Please visit barjwhit.com our genealogy/ family stories resource center.
|
|
The
Vavra Story The Family of Joseph Vavra (1849-1892) and Helena Maderic (1858-1940)
Mary
Kadlik | Joseph
Vavra | Teresa
Antalek | Genevieve_Kadlik Development and presentation of this web page is a family affair. If you belong to any of the families listed above, and would like to help tell their story or just make contact with us, please email us. | Email us: barjwhit@gmail.com | Vavra Tree | Slovak Heritage |
|
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)
|
A Young Single Mother. Helena Vavra was 34 years old and pregnant when her husband Joseph died in 1892. The children were the following ages:
|
In 1897, Helena's children began immigrating to the United States.
|
Dates of immigration: (Source www.ellisisland.org) These dates need to be checked out!!!!
|
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.
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
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
*Birth dates differ on different records. FHL Kuty birth records indicate Teresa born July 1, 1880 and Anna born on July 6, 1885. |
Learn more about these families as their individual web pages are developed.
![]()
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.
![]()
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.