Kúty, Slovakia
Slovak Republic

My family webpage:  Palkovic            Email:  barjwhit@gmail.com   

Kúty, Slovakia is the small town from which my paternal grandparents  immigrated to the United States in the early 1900's.  It is located north of Bratislava and is shown as a red dot on this map. My grandparents were Tomas Palkovic and Josefina Vavra.

In historical records, the village [ of Kúty ] was first mentioned in 1468.  The German spelling is Kutti; the Hungarian is Jókút.
The municipality lies at an altitude of 156 meters and covers an area of 27.158km˛.  It has a population of about 4,129 people.

Many immigrants came to the United States in the early nineteen hundreds, when Slovakia was part of  Austria-Hungary.  Our family members settled in Schenectady and Johnstown, NY and Natick, MA.

Today, the country is an independent, democratic country in Europe known as the Slovak Republic.  Bratislava  is the capital of the country.  

In the summer of 2010,  Iveta Radicova was elected as prime minister of Slovakia.  She has Kúty roots on her father's side.  

Wikipedia can tell you more about Iveta Radicova.  She also has an official website.

Read about the Kúty of yesteryear from the words of our ancestors.

Here is an article about some of the immigrants who came  From Kúty  to Upstate New York.

Here is an article written by my grandmother's sister about her memories  From Kúty 

How important is an accent mark?  When searching Wikipedia, I found that
Kúty is the village in Slovakia.  Kuty is a town in the Ukraine. 
They each have very different histories. 

The goal of this webpage is:

  To network and share information with people who have an interest in or connection to the village of Kúty, Slovakia. 

Recommended websites

Meet Beverly.  Her blog is called Family Ramblings at  www.valcovic.blogspot.com  Scroll down to Sunday, December 10, 2007 to start reading about the visit to 

Beverly and her husband, who has Slovak roots,  made a trip to Slovakia, including Kúty 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.

When you visit her site, be sure to also visit this  links:   Foreigners Guide Living in Slovakia.

 http://users.erols.com/bvalco/kuty/Kuty/index2.html    This is the page where Beverly showcases her own photos.   Her pictures of the street fair fascinate me. 

Kúty station is the official border point for trains between Bratislava & Breclav although Brodské is closer to the frontier.

Source:  http://www.michaeltaylor.ca/Stations/kuty.html           See a wonderful photo of the Kúty  station at this site.  Be sure to click the "Slovakia" link to view other pictures.

Here is a site where your can view a slide show of photos taken in Bratislava.

http://outdoors.webshots.com/slideshow/103166050kOrynM;jsessionid=abc8VV4Fs0IdX-cHP9wFr            

Meet Ivan Faltejsek, a fellow genealogist in Slovakia. 

Ivan has  family roots in Kúty and has done extensive research in the Bratislava Archives.  He maintains a site at  faltejsek.com.  The web page is in Slovak, but Ivan knows English and he includes enough English words to guide those of us who do not know the Slovak language.  

Slovakia and the Slovaks

The story of Kúty naturally takes us to the broader story of Slovakia and the Slovaks.  It includes the story of the Slavic peoples, of Austria-Hungary and of  Czechoslovakia.  In 1992, Slovakia became an independent democratic nation.  Gradually more books about this country and its culture are being published in English.  More and more information is on the Internet also.

The two books listed listed below were published for American schools to supplement their social studies curriculum.  These books are very useful to me as an adult learning about my heritage.  I found them on 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 own both these books and I highly recommend them.  (BJW)

 Streissguth, Tom; Sexton, Colleen, ed. Slovakia in Pictures.  Slovakia in Pictures.    Visual Geography Series.  Minneapolis:  Lerner Publications Company, 1995. (ISBN 0-8225-1912-7)

 Stolarik, M.Mark Stolarik. The Slovak Americans.  The Peoples of North America Series.  New York:  Chelsea House Publishers, 1988  (ISBN 1-55546-134-4)

Networking

Vavra .  The family website of Jozef Vavra and Helena Maderic and their children.  Other family names included are:  Hesek, Antalek , Kadlik, Palkovic.

Palkovic   Other family names included are Vavra, Mraz, Orth, Mikus, Valachovic, Rosivac, Komorna.

Vavra  Surnames   A data base with births, deaths and marriages of various Vavra families from Kúty, Slovakia

  Zilka Surnames   A data base with births, deaths and marriages of various Zilka families from Kúty, Slovakia

Update:  January, 2011.  

In the past ten years, we have made contact with many helpful and interesting people with Slovak or Kúty connections.  We have been able to build a family tree going back and forward for several generations. 

One of the most interesting observations is to see how many of the old Slovak names we knew growing up in the cities of Schenectady, NY  and Natick, MA also appear among the in-laws on our Kúty family tree.   Maybe the Riska's, Valachovic's and Ralbovsky's, who were friends with our grandparents, were also  in-laws or cousins.

Now, we are also curious about  the brothers and sisters of our ancestors who did NOT come to the United States.  Some stayed in Kúty.  Some went to bigger cities nearby.  Some ventured to other parts of Europe or the wider world.  We have already learned  about some of them.  There are a lot of fascinating real-life stories out there.  We are learning how, over the generations, our own families  mimic  the broad story of people and history.  

We continue to look forward to making connections with friends, family and new acquaintances--from Kúty, from Slovakia,  from anywhere in the USA or the World.  Please use the email address listed at the top of this page to contact us.

Geneaolgy Resources

We have compiled a list of helpful genealogy resources  at    http://barjwhit.com./Resources.htm 

This site is a work in progress begun on March 15, 2008 and updated as we get new information.  This site was substantially revised in January, 2011.

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