Šariš, Slovakia → Portage County, Wisconsin
One Slovak family, read back through the parish registers of Šariš — from a farm in Wisconsin to a cottager’s house in Šarišské Michaľany, one spelling at a time.
Dja-csowskeho · Gyacsovszki · Dzjacowsky · Dejacsovszky · Gyagyofszky · Dsatsovszky · Gyagyovszky (Tomko) · Djacovsky · Dzacowski · Jacowski
§1 · The Names
Torysa
Dja-csowskeho
Catharina, “of Andrej Džačovský”, marries
Torysa
Iſtok Gya[csovszky]
Stephen, as godfather
Istok Dyacovszky
Stephen marries Anna Pamulak
Iſtok Gyacsovszky
Stephen, as godfather
Iſtoka Djacsovszkeho
His son Stephanus baptised — “of Stephen Džačovský”, in Slovak
Janko Djacovszky
A wedding witness
Stephani Gyacsovszki seu Istok Kocisſbyname
His son Josephus baptised — “Stephen Gyacsovszki, or Stephen the carter”
Istok Kocsis … Stephanis Gyacovszkybyname
His son Joannes baptised
Stephanus Kocsisbyname
His daughter Anna baptised under the byname alone
Stephani Czacovszky
The same Anna buried two months later, under the surname
Sabinov book, Szent Mihály
Martinus Dzjacowsky
His son Joannes baptised — the family’s first record in Šarišské Michaľany
Sabinov book, Szent Mihály
Torysa
Stephanus Desacsovszky
Confirmation sponsor
Torysa
Stephanus Koczišsbyname
His daughter Maria baptised
Stephanus Diacovszki
As godfather
Šarišské Michaľany
Martinus Dejajovszkij
His son Andreas baptised
Šarišské Michaľany
Stephanus Dejacsovszky
His daughter Anna baptised
Stephani Czacsovskij
His daughter Anna buried
Stephanus Dijacsovszkij
As godfather
Martinus Dějačovskij
As godfather
Anna Dějačovska
As godmother — the feminine form
Martinus Dsačovszky
His burial, aged 43
Georgij Dzaczovszky
His son Stephanus buried
Georgius Dejacsovszkij
His daughter Catharina baptised
Stephanus Djacsovszky
His death, aged 40, husband of Anna Gyurkovszky
Anna Dzyacsovszkiana
Her daughter Catharina buried — the Latin feminine
Stephanus Džjačovszký
His son Stephanus baptised
Stephani Dzjajovszky
The same infant buried
Stephanus Déjčšovszky
His daughter Anna baptised
Stephanus Dejačovszky
His son Georgius baptised
Stephanus Dejacsovszkij
His son Joannes baptised
Andreas Dzjacsovszky
Marries Maria Fenuss
Ioanes Djacsovszky
Marries Elisabetha Miklos
Joannes G[y]ačkovszky
His son Joannes baptised — the first Gy- form in the village
Joanes Djacsovsky
As godfather, with Maria Kaminszky, to a child of Joanes Drusba and Maria Miklos
Joannes Csacsovszky
His son Georgius baptised
Joanes Decsovszky
His son Stephanus baptised — the surname written as the village itself: Décső is the Hungarian name of Ďačov
Djecsovszky
Andreas baptised
Joannis Decsovszky
His son Andreas buried
Maria Gyacsov[szky]
A widow, remarries
Joanes Gyagyovszky
His daughter Elisabetha baptised
Andreas Dsatsovszky
As godfather
Stephanus Dja-covszky
Marries Maria Lyes
Andreas Gyagyovszky
His son Stephanus baptised
Maria Gyagyofszky
Marries Joannes Palkof
Joan. Dzacsovszki
Head of house no. 47 in the conscription
Georgius Gyaggof-szky
Marries Maria Lichvár
Georgius Gyačofszky
As godfather, with Maria Lichvár
Georgius Tomkobyname
As a wedding witness — the byname alone
Joannes Gyagyovszky (Tomko)byname
Ján marries Julianna Miklosko
Georgius Dsatsovszky (Tomko)byname
Georgius, as a wedding witness three weeks later
Joannes Dzsacsovszky (Tomko)byname
Ján’s son Andreas baptised by the midwife
Georg Dsacsovszky (Tomko)byname
Georgius, as godfather
Joannes Dsacsovszky (Tomko)byname
Ján’s death, of cholera
Georgii Dsacsovszky Inq. senioris
Maria Lichvár’s burial, “wife of Georgius the elder”
Hazleton, Pennsylvania
Andrei Djacovsky
