Help needed to trace slovakian records
Hello, i would appreciate help to trace birth, marriage, death, baptizm records in slovakia. Thing is my great grandfather or his parents or grand parents at some point migrated from slovakia to croatia, there is aproximtly 10 people sharing same family name in whole croatia and i can't match him with anyone, all i found is leading to slovakia, the ones who are living in croatia are all kinda related and it seems all males had mostly female children. the males i traced are all related mostly between each others and to me. The name of my great grandfather was Andrija Pružinec, variations of his name could be Andre, Andres,Andrijas etc, variations of family name are pruzinec, pruzinecki, prusziscens, prusines, i know he served in royal army during habsburg monarchy, he had 3 children, 2 daughters and one sone, one of the daughters was my grandmother. I am not sure when he was born, my grandmother was born around 1930, so i guess he had to be born at least 30 years before that, coz my grandmother had at least one older sibling, i know he was in captivity during ww1 and he came home by foot, is there posiblity that slovakia maybe had some migration records or birth records, because i cant find the record that he was born in croatia at all, so he migrated or he was using some other name variation, is it maybe possible to trace his father by marriage or baptism records in slovakia? i am not sure was he jew or roman chatolic originaly, his children are baptised as roman chatolics, but there is possiblity he maybe converted...
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Hello.
I can confirm that Pružinec is Slovak surname (even one of my primary school teachers had such a surname lol).
HERE is database with the occurrence of this surname in different Slovak towns in year 1995. The largest occurrence of this surname is in the Považská Bystrica district, Trenčín Region. In Považská Bystrica district lies village Pružina and the surname Pružinec is derived from the name of this village.
I would start finding HERE. You can alternate ancenstors informations on the right side.
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Oh, thank you very much, i hope at least i will be able to solve one side of a family, even my family name is a mistery, no one knows how and when we came to croatia, whole village is called by our family name, but no one knows the origin, so it would be nice to solve at least pružinec side of family so that i am half done with dad's side, mum's side,that both side will be complicated too lol, same as pružinec side. coz both her sides had wired family names, like hungairan or something, so they changed it later into more croatian version.
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Jumping countries based on nothing more than a surname is seldom advisable. All of the Slavic languages form names and surnames in very similar or identical ways, and there were also significant migrations in the last several centuries that make localization based on names basically impossible. (Half of my Slovak ancestors lived in southern Hungary, because they descended from mid-18th-century settlers.)
It's amazing how many families have stories about a soldier walking home from war.... But for WWI, you should check the Loss Lists (Verlustlisten, veszteséglisták). These were booklets published by the government throughout the war, listing soldiers known to have been killed, injured, or captured. They have been digitized and variously OCR-ed or indexed by several online repositories. The index on Genteam.eu (which is done by humans, not OCR) says that list 215 from 20 July 1915 lists an Andrija Prusinac who was captured in Serbia. Since the ONB site is having technical difficulties right now, here's the page from ANNO-Suche: https://anno.onb.ac.at/cgi-content/anno?aid=vll&datum=19150720&seite=38&zoom=33
(It actually says Prušinac, but the Genteam indexer either missed the hat on the š or couldn't figure out how to type it.)
Prušinac Andrija, Inft., k.u. LIR. Nr. 27, 2. ErsKomp., Kroatien, Illava, Kaszáromé, 1891, kriegsgef. (Niš, Serbien).
Hmm: the funny thing about that Loss List entry is that it says Croatia, but then has Illava -- which was in Trencsén county, same as Pruzsina. In fact, I wonder if the "Kaszáromé" that it has for his birthplace is actually trying to be Kaszaróna, also known as Kasza-Rovne, one of the three different places called Rovne or Rovnye in Trencsén county, Hungary. The relevant one is now Košecké Rovné (part of Zliechov), Slovakia, which had a Roman Catholic church locally, but FamilySearch either doesn't have those records, or they're not cataloged correctly.
