Identifying the birth surname of Anna, mother of Antonia (Dulaj) Grečnár

Or: The Further Adventures of Identifying the Parents and Grandparents of My Grandmother Valeria (Grečnár) Michutka

 

Background: the parents of Valeria (Grečnár) Michutka (b. 1886 Čadca, Slovakia, d. 1947 Michigan, USA) were Michal Grečnár and Antonia Dulaj.

 

The current problem:

•    Antonia's 1902 civil death record does not name her mother—the informant was Antonia's husband "Mihaly" (Michal) Grečnár and he claimed not to know his late mother-in-law's name, but he did provide information that Antonia's father was Andras Dulaj (deceased) who had lived in Stará Bystrica, a village in the eastern part of the Kysuce region of Slovakia. Antonia's entry in a parish death register identifies neither of her parents, only her husband.^⁠1

•    A parish marriage register entry that matches known information about Antonia and Michal names her father Andreas Dulaj and notes his occupation as a miller, but does not name her mother.^⁠2

•    Given Antonia's stated ages at marriage and at death, and her father's name and occupation, and her place of birth as recorded on her civil death record, this is likely the record of Antonia's birth in Lietavská Lúčka and baptism in the church in nearby Bytčica:^⁠3 

But mother Anna's surname is not entirely clear: is the first letter a P or a B? is the second letter a letter u? what comes after the letter i? The transcription "Pudik" offered by the image provider is questionable.

 

Searches for other children of an Andreas Dulaj married to an Anna-with-a-D-in-the-middle-of-her-surname, living in the general eastern Kysuce region of Slovakia, produced six baptismal records in addition to Antonia's. Comparing Anna's recorded birth surname across these records clarifies its spelling.

 

Note: Antonia’s baptismal record and other of her proposed siblings’ baptismal records identify their father Andreas’s occupation as miller (mlynár, molnar, molitor). Millers such as Andreas did not own their own mills and stay in one place; rather, they rented a mill for three or four years at a time. Moving from one village to another when a mill lease ended was common practice in their trade.^⁠4 The different parishes recording these seven baptisms reflect that pattern of re-location.

 

Note about spellings: the /cs/ combination in Hungarian, the /ts/ combination in Latin, and the letter /č/ in Slovak all make the same sound, which English spells with the combination /ch/. Hungarian was the official language of records at some times, and Latin the language of the Catholic church when Hungarian wasn't being imposed on their sacramental records.

 

The baptismal records found of children born to parents named Andreas Dulaj and Anna [??d???] in the eastern part of the Kysuce region:

 

Parents Andreas Dulaj and Anna [Budics?], Lipovec (bapt. in Sučany), 1839^⁠5

Parents Andreas Dulaj and Anna Budics, Lipovec (bapt. in Sučany), 1841^⁠6

Parents András Dulay and Anna [Budits?], Lipovec (bapt. in Sučany), 1843^⁠7

Parents Andras Dulay and Anna Budits, Varín, 1845^⁠8

Parents Andreas Dulaj and Anna Budics, Varín, 1851^⁠9

Parents Andreas Dulaj and Anna Budics, Varín, 1854^⁠10

Parents Andreas Dulay and Anna [Budics?], Lietavská Lúčka, 1858 [baptismal entry for Antonia]

 

These records are consistent with one family having several children over a period of nearly twenty years; changes of residence also support it being one family rather than calling it into question, due to the occupation of the male head of household.¹¹

 

The birth surname of Anna, mother of Antonia (Dulaj) Grečnár and grandmother of Valeria (Grečnár) Michutka, was spelled Budics and Budits in these records; the

Slovak spelling would be Budič.^⁠ 

---------------------------------------------------------

All websites were viewed 11 November 2023.

1. Trencsen-Mako [present-day Makov, Slovakia], volume of civil death certificates, 5 May 1901–[no end date provided], page 53, 1902 entry 1, for Antónia Dulaji wife of Mihály Grecsnár; district archives, Čadca, Slovakia; digital image in digital family files of Julie Michutka, Burlington, MA. Also, Roman Catholic parish in Makov, Slovakia, death registers 1848–1914, 1902 entry 1 for Antonia (Dulaji) Grecsnár; Family History Library (FHL) microfilm 2003292, items 1–3, DGS 4945527; photocopy from microfilm, family files of Julie Michutka, Burlington, MA, 2023. This imaged record is not available online.

