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Kuty, Slovakia:   

Helena Magyerics  (Maderic) was born on  Sep 26, 1856 (house # 72) and baptized on Sep 27, 1856.  (Source:  FHL, 1856: line 92)
(I believe her death certificate give DOB Aug 18, 1858.  That document must be double checked.  Family stories indicated that  she did not let on what her actual DOB was.)
Her parents, Joannes  Magyerics (1826) and Helena Riska (1836) were married 3 Feb 1853. (Source:  FHL, 1853:11-20)
Joannes was 27 years old and living in house # 72 and Helena Riska was 17 years old and living in house # 144
The attendants at the wedding were:  (We need to review the record to find this out.) 

Josephus (Joseph) was born in 1849. 
His parents, Stephanus (Stephan)  Vavra (1825) and Terezia Valachovic (1830) were married on 6 Feb 1848.
      The parents of Stephanus Vavra were Antonius Vavra and Susanna Slezak.  ) 
      The parents of Terezia Valachovic were Josephus Valachovic and Maria Vizvari.
      See  Family Tree of Stephanus and Terezia Valachovic Vavra  including Joseph's  brothers and sisters

Joseph (age 24) and Helena Vavra (age 17) were married 28 Oct 1873 in Kuty, Slovakia. 
The witnesses of their marriage were Michael Karafiat and Michael Vrabel.
Joseph was living in Kuty, House # 126; Helena was living in Kuty, House #458.  They were both Roman Catholic.  (Source:  FHL, Kuty 1873, entry 34)

(Update August, 2010)  We are very excited that the Family History Library (FHL), now has  Kuty, Slovakia records  available in the United States.  We are learning many new and interesting things about our Vavra and other Slovak ancestors.   As time permits, we will record the  information  at this website, starting with the Vavra Birth Records as linked below.  (Update October, 2010)  We learned who Joseph Vavra's parents were; who his brothers and sisters were; and we found one of his brother's family trees on Ancestry.com .  See Family Tree of Stephanus Vavra and Terezia Valachovic  as linked above. 

Joseph and Helena lived in Kuty.  Between 1874 and 1893, they had eight children.  Two children died only months after their birth. 

Their first four children were born in House #458.    The last four were born in House # 546. 

The godfather for all the children was Joannes Palkovic.  With only two exceptions, the godmother was Teresia Palkovic.  Two children had Susanna or Helena Palkovic for their godmother.  

            See Vavra Birth Records for the details of each child's birth as recorded in the Kuty, Slovakia records on file at the Family History Library. 

Joseph died from whooping cough on October 28, 1892, six month before his last child, Josefina was born.  He is bury in Kuty, Slovakia.

After his death, his widow became a seamstress to earn money to support her children.  (Source: verbal, ML)

Immigration

In 1897, Helena's children began immigrating 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
The youngest daughter, Josephine settled in Schenectady, New York.

Helena Maderic

In 1911, when she was 53 years old, Helena immigrated to Roxbury, Massachusetts  with her youngest daughter, Josephine. 
For more details of Helena's immigration, see Manifest 

After Josephine married and moved to Schenectady, New York, Helena went to Schenectady, too, and lived with Josephine and her family.

She lived there until she  died at the age of 86 on February 23, 1940 from cardiac insufficiency due to arterio sclerosis. 

She is buried at St.Cyril & Methodius Cemetery in Schenectady, New York

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.  (Update 2011) We learned more about Helena Maderic and Michal Karafiat families from the 1869 Kuty Census.  Learn more about these families at  Maderic Families

The Children of Joseph and Helen Vavra.

Learn more about these families as their individual web pages are developed.

Our Slovak Heritage

  We have created a page about Kúty, Slovakia which we invite you to visit.  Here you will find:

  Some facts, books and websites about Kúty, Slovakia.

  Networking with other people whose ancestors came from  Kúty, Slovakia.

Contributors to this Site:

Margaret Lentini and Helen Flynn, granddaughters of Helena Vavra gave us the initial information which allowed us to create the family tree which includes the children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren Joseph & Helena Vavra.  Both Margaret and Helen knew their grandmother,  their cousins and their cousins' children.  They provide valuable, first hand information about this family.  We wish to thank Margaret  and Helen for giving us a good start on this genealogical journey.

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.  She obtained most of the documents included on this site.

(Update August, 2010)  In 2010, now that some records from Kuty, Slovakia are readily available at the Family History Library, Virginia once again devoted time and patience to do extensive research at the Family History Library (FHL) to find and document birth, baptism, marriage and death records of all the Vavra children, their spouses, and close family friends.  We are very grateful for the way Virginia's research has enhanced the story of our family with information that none of us knew before.

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

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 grandma, grandpa,  mom or dad's name.  You'll probably find it on the Kadlik/Vavra Family Tree.  It's been the place where we cousins interested in genealogy meet each other.  Our special thanks to Fran for this marvelous list and some good pictures, too. 

Ivan Faltejsek from Slovakia is researching his own genealogy from the Kúty records in the Bratislava Archives.  Some people in his family and ours are connected through marriages.  When he finds information pertaining to our family, he forwards it to us.  Ivan has been a  valuable source for information for our families from Kúty.  He has a website at faltejsek.com which includes genealogical data bases and useful links .   Ivan is a continual source of  help to us and we are grateful to him.

Carole Moncman has Vavra and Zilka roots in Kuty.  While researching her own families, she found information about our family which she generously shared with us.  We continue to work together and are grateful for the productive collaboration.