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Thing is, majority of them back then was ileterate, i know for sure that my great grandparents on one sides were iliterate, some only knew how to write their name, others not even that, coz in some records children's name and family names are todays version, but their names and family names on various records have different versions of same family name, or maybe person who was doing records back then made a mistake. but this could be him, name fits and as i said i could not find any birth records anywhere in croatia about him, so i assumed that he probably was born in slovakia or hungary and at some point migrated alone or with some ancestors, but then again that family name is so rare in croatia, there is less than 10 people sharing it and they all are related between each others and me and he literaly have for first name croatian variation of andrew, andrej, andre, andres, andrea or andreasm and there is no birth or baptize records in croatia about him,like he showed from thin air and said i will be andrija , all of his 3 children were born in small village with chapel, so no church and their baptise and birth records in main city chruch have mistakes, my grandmother is having 2 birth dates, her sister on one is having different version of first name than on other one etc, there is also possible that when he came here, person who made record instead pružinec put prušinac coz also was ileterate on some way. so this what you have found could be country of resident, country and place of birth , even birth year fits, my grandmother always said pružinac or prušinac, even thou on the records it was pružinec, but she finished only 3 classes, so i was like, ok . i am sure that version of family name kinda changed with time, especialy with immigrants. even when i tried to search for pružinac or prušinac i could not find anything about him in croatian birth records, considering that there is less than 10 people in croatia and they all are born in same area after 1926 i am pretty sure he was the first one, thank you very much, i am making a progress now. there is a photo of him somewhere in uniform, maybe i could find some military records about unit or something in some old archives, coz he is literally only person named andrija and with 3 different variations of pružinec/prušinec family name in croatia.
hrm ilava maybe is ilova, ilova is river and small place in moslavina, near city of kutina, some of my relatives were born there, but then Kaszáromé makes no sence, went to check other entries from croatia, none is having like this, they have city, part of country , you understand everything if you are from croatia, what is city, whayt is city block, what is a village, what is a province, here if it would be ilova should be ilova, kutina,sisak county or something simmilar and it would be Ilova, not Illava with 2 L.. coz some have just Ilova... well at least mistery about birth place is solved, maybe it will be easier now to trace sibling records, nephews etc lol, now when i know he was not born in croatia..
thank you 😁
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I do think the Loss List entry must be your relative, because the juxtaposition of Croatia and Slovakia is rather unlikely otherwise. "Illava" is exactly how the Slovak town was written, and it also gave its name to the district (járás) in which both Pruzsina and Kaszaróna were located. (The town has lost one L: it's now Ilava, Slovakia.)
The entries in the Loss List are arranged as: Name, rank, unit, sub-unit, country of residency, district or county, community (town or village), birth year, status (dead, wounded, imprisoned) and location.
As far as I know, all three place fields were meant to apply to the soldier's residency, not his birthplace, but it seems pretty clear that the entry in question is not following this intention: as you've discovered, there's nothing really close anywhere down south, whereas the district is exactly right for up north, and the community is within easy "misreading distance" of a place in that district.
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For people's names, don't think of it in terms of "correct spellings" -- in a largely-illiterate society, it was only the sound that mattered, and how that sound was recorded depended on the language being used and the habits and education (and hearing) of the clerk. Also, it's best to treat given names as groups: Andrija is the same as András is the same as Andreas is the same as Ondrej (and so on and so forth). Which form of the name was recorded depended on the language being used: a Latin baptismal record would have Andreas, a Hungarian civil register would have András, and a Croatian document would have Andrija -- all for exactly the same person. Today's distinctions, where a Marcus doesn't consider himself to have the same name as Mark, just didn't -- couldn't! -- exist back then, because translating the given name was as automatic as translating one's greeting: Guten Morgen, Andreas; good morning, Andrew.