Antonia’s father’s name appears in some records as Andreas, in others as Andras. The Slovak forms today are Andrej and Ondrej.

2. Roman Catholic parish in Bytčica, Slovakia, register of marriages for the village of Lietavská Lúčka, 15 January 1868–10 February 1897, 17 July 1878, Grečnár–Dulaj; digital images, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:33SQ-GRQX-GS9); citing FHL microfilm 1978902 item 1, DGS 4945102. Historically Lietavská Lúčka did not have its own church, and Roman Catholic villagers belonged to the parish in the village of Bytčica; today these two villages are nearly contiguous. See https://www.lietavskalucka.sk/historia.phtml?id3=119650.

3. Roman Catholic parish in Bytčica, Slovakia, volume I: baptisms, marriages, and deaths 1788–1867, baptism 9 May 1858 for Antonia Francisca Dulay; digital image, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:33SQ-GRQN-9QRY); citing FHL microfilm 1978901, DGS 4945101. Her father is identified as a miller.

4. “Prácou mlynárov bolo mletie viacerých druhov obilnín pre miestne obyvateľstvo. Mlynár sa v nájomnej zmluve s panstvom zaviazal mlieť zadarmo panské zbožie a slad. Nájom trval zväčša tri roky a platil sa v ročných splátkach.”

[The work of the millers was to grind several types of grain for the local population. In the lease agreement with the manor, the miller contracted to grind the manor's grain and malt for free. The lease usually lasted for three years and was paid in annual installments.] From: PhDr. Marián Liščák, “Mlynárske remeslo v Bystrickej doline” [The craft of milling in the Bystrická valley], 14 October 2013, Moje Kysuce (https://www.mojekysuce.sk/clanky-a-komentare/mlynarske-remeslo-v-bystrickej-doline).

5. Roman Catholic parish in Sučany, Slovakia, vol. VI: baptisms 1836–1882, baptism 25 March 1839 for Maria Dulaj of Lipovec; digital image, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:33SQ-GRQF-G94); citing FHL microfilm 2058216, DGS 4946332.

6. Ibid., baptism 9 July 1841 for Theresia Dulaj of Lipovec; digital image, FamilySearch https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:33SQ-GRQF-GQY).

7. Ibid., baptism [10?] July 1843, entry 29, for Anna Dulay of Lipovec; digital image, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:33SQ-GRQF-LYY). Andras is identified as a miller (“molnar”).

8. Roman Catholic parish in Varín, Slovakia, vol. III, baptisms 1833–1895, baptism 11 December 1845 for Juditta Dulay;  FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:33S7-9RQZ-9R3); citing FHL microfilm 2062275 item 2, DGS 4946377. Andras is identified as a miller (“molnar”) in Varín.

9. Ibid., baptism 27 November 1851 for Theresa Dulaj; digital image, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:33S7-9RQZ-9RV). Andreas is identified as a miller of Varín (“molitor Varna”).

10. Ibid., baptisms 24 June 1854 for Joannes Dulaj; digital image, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:33SQ-GRQZ-9RQ).

11. Ideally we would also include Anna’s baptismal, marriage, and death records. Unfortunately, her town of origin is unknown and her baptismal and marriage records have not yet been found. FamilySearch has an extract of Anna’s 1879 death record from the parish registers of Stará Bystrica, but it does not include her birth surname—a review of the microfilmed parish register in Salt Lake City will happen soon, in hope that the full entry will include more information.

 

Why we examine multiple sources and carefully correlate their information

I'm slowly working on a biographical sketch of a couple, Barnet and Rebecca Herman, who immigrated in the early 1890s from Makhnivka (Махнівка), a village near Kiev (then within the Russian Empire), to New York City. There is an abundance of inconsistencies among the records and resolving them has been interesting (and challenging and somewhat fun).

Barnet made the trip about a year before his wife and children. First challenge: identifying his manifest entry, which I finally determined to be that of "Beer Hermann" arriving on the SS Sorrento in late August 1892. (This Beer = my Barnet is whole other blog post waiting to be written.) 

 

I would hate to admit how much time I spent trying to 1) figure out the name of a Polish(?) town on his incoming 1892 passenger manifest for New York, and 2) determine why he was identified as being of Polish origin when I knew he came from a village near Kiev.