Andrew marries Sophia Tresch
Hazleton, Pennsylvania
Chicago
Stephan Dzacowski
Andrew’s son Stephen baptised
Chicago
Portage County, Wisconsin
Sophia Jacowski (Dzacowski)
Her probate, son John Jacowski executor
Portage County, Wisconsin
Sabinov
Džačovský · Džačovská
The modern Slovak form, on the stones of the Sabinov cemetery and in the area today
Sabinov
Andrew’s own line
Tomko is written on two generations of Andrew’s line — his grandfather Georgius and his father Ján — and once, in 1856, it stands alone in place of the surname. Šarišské Michaľany ran on double names — at least fifteen others appear in the parish between 1810 and 1874 — so Tomko may be the village’s name for the household, or the name of an ancestor who married in.
Džačovský is built from the name of Ďačov, a village 17 km up the valley: a -ský name says an ancestor came from there. The village’s own name has been written at least as many ways as the family’s — in Hungarian, Latin and Slovak — and between 1612 and 1638 it forks into Gy- and Dz-, exactly as the surname does. Family memory’s “Gyasco” is the village’s Gyacso of 1612. The closest the two ever come is in the Lipany register of 1755, where the clerk writes the village Djacsò — the stem of Djacsovszky, letter for letter, in the same decade that Michaľany and Sabinov were writing the family Dzjacowsky and Dsacsovszky. The name is the village’s, on the evidence of the hands that wrote both words. Which ancestor left it, and when, no record yet says: the registers that cover Ďačov begin in 1728 at Torysa and 1748 at Lipany, and neither holds anyone of the name living there.
The village’s other recorded spellings
Deczelhalma · Deychehalma · Geychehalma · Zeek · Zeech · Posalaka · Posalaka alias Gyechehalma · Zecz · Zechew · Zecheö · Zethew · Zeczye · Zecziö · Zdzecheo · Zecheö · Zétheö · Zechieö · Dzaczov · Diacso · Diacov · Dzaczenſzi · Diacsov · Gyacsov · Diačow · Decschj · Děčo · Dáčo · Ďačov
Charters, the village’s own history and the gazetteers, 1337 to 1920. They belong to the place, not to the family, and none of them touches the surname.
§2 · The Area
They were Slovaks in a Hungarian kingdom, and their records were kept in a third language. The parish registers are in Latin through the 1700s and most of the 1800s; by the late 1880s the marriage register is in Hungarian; by 1920 the parish writes in Slovak. Every change of language brought a new way to spell the family’s name.
Šarišské Michaľany was noble property from 1403 and a Szirmay holding from the mid-1600s; the Szirmay counts were buried in their family crypt at Szent Mihály. In the early 1750s the village was served by Minorite friars — Conventual Franciscans — acting as chaplains to Count Thomas Szirmay, under the parish priest of Sabinov. A friar, Father Celestinus, buried Martinus in 1777.
The registers record each family’s standing. A colonus held land of the manor; an inquilinus was a cottager, a želiar, with none; a cohabitans lived in another family’s house. Michaľany was a village of many cottagers. The family were landholders in the 1760s, and the Džačovský house was still a landholding in the 1828 conscription; by the 1830s Georgius was a cottager, and so was his son Ján.
Until 1767 Šarišské Michaľany had no parish of its own: its baptisms, marriages and burials were kept in the book of Sabinov, the market town 4.6 km away. In 1767 — which seems to have been a year of reorganisation across the district — the village got its own priest and its own books, which run without a break to 1896. The family was Roman Catholic throughout.
