Lesnansky surname from Slovakia - seeking great-grandparents place of birth

+3 votes
417 views
Hello, I am researching to find the place of birth for my Slovak great-grandparents. The surname is Lesnansky which I understand has different spelling for Hungarian. I have found it spelled Lesnyanszki, Lesnyanszky, etc. and of course there are many mis-spellings or incorrect indexing of records. Family Search has many Slovak church records and it appears they do not have all but I searched there. I have checked the Gazetteer as was suggested in other archived question. Nothing found there for my family that I can confirm.

The information I have is:

Michael (aka, Mike) Lesnansky, 11/28/1897 to 6/6/1988

Anna Marcinik (various spellings), 7/28/1897 to 11/30/1959

Their Ellis Island record matched with birthdates and surnames but who I believe to be my great-grandfather was listed as 'Stefan Lesnansky' instead of Michael. The Ellis Island manifest shows their place of origin as Falkusovce which would have been Falkus under Hungarian rule. In my research, I only find 'Czechoslovakia' listed as birthplace for both grandparents. They immigrated to Ohio and my grandfather was Michael, Jr.

Would love tips on where to research next as I feel like I'm at a dead end. Thank you in advance for any and all assistance.

Cheers - Audra
WikiTree profile: Audra Lane
in Genealogy Help by Audra Lane G2G Rookie (270 points)
edited by Audra Lane

2 Answers

+8 votes
 
Best answer
What religion were your relatives? I ask because if they were Greek Catholic -- like most of the residents of Falkus -- then the relevant church registers are likely unindexed, meaning that a search by name will never turn them up.

What is your source for those birthdates? FamilySearch has the Greek Catholic church registers for Falkus, Zemplén county, including 1897 births/baptisms (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:S3HT-DT63-Q18?i=431&cc=1554443&cat=697709), but there's no sign of any names like Lesnyánszki or Marcsinik, neither on those dates nor during the couple of years prior and subsequent.

What is the date of the Ellis Island arrival that says "Falkusovce"? Any chance of a link to it (preferably on FS)? What other documents have you found on this side of the "pond"? Any draft registrations or naturalizations, for example?

It's an old adage, but entirely true: the three most important things in genealogy are location, location, and location. Without a specific place in the "old country", there's very little chance of making any progress in your research.
by J Palotay G2G6 Mach 8 (86.1k points)
selected by Maggie N.
Hello,
Thanks so much for the reply! I do not have information on religion in the old country. I do know they were in the Calvin Presbyterian Church in Lakewood, OH because I have 2 baptism records for my grandfather’s brothers that took place there. Is it possible they are Calvin Presbyterian in the old country, too? Or would this have been a conversion after arrival in the US? I have a copy of a baptism record that someone copied to one of my great-aunt’s Ancestry profiles but I am not able to read it. The place is documented as Vysne Revistia, Sobrance, Slovakia. So it’s possible my great-grandmother would have been from that region even though she is 9 years younger than this sister.
Here is the Ellis Island record for Jan 4, 1921:
Also, I found 1930 and 1940 census records for the family:
I was able to confirm birth and death dates through the Social Security archives, states archives and ‘find a grave’ sources. So I’m feeling very confident on those. The Ellis Island records show estimate of 1898 but it seems this is because their arrival date was Jan 4, 1921 and their ages were 23 at that time. My great-grandfather has a draft card and the birthplace is almost impossible to decipher but it does start with “F”, pretty sure. So we’re thinking maybe someone was transcribing and writing what they thought he said?? Or he had bad penmanship… not sure!
Thank you again! And if anyone has more info on Calvinists from Slovakia I would love to learn more. Thank you!

There were four denominations that people in Upper Hungary followed: Roman Catholic (római katolikus), Greek Catholic (görög katolikus) (which has Eastern rites but Western administration, including the Pope), Lutheran (ágostai hitvallású evangélikus), and Calvinist (református). RC could be any ethnicity/language, GC was generally Rusyn or Slovak, Lutheran was most often German or Slovak, and Calvinist was almost always Hungarian.