Here he is in line 55, “Beer Hermann”:

 

 and an easier-to-read transcription of select columns:

 

Entry no.	Name	Age	Occupation	Native country	Hailing place or place of starting (as best I can read)
51	Kaspar Schimanski	18	Br[___]maker	" [Russia]	Neustadt
52	Moses Brostermann	19	[furrier?]	Poland	Slkow
53	Schimme Schafcick	20	"	"	Minsk
54	Te_nce Dechatzell	47	bookbinder	"	Kiev
55	Beer Hermann	39	Trader	"  [Poland]	[Stobzir?]
56	Yndel Port	52	"	"	Wilkomis
57	Moses Rosenberg	17	bookbinder	"	Kowns
59	Ossip Schimelover	40	labourer	"	"
59	Yirrgis Raikitzkais ✓	19	"	"	"
60	Samuel Mehl	46	taylor	"	Pomives
61	Meyer "	10	none	"	"

The answer to the unexpected place of origin is buried in the more-challenging-to-read outgoing Hamburg manifest:

The person creating the New York list apparently was working off the Hamburg list and missed seeing a bracket indicating that passengers Brosterman and Schafzick were from the same town. This moved several subsequent town names up one row in the New York list, such that Hermann’s Kiev/Kiew origin was assigned to Dechatzell, and Yndel Port’s town of origin was assigned to Hermann.

Here's a comparison of the entries in the two manifests, just the pertinent columns. Passenger names and ages, and the order of the passengers in the list, matched between the two lists. Locations in red are the errors made in the clerk's transcription from the Hamburg list.

 

Name	Im Staate resp. in der Provinz [state or province] (Hamburg list)	Native country (NY list)		Bisheriger Wohnort [previous place of residence (Hamburg list)	Hailing place or place of starting (NY list)
Kaspar Schimanski	" [Russl] [for Russland?]	" [Russia]		Neustadt	Neustadt
Moses Brostermann	apparently no entry, but the squiggle beginning the line below might be bracketing these two	Poland		[apparently no entry, but the squiggle beginning the line below might be bracketing these two, in which case it is Sklow]	Slkow
Schimme Schafcick	" [Russl]	" [Poland]		[squiggle or curly bracket] Sklow	Minsk
Te_nce Dechatzell	" [Russl]	" [Poland]		Minsk	Kiev
Beer Hermann	"[Russl]	"[Poland]		Kiew	Stobzi[_]
Yndel Port	" [Russl]	" [Poland]		Stobzin	Wilkomis
Moses Rosenberg	" [Russl]	" [Poland]		Wilkom[__]	Kowns
Ossip Schimelover	" [Russl]	" [Poland]		[unreadable but not inconsistent with something similar to Kowns]	"
Yirrgis Raikitzkais ✓	" [Russl]	" [Poland]		"	"
Samuel Mehl	" [Russl]	" [Poland]		[nothing, but curly bracket at next entry prob. includes this entry]	Pomives
Meyer  "	" [Russl]	" [Poland]		{ [unreadable but not inconsistent with something similar to Pomives]	"

 

Consistent with his other records, the two passenger manifests document Beer Herman's origin in the area of Kiev (present-day Kyiv, Ukraine), not from a town in Poland. The New York manifest had errors introduced in copying from the earlier Hamburg manifest.

Sources:

Manifest, SS Sorrento (Hamburg to New York City), departing 11 August 1892, second unnumbered page, passenger no. 55, Beer Hermann; imaged records, “Hamburg Passenger Lists, 1850-1934,” Ancestry (http://www.ancestry.com : 4 August 2022); citing Hamburger Passagierlisten, Bestand [inventory] no. 373-7 I, VII (Auswaanderungsamt I [Emigration List-Indirect]); Volume: 373-7 I, VIII A 1 Band [volume] 081 B, page 1224; Staatsarchiv Hamburg microfilm K-1747.

Passenger list, District of New York, Port of New York, undated [29 August 1892], SS Sorrento, for Beer Hermann on second of seven pages, entry 55; images, “New York, U.S., Arriving Passenger and Crew Lists (including Castle Island and Ellis Island), 1820-1957,” Ancestry (https://www.ancestry.com/ : 2 August 2022); citing NARA microfilm publication M237.