Hungary counted its taxable households in 1715, 1720 and 1828. The early rolls list only landholders — 21 households at Szent Mihály in 1715. The 1828 conscription is fuller: house no. 47, Joannes Dzacsovszki, landholder, with an adult brother; the Lichvár family at nos. 39 and 52; a Tomko household at no. 65.
Cholera swept the village in the summer of 1873; the death register lists it entry after entry, and dozens died. On 17 June a new burial ground, cut out of the land consolidation then under way, was consecrated by the archdeacon of Prešov. Ján Džačovský died of cholera six weeks later, on 30 July.
The villages, by distance from Šarišské Michaľany
Szent Mihály · Szentmihályfalva
home
Grew up around the church of St Michael, from which it takes its name; part of the Šariš castle estate in 1248. In 1787 it had 80 houses and 609 people; in 1828, 82 houses and 622. An almshouse (špitál) for eight was founded in 1657.
The family’s village from about 1753–56 until Andrew left in 1887. Houses no. 41 and 47 are theirs in the registers; Julianna Miklosko grew up at no. 35.
Kis-Szeben · Civitas Cibiniensis
4.6 km
The nearest town: a royal free town with its own parish, Lutheran congregation and Jewish community. In the 1500s it bought estates in Šarišské Michaľany. Plague in 1710 and famine in 1794 hit it hard.
Michaľany’s parish until 1767. Martinus’s son Joannes was baptised in its book on 30 May 1756 — the family’s first record in the village. Its registers reach back to 1676.
Décső
17.2 km
Founded in the early 1300s under German settlement law; held by the Tekule family in 1338, part of the Kamenica estate from 1350, later by the Dessewffy, Tahy, Berzeviczy and Palocsay families. In 1787, 55 houses and 400 people; in 1828, 74 houses and 542. Its people grew fruit, sold oats and cattle, and carted wine and salt. It has a Greek Catholic parish with a medieval church of St Michael the Archangel; its Roman Catholics belonged to Lipany, and it had no Roman Catholic church until 1992.
The village the surname is named after.
Tarcza
21.1 km
Centre of the Torysa estate, held by the Szirmay family from the 1700s, and known for carting to Poland. Its parish served Ďačov until at least 1775.
Where the surname first appears, and the family’s earliest documented home: a Catharina “of Andrej Džačovský” married here in 1739, and Stephen Gyacsovszki — also written Kocsis, “the carter” — raised a family here in 1744–1759. Its baptism tables name only three home villages — Tarcza, Senvisz and Viszoka — so these households lived in the parish itself, not in Ďačov.
Senvisz · Šenviž
26.6 km
A village of the Torysa estate with its own priest in the 1700s; still called Šenviž locally.
A Janko Djacovszky witnessed a marriage here in the 1740s, and in 1760 the Torysa register baptises a child to a Martinus Kocsis of Senvisz. Whether that Martinus is the Martinus who settled in Šarišské Michaľany is unsettled — the wives’ names differ.
Héthárs
15.5 km
A German-speaking market town with Slovak villages attached; the Roman Catholic parish for Ďačov.
Its register opens in April 1748 and records Ďačov families from February 1752, under a dozen spellings — Djacsò, Diacsò, Dzacso, Dičo, Décső. Those entries have now been read: 1748–1757 in full, and 1775–1810 by the register’s own locus column. Not one of them is a Džačovský.
Nagy-Sáros
5.6 km
A parish seat whose registers begin in 1740.
Home of a cousin branch written Csacsovszky, without the D.
Péchújfalu
9.0 km
A parish seat whose registers begin in 1699; the local Péchy nobility stand godparent constantly.
A Maria Dsacsovszky, wife of Joannes Cleeva, appears here in 1812.
4.0 and 1.6 km
Michaľany’s nearest neighbours. Ražňany’s registers survive from 1780.
6.9 km
The Greek Catholic parish for Šarišské Michaľany, 1846–1895.
The family was Roman Catholic, so it appears in the Michaľany books instead.
And then America
01 · 1893
Hazleton, Pennsylvania
Andrew marries Sophia Tresch at St. Joseph’s Slovak Catholic parish.
02 · briefly
Ohio
Between Hazleton and Chicago.
