine to the east, Hungary to the south, Austria to the west, and the Czech Republic to the northwest.
 * Until 1918, Slovakia belonged to Hungary, with a small part in Ruthenia. Ruthehia was in Ukraine
 * After World War I and the dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Slovakia and the regions of Bohemia, Moravia, Czech Silesia and Carpathian Ruthenia formed Czechoslovakia (1918-1939.)
 * A separate (First) Slovak Republic (1939–1945) existed during World War II, under Nazi Germany.
 * At the end of World War II, Czechoslovakia was re-established as an independent country.
 * Slovakia became an independent state on 1 January 1993 after the peaceful dissolution of Czechoslovakia. Source, made up of the old regions of Hungarian Slovakia and Russian Ruthenia. Source: Wikipedia: Slovakia

Your Place Name in Hungarian, Ukrainian, Czech, and Slovak
The town where your ancestors lived changed names over the years. There was a Hungarian version of the name when it belonged to Hungary, another Czechoslovakian name, and a modern Slovakian name. If your ancestors left the country before 1918, they could report their birthplace in Hungarian or Ukrainian in U.S. records. If they emigrated after 1918, they would report the Slovakian or Czech form of the name.

Finding the Name of the Town Where Your Ancestors Worshipped
The town where your ancestor lived might not have had a local church for every religion. For example, if the town only had a Catholic church, your ancestors may have attended the Lutheran church in a neighboring town. You will need to look for the records under this neighboring town's name.

1. Records were kept on the local level. If you do not know the name of a town where your ancestors lived, go back to Slovakia Finding Town of Origin and follow the advice and record links there to see if you can find evidence of the town name. Watch carefully for any information on their religion.

2. The town name you find in United States records might be the historical Hungarian version of the name, the name used when the region was part of Czechoslovakia, or the modern Slovakian version of the name.
 * Consult Genealogy Slovakia Gazetteer to find all three names.
 * In the list of all villages, all three names are given in one master index.
 * When you find your town in that index, the link will take you to a page for the town. Under "Old Names", there will be  a history of all the name changes of that town.
 * The version of the name used until 1918 is the Hungarian (or Russian for the region that was Ruthenian).
 * The name used from 1918-1993 is the Czechoslovakian name.
 * The name used after 1993 is the Slovakian name.

3. Next, find all the location of all the churches serving that town.
 * In the left sidebar of the town's page in Genealogy Slovakia Gazetteer, you will find notes on where that village would have attended church for each denomination.
 * If the denomination is given in capital letters, such as "LUTH", then the town had its own local church for that religion.
 * Be sure to look at the top section of the left sidebar on "Top Sightseeings", where it will list the local churches and the year they were built. Sometimes this is the only indication of churches in that town.
 * Towns along the border may have attended a church in Hungary to find the religion of their choice.