copyright 1998 - Don Carerra.
Unauthorized use or distribution is prohibited and in violation of international law.
Taken from LDS microfilm #0722744 of Mezolaborcz (Hungarian for the present Medzilaborce)
Over the last 2 months Don Carrera has transcribed much of the 1869 Zemplen County census of Medzilaborce. He will be doing the same thing for the nearby villages of Vidrany and Palota over the next several months.
The complete census contains information on 824 individuals, listing occupation, religion, marital status, if a permanent resident or a 'foreigner' just visiting. One key element is that the family relationships are noted. Mothers, children, in-laws. This provides good references for the birth-marriage-death records on separate microfilms.
When Don analyzed the birth date data, he noticed there is an odd increase in the number of villagers born in the '5-years' - 1815, 1820, 1825, 1830, 1835 and so on. Why would that be? This is a striking numerical oddity when you plot the data.
The list below contains all family names on the Mezolaborcz (Medzilaborce) 1869 Zemplen County Census. These names may not be spelled the same way you are used to seeing them spelled. The name Don was searching, always spelled SZAVULYAK in Slovak records, was always spelled SAVULAK in the U.S. Some of the names only appeared one time, whereas there were 38 people with the last name LISZI on the census.
Antalovezy Augustin Baranik Baranko Baranyak Beitsch Berger Berjtzjuva Berkovits Betzlej Bionkrant Bitsak Blisak Bohin Bojtsek Bomhaft Bonyko Bonytsik Brandt Braszo Brindak Bruchner Brunzer Burmila Burtsko Cservenak Cservenyak Cseszreg Csoma Csonutyovits Csuzzer Csvicseny Csvitsemjak Cvicseny Czasz Czehlyar Czuszer Danyo Dirkats Dofzin Doroszt Dravetzki Dribnyak Dutzak Dzugan Einzig Eznveik Fatzkovits Feczurkza Fedak Fedorko Fedorsak Feigenbaum Fesko Feszurka Fetsurka Fetzura Friedferd Gajdos Galisin Gambats Ganrits Gavula Gedinak Gelb Gelra Golovezky Gottlieb Grib Groszman Groszman Groz Grunberger Grundza Gulik Guttik Habstak Haburtsak Hajko Halajko Hamas Hamulyak Harhai Hartman Hembirts Hircsanka Hnigyak Hobety Hofta Homka Hopta Hots Husztyak Iatzkovits Itzkovits Jakubovics Jatikovits Jazoroszkiy Juntsik Kacz Kadilyak Kamjonszky Kaniszak Kantalyak Kantsak Keleman Keresztasi Kofka Kopats Kopka Kotsuta Kottik Kottos Kotzan Koztik Krajger Kralytzki Krausz Kreskay Kullik Kuroptsak Laudan Laufer Lazar Leibisch Leibovits Leichenberger Lejbovits Levitzki Lieber Lipko Liptsik Liszi Lisztsak Lowy Lyalko Magalik Magulya Mamtovits Mandl Mandlovits Marko Melekovits Mendlovits Merdinger Mihalics Mikanin Mikulik Milyak Misznyik Mitnik Mitrasko Mohnats Mosko Moskovits Moskovitz Moztkovits Muhanin Neuviztky Nipkats Niszkacs Nuszemre Orenits Pannahaj Pelnik Peterfreund Petrovay Pinhosz Pivak Posztikats Prjada Prozko Rabi Regruth Ribar Rimer Rohnats Rosensit Rubin Saginszki Santa Schellhorn Schilt Schleszinger Schmiga Schonfeld Schwentk Sfira Skovran Smiga Soltaig Sommer Sovjak Stemyk Stenyko Sturmin Suti Svartz Szavulyak Szegal Szekerak Szikli Szitsak Szlivka Szmolyak Szoszky Szovjak Sztalo Szteranka Sztirtsak Szurmaj Tantsak Techony Teivesz Tihi Turok Tutotsok Tyahla Uram Vasilyk Vaszenstrom Vaszilis Vaszilyk Veisberg Vimer Vojtko Volovszky Vorobely Voytatko Vzubely Zalka Zavojanki
The census tally sheets were printed, making it very easy to read them.
Most tally sheets were in both Hungarian and Church Slavonic. A few (3% ??) were only in Hungarian
Church Slavonic uses the Cyrillic alphabet, plus the Roman letter 'J'
There are several hundred microfilm rolls for the entire Zemplen census. This film only included 4 villages.
This style of data sheet should have been wide-spread throughout Zemplen County for this census, so other villages should have similar or identical tally sheets.
The main tally sheet lists the house number, and the number and types of rooms in the house.
