A Transylvania family connection?
Discovering the Kolozsváry surname
One of the fun things about family history research is that you never know where it may lead. I’ve recently focused on researching my great-great-grandfather, George Palsha, Sr. It’s easy to get distracted by shiny new information that’s not related to your research goal, but I’ve been diligent about only focusing on what I needed for this particular project. I gathered the information I needed to submit a request for his A-file (alien file) and to hire a genealogist with expertise in Eastern European research to trace that family line further back in Slovakia. I’m currently waiting to receive those reports, so I decided to revisit my files on him for any clues about other parts of my family.
As I looked at George’s marriage record, I realized that I had skimmed over an important detail - the names of his wife’s parents!
George’s wife was Erzsebet (Elizabeth) Mikula. Her father’s first name was Mathias, according to her death record, but her mother’s name was not listed. That had been a missing piece in my family tree, but thanks to this marriage record, I now have her mother’s full name and can continue working backward on that line!
Given my limited knowledge of Slovak surnames, I didn’t want to make an assumption of what I thought the surname was based on the handwriting. I posted a query to a Slovak Genealogy Facebook group and received multiple comments from Slovak natives that the surname was Kolozsváry. One group member went even further, providing the origin of the surname.
In Magyar/Hungarian, Kolozsvary means from Kolozsvar, which is the Magyar name for today's city of Cluj-Napoca in the Transylvania region of Romania.
- Mark Sabol
Transylvania?! Romania?? You have my attention! That level of detail will be extremely valuable as I start tracing the Kolozsváry name back in time.
So, what’s next? In order to work backward, I’ll start with what I know about this new branch of my family:
Juliana Kolozsváry was the mother of Erzsebet Mikula
Juliana’s inferred husband was Matyas Mikula
Erzsebet Mikula was 22 years old and living in Hertnek, Slovakia when she married Gyorgy Palsa doruv on 13 November 1893
The record is labeled as Roman Catholic
Based on this information, I can look for a marriage record between Juliana and Matyas Mikula, likely before 1871. If that record exists, it should provide clues about Juliana’s approximate birth year and parents’ names. Then, I can look for her birth record based on that information.
Where do I look? FamilySearch has an extensive collection of Slovakia church records, which is where I found this marriage record of Gyorgy and Erzsebet Palsa.
You can search the full FamilySearch database here. However, since not all records are indexed and searchable, I also recommend using the catalog to navigate to the specific record collection you need. In this case, it’s the Slovakia Church and Synagogue Books, 1592-1935. Once you get into the collection, you’ll need to select the religion. Then, you’ll select the county and place. Finally, you’ll choose the time frame and event type (baptism, marriage, death). Once you get to the specific microfilm, you can begin manually viewing the images.
Happy hunting!
Amazing what treasure you can find buried in old documents.
Thanks to Andrew Plank for sharing this additional info in the Slovak Genealogy Facebook group:
“I recently discovered a third great grandmother in Hungary's Veszprém county whose surname was occasionally recorded as "Kolozsvári". But usually it appeared as some spelling variation of "Klausenberger". I was puzzled until someone pointed out to me that both names were referencing the same city, today's Cluj-Napoca in Romania's Transylvanian region. Its German name had been "Klausenburg" while Hungarians called it "Kolozsvár".”