Research Question

[Bill Smorey]

I have been researching for almost 20 years and have most of my questions answered back to about 1790.  However, there are a couple more recent issues that cause me to question some things I have seen.  I have learned not to completely trust LDS church records for spelling nor information provided by "informants" on death certificates or information in census records.  I have found numerous mistakes in all of those. As an old retired military intelligence analyst I like to have solid data.   I have two issues but will present them one at a time. 

In a 1910 census my grandmother is listed in the household of her married sister who immigrated earlier.   She is listed as “sister”  Along with my grandmother a male member with the same surname is listed as “Brother”.  They both arrived in 1909 according to the census. I  have gone through LDS church records several times and cannot find this brother.  My grandmother was the last born in 1896.  She and all of her siblings were  born in Sarisske Michalany, Saros.  Using the age in the census for the brother he would have been born in 1887 or 1888.  He is not listed in the church records along with the other six siblings who were easy to find.  I did find his WWI draft registration card listing a DOB and his place of birth as Szent Peter which today is Petrovany, Saros.  I checked the records for Petrovany and there is no listing of the surname in any of the birth, death or marriage records.   This particular surname does appear with aliases from time to time but I don’t think that would make him a “brother” to the other siblings.    He does not appear in the same records as the other siblings before or after his birth.  Also I have not yet found him beyond the WWI card. Any thoughts about what I might be missing?

 Have been most appreciative of comments from fellow researches in the past.  One actually got me on the right path or I would have been charging down the wrong, dead end road!  

Dakujem,

Bill

[Lothar Klein]

Hi Bill,

The focus on my research is on what is today called Hniezdne in Slovakia, some 80 Km distance to your Petrovany. Here some questions & remarks to what you write:

1) For Hniezdne LDS provides only birth records till 1903. Only when visiting a local archive I had been able to see the lists till 1906. But according to the law in many European countries birth record are locked down for at least 110 years. But this doesn't mean that you have the right to access the data directly before this period (currently this would be till 1910). I would like to get the record for these additional 4 years. Have others managed to get these?

2) You might contact the local priest. Sometimes they have additional sources ...
Recently I was very surprised that the priest of Hniezdne could publish a book that lists all the expelled German speaking people in 1946. Usually this data is in no way public available as some of these people are still alive.

3) You talk about the "1910 census"; I guess you mean the census in the USA. The detailed 1910 census data in Slovakia is to my knowledge not publicly accessible. I would like to hear the opposite.

5) Because of the very bad hand-writing and insufficient recorded details in the church records it was soon clear to me that only when analyzing the genealogy of the whole village I could close the gaps. So these are 15.000 births and a corresponding amounts of deaths, marriage, and a few old census records. And in addition I have now also the records for the house sales over a longer period. Only when putting all this together you have a change to close the gaps. But as I said before; unfortunately I miss primarily the birth/christening records for after 1906. Analyzing all the tomb stones helped a bit ... but there are still many questions for period WW1 till WW2.
But will all these records in hand you can compare the many different writings of names and conclude which one is which.

6) But nevertheless, priest are not registrars. They had to visit the families, and the tradition would not have let them go out of a house without accepting a schnapps. The quality of their records seems to be in some relation of how many visits they had to make that day.

7) Except for a very few exceptional cases I have not found records on adoption of children. Instead if one parent died, the remaining one immediately married again; within a very few months. But nevertheless especially because of the huge cholera epidemics (e.g. for Hniezdne in 1831, 1836, 1873) and smallpox (in Hniezdne e.g. 1800) there must have been quite a number of surviving orphans. There is further research TBD. But this might be an explanation that in families additional children could shows up without having a corresponding birth records.

8) I noticed that unmarried mothers often gave birth in another village. So it is essential to search for those in villages around (with their maiden name). In very most cases those children died early. But if they survived the harsh circumstances and the mother could marry afterwards (e.g. a fresh widower), I would assume that her children was adopted by the marriage. So far I have not clear evidence for this, but I hope to find one day.

Lothar

[Melissa B]

When I first started an interest in family history, my aunt's told me my gf had 2 brothers. As time went on and I got more involved with genealogy, my aunt's provided me with the names of the nrothers, their wives, and kids. I was perplexed because one of my gf's brothers had the same first name as my gf. How could that be?

Turns out these 2 brothers were actually cousins. My aunts told me my gf referred to them as brothers.

[Slovak Roots]

I don't know much about Slovak naming conventions (maybe someone could enlighten us), but amongst German speakers, it was not unusual for all male children to have the same first name (often Johann) but different middle names, and thus they went by their middle name.

I do know that in Slovakia, if a male child did not survive, the parents would recycle the name and give it to the next male child. My 2great grandfather was the SIXTH George Gdovin born to his parents. Obviously he survived long enough to have children of his own.

Keith

[Bill Smorey]

Keith,

  Yes, I have seen names recycled many times for both male and female children.  Very often when a child died he name was used again for a newborn.  That appears many times in my Slovak research.  

Regards, Bill