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I checked with my dad, it is him, he said that family name was written prušinac(and he was the only one having it) until his marriage and birth of the oldest child , so the oldest child on birth certificate is having prušinac andrija as a father, but birth record states her as pružinec. he is the only prušinac(everyone else are pružinec) in croatia who is andrija and everyone else have different names,not even simmilar to andrija or its variations, and were born after 1926 as pružinec, when it comes to wedding certificate his wife is listed as pružinec ( maiden name somehwere is mas(s)er,other places is mazer for second wife also is different, on wedding records is masser madien name, spouse prušinac andrija, given marriage name pružinec. so i asked my dad and he said that it is him, because he remembers that as a child he was shown some newspaper page very old with his name circled and grandmother told him that was your granddad captured in war, kept with his very old photograph and some kind of war medals with him in a roayl uniform with sabre looking very young, like in his 20ties, remebers how his mother was speaking about him walking home for months after he was captured, that story he was telling them when they were kids, she told me once, that often he was talking funny and using strange words for certain things and her mum would correct him, but my dad always thought his great grand father came first, but it is actualy his grandfaher it seems(if his great grandfather did, there is no records in croatia about him, or andrija is maybe his illegimate child,) my great grandfather was first it seems . because my dad start to search deeper now too, and he did remember that andrija was called krumpiraš (potatoman), wich was a bad name for imigrants ( for the ones who came first,not the ones born in croatia), mostly from poland, but was also used for slovaks, ukrainiens and czechs. all pružinec who were born in croatia were born in same place from 1926and further and are blood related, mostly as children of blood sibligns or half siblings), coz andrija remaried after a death of his first wife. so others who were born outside that place are all children of his grand children or great grand children, everyone with that family name in croatia is blood related. and my grandmother never met her grandparents(neither did her siblings) from his side or his siblings or anyone and they actually never knew who they were and where they are. thing is that goverment back in 19 century was offering land and housing for immigrants so many people just came alone very young or as young couples.
when i started this research my grandmother and her sister were both alive, they both died in last 2 years , so i cant ask them anything anymore,but they both did not know the names of his parents, place of his birth, where his roots are ( but they knew for both his wives and they knew family and relatives from their sides),, while in same time my grandmother knew her husband side who is related to who, who moved where and when, how many siblings and kids they had, who married who, but for her father nothing. Like he just showed from thin air one day. I guess other possibility is that he was maybe an orphan or illegitimate child, (but then he would not be called potatoman, and in such small place someone would know his parents or at least mother), he would not speak ''funny'' croatian. other thing about him she once told me is a fact that he would sometimes use '' strange'' language with some people who sounded like croatian but it was not and it seemed to her that he knew how to read, just had issues with reading croatian. . And one of my cousins told me, that his father told him that andrija was not born in yugoslavia. that there would be some record of baptizm or birth, even if he was an orphan in church of Kutina ( which had records for small villages Gojlo, Ilova, Banova Jaruga, but no one ever was able to find anything about him in croatian records except birth of children and marriages. Birth cerficites of them had name, year, place of birth like place, county, province, state, so the ones born in Ilova had Ilova Kutina Croatia and soldiers from that area captured in ww1 have Kroatien, Ilova Novska or Kutina, but he is having Ilava then Kaszáromé. If he was jew maybe those records were destroyed during ww2 coz croatia was on a wrong side of history and was doing genocide and ethnic cleansing of non croats and non roman chatolics, but then again some records would be in croatian jewish comunity. there is none for anyone with that surname or its variations.
i honestly would not be surprised that he got into trouble as teenager or very young adult in his motherland and just run away not to get married, or maybe done some small crime like stealing or something and run away, changed name or something. i mean our ancestors were people just like we are today, among them there is a posiblity some of them were criminals, sycos, orphans, children of married men, children of royal members etc, just like today.
Sorry for such a long reply and thanks very much for a help. will go to check birth archives of his children and marriage records, maybe some of them states his place of birth..
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