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Kuty, Slovakia:   

Joseph and Helena Vavra were married 28 Oct 1873 in Kuty, Slovakia.. 

Helena Maderic was born on 18 Aug 1858. 
Her parents, Jan Maderic (1826) and Helena Riska (1836) were married 3 Feb 1853.

Joseph was born in 1849. 
His parents, Stephan Vavra (1825) and Terezia Valachovic (1830) were married on 6 Feb 1848.
He died in 1892 from whooping cough and is buried in Kuty, Slovakia. 

After his death, his widow became a seamstress to earn money to support her children. 

Immigration

Those children later immigrated to the United States. 

Natick, Massachusetts
Most of them eventually settled in or around Natick,Massachusetts.  

Johnstown, New York
The only son, Joseph, settled in Johnstown, New York.  

Schenectady, New York
In 1911, Helena immigrated to Roxbury, Massachusetts  with her youngest daughter, Josephine.  After Josephine married and moved to Schenectady, New York, Helena went to Schenectady, too, and lived with Josephine and her family.

Helena Maderic

• Helena Maderic was born on  Aug.18, 1858.
  (There is some uncertainly about the year of her birth.  Family members say she would never admit her age).  
• She immigrated to the United States in 1911.   
• She died on February 23, 1940.  
• Per Certificate of Death, we learned that she died from
  cardiac insufficiency due to arterio sclerosis.  
• She is buried at St.Cyril & Methodius Cemetery in Schenectady, NY

For more details of Helena's immigration, see Manifest 

Helena's Brothers

From the obituary of Helen Maderic Vavra, we learned that she had three brothers: 

• John Maderic of Newburgh [NY]
• Joseph Maderic of New York City
• Michael Maderic of Vienna [Austria].  

We would like to get in touch with the families of these Maderics.
If any happen to read this page, please e-mail us.

(Update August, 2008)  In recent months, we have received  emails from several Maderic families.  In some cases, we think they may be cousins of Helena.  We are continuing to share information with these families to find more and more clues to all of our family history.  Learn more about these families at  http://Palkovic.us/Genealogy/Maderic.htm

Vavra Family Tree including the children and grandchildren Joseph & Helena Vavra.
We wish to thank Margaret Lentini and Helen Flynn for the information on this family tree.

Frances Frizzell, granddaughter of Mary Vavra Kadlik has put the Vavra family tree on www.ancestry.com.   It is a  very comprehensive list of several generations of the Vavra family.  Search your name.  You'll probably find it on the Kadlik/Vavra Family Tree.  Our special thanks to Fran for this marvelous list and some good pictures, too.  It's been the place where we genealogy cousins meet each other.

Other Contibutors:

Virginia Flynn, granddaughter of Anna Vavra Hesek did persistent research at www.ellisisland.org to find the immigration records of the Helen Vavra, her children, and some of the people who married into their family.  She also did extensive research at cemeteries, municipalities, and neighborhoods in NY and MA to gather information about all these families.

Barbara Whitaker, granddaughter of Josephine Vavra Palkovic initiated this site.  She is the coordinator and webmaster of the site. 

Ivan Faltejsek from Slovakia is researching his own genealogy from the Kúty records in the Bratislava Archives.  When he finds information pertaining to our family, he forwards it to us.  Ivan has been a  valuable source for information for the Joseph Vavra family and many of the families from Kúty who married into the Vavra family.  We are grateful to him.  Ivan has a website at faltejsek.com.

The two books listed above were published for school children to supplement their social studies curriculum.  I found them very useful as an adult learning about my heritage.  I found them on www.amazon.com for very little money.  The first is a great overview of modern Slovakia.  The second reminded me a lot of what I remember about the community of my immigrant Slovak grandparents.  I highly recommend both these books.  (Barbara Whitaker)

Meet Beverly   www.valcovic.blogspot.com 

Beverly found our site when searching "Kuty", where her husband's family comes from.  They recently made a trip to Slovakia, including Kuty and she has some wonderful information on her blog which we will all enjoy--pictures, information, and links to other peoples sites that are very good.

For the Hesek's among us, these Valcovics have some Hesek relatives.

Meet Michal Razus, from the Slovak Republic, is a researcher of Slovak genealogy and Rusyn genealogy.  We learned about him from the Jednota Newspaper,  where he advertises his services.  Michal was kind enough to do some translating for us.  Please visit his website at http://www.slovak-ancestry.com  to see the ways  in which he can be helpful when we search for information about out Slovak ancestors.

Networking  

This is a mini-bulletin board to network with Vavra families that may be related to Joseph and Helen.

(Update August, 2008)  We received an email from Carole who said, "I am currently working  on my family tree and my great grandmother was Julia Vavra Zilka. She was born in Kuty Slovakia in 1872."  Julia could could possibly be a sister or cousin of  Joseph Vavra? 

(Update April, 2009)    When researching Sprusansky ("kadlic") in the Bratislava archives, we found that Josef Sprusanksy married Julianna Zilka in 1837.  Could there be a connection here?