Immigrants often had to make do with some other kind of church, depending on what was available in the place they ended up, and on what they felt was most important. For example, my parents (and most of my ancestors) were baptized and raised Lutheran, but we attended a Calvinist church, because that's what was available in Hungarian. (Hungarian was more important to my parents than the specific flavor of Protestant.)

(The "Anglo-Saxon" denomination that comes closest to Calvinist is Presbyterian.)

The local church in Felső-Reviscse, Ung county (later Felsőrőcse, now Veľké Revištia, Slovakia) was Calvinist (https://kt.lib.pte.hu/cgi-bin/kt.cgi?konyvtar/kt03110501/0_0_1_pg_735.html), and FS has the baptismal register for 1897, but again, no sign of Lesnyánszky or Marcinik (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:S3HT-DR63-WD9?i=282&cc=1554443&cat=758499).

Thanks so much for the information and back story on religion in this geographic area. I have done much more research on the religion piece in order to *try* to understand what being Presbyterian in the states would have meant for their religious practice back in the 'old country.'  I have to admit, I went down a rabbit hole and have even more confusion than when I started this process... lol. Learned more about what it means to be 'Reformed' and then on to what it means to be 'Calvinist' within the realm of being Reformed. Wow, a lot to unpack! Found a lot of history of people being forced into and out of these religions over the years as different leaders took over the areas of my ancestors. One could spend a lifetime just studying these things! Very interesting from many different perspectives.

Anyway, I have dug around into other member's trees that have direct DNA connection to me (I took the Ancestry DNA test many years ago) and have found that one of my DNA cousins has identified our 3rd great-grandmother who was born in Banocz, Zemplin, Hungary on 4/13/1832. Her name was Anna Olexa which I understand is very common in that area. In one of her son's baptism records, someone commented that it mentions she was Greek Catholic. I also found the name of the city "Banocz" would be today's "Banovce and Ondavou", does that sound right? There is also a note that Anna was married in Falkus in 1849 but I am not able to read the attached church record that someone has referenced in Ancestry.com. It's not illegible, I just can't interpret it in order to confirm on my own. She married George (Gyorgy) Marcinik (Marczinyik) who was born in 1824. This is all on my great-grandmother's side as I'm not able to find anything about my great-grandfather who was the Lesnansky. I've reached out to several people on Ancestry.com but no luck finding any of his ancestors further up the line.

I noticed that Family Search/LDS has microfilms for Slovak churches in their collections but you have to go on site to view them. Is this something you ever did?

Thank you, Audra
As far as interpreting Anna's marriage record goes, this is what I could figure out:

(column 1) date (October 1, 1849)

(2) priest

(3) names (looks like Janos Martzinisin there to me--I'm probably off there--and Anna Olexó)

(4) ages (24 and 19, respectively)

(5) religion (Kelvin? is what I'm seeing for Janos--I think it's spelled Kálvin in Hungarian though and that would be Reformed Christian on FamilySearch--and "GrK" = Greek Catholic for Anna)

(6) his occupation (Gazda = farmer)

(7) witness's names (looks like Gyorgy Szoraz, Andras Perzsely, and Anna Eszoko? maybe... not too important)

(8) Anna and Janos' origin/birth towns (Banocz = Bánovce nad Ondavou and Falkus = Falkušovce)

(9) current location (Banocz)

Maybe J could correct me if I'm wrong on the above. The link to the record on FamilySearch is here: https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:S3HT-DT63-72R?cc=1554443&wc=9PQW-3TY%3A107654201%2C110350301%2C114888101%2C1160683402 (edited to correct the link)

1849 1st October
Officiant: János Valkoszky, current substitute
Couple: János Martzinisin, Anna Olexó
Ages: 24, 19
Religions: Helvetic (= Reformed), Greek Catholic
Status (occupation): farmer (gazda: literally "owner, caretaker")
Witnesses: György Szorak, András Perzsely, Anna Estekó(?)
Places of origin: Banocz, Falkus
Residence: Banocz

In other words, Anne got everything important correct in result if not in detail. (The groom's religion is written as Helvét, which is short for helvét hitvallású "of the Helvetic confession", which is one of the ways to say Reformed/Calvinist.)