03 · about 1894–1912
Chicago
Stephen baptised at SS. Peter & Paul, 91st Street, 5 Aug 1900.
04 · to 1915
Linwood / Lanark, Portage County, Wisconsin
The farm. St. Patrick’s, Town of Lanark.
§3 · The Marriages
20 Sep 1739
Andreas Tirgortner[?]×Catharina Dja-csowskeho Andera — Catharina, daughter of Andrej Džačovský
Witnesses: Ulrich Lechner, Michael Ch[…]
The earliest appearance of the surname in the registers.
Torysa RC register, image 512
15 Nov 1744
Istok Djacowszky (Stephen), later also written Kocsis, “the carter”×Anna Juri Pamulaka — Anna, daughter of Juraj Pamulak
Witnesses: Stephanus Pauli, Nicolaus Niderhibner
Torysa RC register, image 513
about 1755
Martinus Dzjacowsky (born about 1734)×Anna
The first of the family in Šarišské Michaľany; their son Joannes was baptised there on 30 May 1756, and a second son, Andreas, in 1767.
before 1771
Stephanus (born about 1740, died 1780)×Anna Gyurkovszky
Landholders in Šarišské Michaľany. Their daughter Anna, born about 1771, was buried there in December 1772. The marriage itself is in neither home parish: the Sabinov register has been read for 1748–1767 and the Michaľany register for 1767–1799, and there is no Džačovský marriage in either. So Anna married in from a third parish — and that parish’s entry will name her father.
about 1777–1785
Stephanus the younger (born about 1757, died 1812)×Anna
Their children Anna (1785) and Stephanus (1793) were baptised at Šarišské Michaľany.
20 Oct 1782
Joannes Lesko, 32×Anna Djacsovszky, widow, 36
Witnesses: Mathias Adamkovics, Thomas Lichvar
Most likely the widow of Stephanus, who died in 1780 aged 40.
Film 004407849, image 12
20 Nov 1791
Andreas Dzjacsovszky, 22×Maria Fenuss, 19
Witnesses: Joannes Kaminsky, Georgius Cimbala
Film 004407849, image 15
24 Nov 1793
Ioanes Djacsovszky, 24×Elisabetha Miklos, 18
Witnesses: Joannes Gyurkovszky, Joannes Miklos
The first of three Džačovský–Miklos marriages; the families stood at each other’s fonts and weddings for a century.
Film 004407849, image 15
20 Nov 1796
Ioanes Miklos, 32×Maria Djacsovszky, 23
Witnesses: Andreas Dvorcsak, Ioanes Mesaros
Film 004407849, image 15
7 Nov 1811
Ioanes Filyak, 30, Greek Catholic×Maria Gyacsov[szky], widow, 29
Witnesses: Ioanes Miklos, Andreas Mardala[?]
Film 004407849, image 20
21 Nov 1813
Stephanus Djacovszky, 19×Maria Lyes, 16
Witnesses: Andr. Machala, Ioanes Kezuly[?]
The son of Stephanus the younger and Anna.
Film 004407849, image 20
23 Nov 1814
Andr. Dsatsovszky, 22×Susanna Marton, 18
Film 004407849, image 20
24 Nov 1819
Joannes Palkof, 22×Maria Gyagyofszky, 22
Witnesses: Joannes Kerul[y], Math. Poremba
Film 004407849, image 211
1825
Stephanus Gyagyof-szky, 20×Maria Kamminszky, 19
Witnesses: Andr. Gyagyofszky, Stephanus Miklosko
Film 004407849, marriages 1824–1826
Nov 1825
Joannes Gyagyofszky, 30 — the second of his four marriages (his first wife, Anna Kmetz, bore her last child in November 1824). The age was long read as 70; it is a 3, and the baptisms settle it independently: this man fathers children from 1820 to 1842, which no man born in 1755 could do×Eva Molssan (Molčan), 25
Witnesses: Andreas Gya-gyofszky, Andr. Miklos
Film 004407849, marriages 1824–1826
Nov 1826
Joannes Csamra, 21×Elisabeth Gyagyofszky, 18
Witnesses: Georgius Ludatsin[?], Joannes Martzinko
Film 004407849, marriages 1824–1826
16 Nov 1831
Mathias Gyagyofszky, 24×Anna Hudatsek, 18
Witnesses: Andreas Gyagyofszky, Andreas Miklos
Film 004407849, image 215
19 May 1833
Joannes Gya-gyofszky, 38 — the same man again, his third marriage×Maria Holyos, 26
Witnesses: Andr. Gyagyof[szky], Joanes Szedlak
Four wives, four runs of children, and not a year of overlap between them: Anna Kmetz (children 1820–1824), Eva Moltsan (1826–1830), Maria Holyos (1834–1835), Anna Tarbay (1839–1845). Each run begins the year after its marriage and ends the year before the next. One man, widowed three times.
