Slovakia - birth record - difficulty reading?

[anitah1972]

Someone very helpful pointed me to this collection of church records from Slovakia, now available on the FamilySearch website:

https://www.familysearch.org/search/collection/list#page=1&countryId=1927146

My problem is that I don't speak Latin, Hungarian or Slovakian, and I'm not even familiar with the language.  I'm getting there, via web research on the languages, but I would love it if someone could give me a hand with reading this record, which I think might be related to my family.

Any advice/understanding you have about what you see here would be useful.  Thanks!
Anita in MD, USA

[JustinL]

Anita,

For what it's worth, the document appears to be written in Cyrillic script. That would suggest that the language is not Slovak, most likely to be Russian. The word below 1872 seems to begin Sept, but I'm no expert.

Good luck, Justin

[apwright]

Can you post the column headings? Or tell us how you navigated from the link you gave, to this record. Which religion (I guess Greek Catholic?), which county (?Košice?), which place, which image number?

I think the language is Church Slavonic, written in the in Cyrillic script
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_Slavonic_language
There are words in there (e.g. the word for "wife " in the godparents' column - супруга) that are used in Slovene (not Slovak!) and Serbo-Croatian, so I guess it's not Ruthenian, which is spoken in Slovakia but is similar to Ukrainian. Conversely, the word for September Сентябрь is used in Russian (and a couple of others), but not in Serbian/Slovene/Slovak.

Very rough translation:
Column 1+2: 1872 September. The column headings will tell us what the 3s are for! Maybe born and baptised the same day.
Col.3: the forename Mikhail
Next 3 columns: some abbreviations... no idea!
Next wide column: (parents' names?) Ioan GREGA and Mariya ?GAZHINYAK.
Next col.: the placename Марковци, which I think is Markovce http://www.fallingrain.com/world/LO/03/Markovce.html and then "No.55", maybe the house number in the village.
Next col.: (godparents' names?) Mikhail MATUKH and Mariya STASHKOVA wife of Andr[ey] ONDOVCHIR??
Next col.: maybe a ditto mark?
Last col.: appears to read "died 1875 March 22", so the poor lad didn't live long!

Hope this helps.
Adrian

EDIT:
The word under the two men's names (father's and godfather's) is газда, meaning 'farmer'.
The word млад. before Ioan's name means 'young', so I think he's Ioan Grega junior.
After each adult's surname is an abbreviation which I think is г.К. for their religion 'Greek Catholic'.

[janrm]

Apart from the language, the layout is pretty similar to say, Norwegian registers.

I have noticed there is a " + " (cross) above the name, in Norway this is also used and indicates early death.

Could it be the same in other countries?

Jan

[Berlin-Bob]

Here is a Slovakian birth certificate from my Grandmother,
with headings in latin and slovakian.

Apart from the language, the layout is pretty similar to say, Norwegian registers.

Perhaps this is a "standard" roman-catholic birth registration form; I'm guessing the columns will be the same almost everywhere, and the headings will be a combination of latin and the language of the "country of origin".

Column 1+2: 1872 September. The column headings will tell us what the 3s are for! Maybe born and baptised the same day.
Next 3 columns: some abbreviations... no idea!

Looks like my Grandmother was born on the 3rd. of March and baptised on the 8th.
She was clearly feminine and legitimate.
Anitah's record is not so clear here, althought the entry 3  in the 4 narrow columns looks like the same word as in Maria's 2nd. and 3rd narrow columns (perhaps it means "yes" ?)

Bob

[apwright]

Looking at it again in the light of Bob's contribution (danke Bob!), the three abbreviations are муж., жн. and зьк. or зѣк., corresponding to the Russian stems муж-, жен- and зак- for 'male', 'female' and 'legitimate' respectively. No idea what the endings would be in Church Slavonic, but in modern Russian the full forms of the adjectives are мужской, женский and законный.
Bit strange that the writer should write all three rather than just ticking the appropriate box!

Adrian

[anitah1972]

My goodness... look at all of these helpful replies!  So sorry - I must have missed the notifications, and have only just gotten back here.

First - the web link path to the listing:
https://www.familysearch.org/
then scroll down to Browse By Location... Europe... Slovakia... there is only one consolidated title there:  "Slovakia, Church and Synagogue Books, 1592-1910"

Then the next page there's also only one option: "Browse through 1,316,135 images"

Then it offers you the choice of religions. 

I have been searching "Greek Catholic" (a term I'd not realized was synonymous with Greek Orthodox.)  That pick of religion was a guess, as my great-grandfather's family emigrated from Greece and was Greek Orthodox. 

My Slovakian great-grandmother married him after leaving central/eastern PA for NYC, so I had thought perhaps she was also Greek Catholic... but as it turns out that their child (my grandfather) was actually baptized twice, once in a Roman Catholic church (in Canada, where he was born) and then again, several months later, in a Greek Orthodox church in NYC, where his father's (Greek) family lived.   So presumably my Slovak ancestors were Roman Catholic, and I've been looking in the wrong place. 

In any case, I'm told there are Glovn(y)a and Kovalic(h) records in Michalovce - Markovce and Prešov - Lenartov... which I'd like to find and see, but I don't see those regions/cities listed under the Roman Catholic links.  Perhaps there's more than one religion happening in the Slovak family history? 

While I'm giving history, I should mention that the Glovna/Kovalich relatives are cousins at best, they're just the only relatives that I've been advised do, in fact, have extant records in this database.

What I'd really love to find somewhere in there (no idea what city, or if the records exist) is a record for a Michaly Sborai (Michael Sboray/Sporay/Szborai in the US: "zchboray"), and/or a Borbora Matij (Barbara/Bertha Mate, Matay, etc in the US) both born circa 1872-3.

These are my great-great-grandparents and they emigrated to America in 1889/1890 (records differ), possibly after they married, possibly before.  All of their children (that I know of) were born here, starting in 1891. 

I have reason to believe that (despite the fact that every record I have found says only that they were from Austria and/or Hungary) they were in fact Slovak by ethnicity.  I have not been able to locate a single US birth, marriage, or immigration record for either Michael or Barbara that says what town they came from. 

It's all a big mystery, and while I'm willing to take the time to search through the records, it's frustrating that I wasn't even aware that what looks like a Z in that record I posted (I was seeing Zpera), is, apparently according to your (very helpful, thank you) translation, a G.

Can anyone suggest a translator or beginner Cyrillic site that will help me know what to look for? 

I really appreciate the help and advice... thanks a bunch...
Anita

[john39727]

From your description of the surname, the original spelling may have been Zboraj (roughly pronouced z-bor-eye). There are a number of records on FamilySearch.org and Ancestry.com matching it. Good luck with your research.