+6 votes

I find the cisarik.com site to be really helpful for quickly figuring out the corresponding current Slovak village/town names for what were previously recorded with their Hungarian names... and then determining where to look for records according to which religion someone practiced. 

For example, for Michael Lesnansky, if he was Calvinist/Reformed Christian let's say, and from Falkus/Falkušovce, then I'd find the village name on the Cisarik site and click on it. On the left column it contains a summary of the various religions that may have been practiced by residents of the village in the past and where the corresponding church records were kept. So for Falkušovce, the "ref" is for Reformed Christian I believe, so you'd want to check the records for Málcza, which is of course the old Hungarian name. So go back to the list of villages, looking under M, click on Málcza and you'll see it loads the page for Malčice, what the village is known as today in Slovakia. 

So then to browse the correct church records in image form on FamilySearch for a possible baptism record, you would select Slovakia Church and Synagogue Books, 1592-1935 > Reformed Christian (Reformovaná kresťanská cirkev) > Michalovce > Malčice and then the correct record "book" (there's only one in this case--the name just got split into 3 columns from what I can see). 

Unfortunately, if my assumption that he was Reformed Christian and baptized in Falkus was correct, it seems the baptism records are not available after 1895 for the Malčice Reformed church (and you need to see 1897... so close!). That said, there are certainly Lesnansky variant names in that last book in that time frame, which is encouraging. Like a baptism on 1895-08-22 for Zsuzsánna Lyesnyánski, daughter of János Lyesnyánski and Zsuzsánna Adám (I think), from Falkus. So possibly a sister? Maybe a cousin? That's on page 239: https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:S3HY-6G29-Q?cc=1554443&wc=9PQD-FMH%3A107653801%2C110350301%2C111028201%2C1160768906

by Anne Svihra G2G5 (5.7k points)
edited by Anne Svihra
Anne, both this link and the one above about the 1849 marriage go to the last page of the available baptisms for Málcza, and paging through, I did not find the marriage. (1849: https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:S3HY-6G23-WH?i=87&wc=9PQD-FMH%3A107653801%2C110350301%2C111028201%2C1160768906&cc=1554443)

The last page of the baptisms gives the explanation for why church records from the Kingdom of Hungary most often end in 1895 on FamilySearch: "Civil registrations going into effect on the first of October of this year, further data clearly only has ecclesiastic validity. Entered by Tamás Kiss, ev. ref. pastor of Málcza, on 30th September 1895."
More complications on religions, or at least their names: ev. ref. (evangelical reformed) is the same thing as ref. (reformed) -- but the usual modern shorthand for Lutheran is evangélikus, so people find "ev. ref." to be Highly Confusing (to the point that FamilySearch has a superfluous waypoint for this not-actually-separate denomination in its Slovakia church books collection).

The semi-joking way that the difference between the two Protestant denominations is described is that the Lutherans got rid of everything that the Bible expressly forbids, while the Calvinists only kept the things that the Bible expressly permits. Thus we have Lutheran churches, which are like toned-down (or financially-challenged) Catholic churches, contrasting with nearly Quaker-plain Reformed churches, epitomized by the Nagytemplom in Debrecen.
Sorry J! I corrected the link now for the 1849 marriage above.
Thank you both so much for all of the assistance! I am adding these notes to my research files and will dig into the details during my next search session. This has been extremely helpful, a million times "thank you!"
Great summation! :-0 I didn't understand until further reading that Calvinism is 'on top of' being Reformed. I thought they melded together but apparently you can be just Reformed without subscribing to Calvinism. (?)

Was it common for a Greek Catholic to marry a Reformed?

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