Film 004407849, image 216
18 Nov 1833
Andrew’s line
Georgius Gyagyovszky (Tomko), 22, bachelor×Maria Lichvan [Lichvár], 18
Witnesses: Joanes Palkof, Stephanus Martzinko
Andrew’s grandparents. Georgius lived and died in the Džačovský house, no. 47.
Film 004407849, image 216
Feb 1839
Joanes Gyagyofszky, widower, 40 — the fourth and last marriage of the man of 1825 and 1833×Anna Machala, widow, 38 — born Tarbay, widowed from a Machala
Witnesses: Steph. Gyurkofszky, Joanes Martzinkof
The baptisms of 1839, 1842 and 1845 call her Anna Tarbay, her maiden name; the marriage register calls her by her first husband’s. Her burial in 1853 gives all three at once — the clerk began to write Dsatsovszky, struck it through, wrote alias, and entered her as Anna Machala née Tarbay, widow, of house 55.
Film 004407849, image 218
9 Nov 1858
Andrew’s line
Joannes Gyagyovszky (Tomko), 24, house no. 41 — “Georgii Gyagyovszky & Mariae Lichvar filius”×Julianna Miklosko, 18, house no. 35 — daughter of the late Mathias Miklosko and Elisabetha née Jakubko
Witnesses: Andreas Martzinko, Michael Marton
Andrew’s parents. Banns read three times; married by Vincentius Nagy, the parish priest.
Film 004407849, image 228, entry 3
before 1874
Georgius the younger (baptised 1837), blacksmith, house no. 55×Anna Petrovics
Very probably Ján’s younger brother, Andrew’s uncle. Their children were baptised at Šarišské Michaľany in 1874 and 1876.
1876–1879
Andrew’s line
Georgius Gyagyovszky (Tomko), widower×Anna Falko
Georgius’s second marriage, after Maria Lichvár died in December 1874. Known only from his burial in 1879, which calls him “Annae Falko maritus” — husband of Anna Falko. The register pages for 1873 to 1875 have been read and he is not in them, so the wedding itself falls somewhere in 1876 to 1879, on pages nobody has yet opened. It is the last marriage he ever contracted, and in that era the register often named a groom’s parents. His remain unknown.
1893
Andrew’s line
Andrei Djacovsky — Andrew Jacowski×Sophia Barbara Tresch
Hazleton, Pennsylvania · St. Joseph’s Slovak Catholic parish
The immigrant’s marriage, six years after he left Šarišské Michaľany.
§4 · Y-DNA
R-M458 agrees with the paper trail, which puts the family in Šariš from 1739; the chromosome places the paternal line in the West Slavic population for some 4,500 years. The dates are modelled estimates. A YFull upload or a Big Y test can take it further, to living relatives on the same branch.
§5 · Forthcoming · The Book
From the Brink of Time
Džačovský — One Slovak Family
Phillip Jacowski
In 1887 a boy of about seventeen walked out of a village in northeastern Slovakia and never came back.
Both his parents were dead. The house he was born in had a number rather than an address — 41 — and the register that recorded his brothers and sisters was written in Latin by a priest who spelled the family name two different ways on the same page.
It goes from a farm in Portage County to a house in the Torysa valley, father to father, across three hundred years — through parish registers, Hungarian tax rolls, a Chicago baptism, a Y chromosome, and fourteen different spellings of one word.
Contents
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