There is a place for the street name (utca; utcza is the old spelling), but nothing was ever recorded in it, so there may have been only 1 street in Mezolaborcz
Houses were numbered 1 to 106, except no #39. This doesn't mean that the houses actually had a number on them.
Most houses had only 1 room (szoba); #27 and #61 had 3 rooms; #10, 12, and 36 had 4; #28 had 5.
A few houses had a closet or storage room (kamra) in the house, and an entrance (eloszoba) Fewer than 10 houses had a separate kitchen (konyha).
These items were recorded too: another storage area (kamra), a shed attached to the house (felszer), if it is a shop (bolt); was it used for a business? (uzletre is szolgal-e, es milyenre?)
There was a space for the number of stalls (istallo) for animals and any feed storage area (csur).
A separate tally sheet for each house listed all of the animals that were owned.
Totals for the village were:
0 stud horses, oxen, mules, donkeys 156 calves
28 mares 156 sheep
54 geldings 31 goats
12 foals 203 pigs
129 cows (2 types - Hungarian & Swiss) 71 beehives
53 steers
There was no record of how many houses owned 55-gallon drums of deodorizer.
There are 15 columns (takes 2 pages) to record family and individual records.
Column 0 lists the household number (e.g. 11-1 and 11-2 = House number 11, family 1 and family 2, sharing the same house)
Column 1 is the tally number for each individual in the different families
Column 2 lists the name of each individual, and any relationship to others in the group.
neje=wife; gyermekei = children; ezek = their, ennek = his/her; testver = sibling; annya = mother; sogor = brother-in-law
Column 3 shows the sex (ferfi = male; no= female)
Column 4 lists the year of birth
Column 5 gives the person's religion. (see below)
Column 6 -marital status (nos = married man; ferjezett = married woman; notlen = unmarried man; ozvegy = widow/widower; hajadon = unmarried woman)
Column 7 lists occupation - usually this column is for the business owners and skilled people.
Column 8 lists the occupations for unskilled (foldmuveles = farmer, haztartas = housewife; szolgal = maid; seged = helper
Column 9 lists county and village of birth. Most are from Mezolaborcz (usually abbreviated Labort)
Column 10 asks if the person is local (helybeli) or foreign (idegen)
Column 11 asks if the person is present in town for a short time or a long time (a visitor might be there for a week, month…)
Column 12 asks if the person is absent for a short time or a long time (a resident might be gone for a job, or traveling).
Column 13 asks if the person can read, or can both read and write. Nem = no, tud = knows how to
Column 14 is for notes-is person blind, deaf, mute, dementia, a soldier, on leave, in reserves, discharged, an officer…
I did not record detailed data for each column, just general comments for the occupation and presence or absence.
The first name listed for each house is the reference for any family notes
I am tracing JOHN SAVULAK (IVAN SZAVULYAK, #76-1, b 1844, died in Pennsylvania 3 April 1918). His wife's name was Eva Santa, born in 1845 in Szterkotz (now Cabalovce a Sterkovce). Santa was supposedly of Spanish origin, although "santa" means "lame" in Hungarian. His mother's name was Anna Husztyak, unknown to us until reading this census. Our family always spelled it "Savulak" since the early 1900's in the U.S., but it was only SZAVULYAK in Slovak records. His name and his son's name were spelled Joannes Szavulyak on the son's birth record of 6 February 1869 recorded from a separate BIRTH-DEATH-MARRIAGE microfilm.
On the marriage record, Ivan and Eva were married in 1867, Ivan was listed as 27 years old, Eva as 26. That would put his birth in 1840, hers in 1841, differing by 4 years from the birth years on the census. One of his brothers was known as Andri on the census, and Andreas on the marriage records (Andrew in English)
Some first names were really common: Anna (71 with that name), Maria (99), Eva (45), Julia (34) Mihaly (55), Ivan (57), Andri (30), Istvany (12, Stephen), Vaszily (54), Peter (23), Simon (9) So neither "Joannes" nor "Nicolaus" appears on the census, yet both are frequent entries on the Slovak birth records
The handwriting was very good, compared to most of the writing on the BIRTH-DEATH records. You have to allow for individual writing styles though to know what all of the letters actually are. There were at least 3 different handwriting styles, so 3 people or more must have been recording the data.
A number of last names may have been the same, but were written differently by the census enumerators.
Example: The names Feczurkza, Feszurka, Fetsurka, and Fetzura may actually be the same last names. Fatzkovits, Iatzkovits, Itzkovits are another similar set of last names. Those spellings are how I interpreted the hand-written letters of the names. Yes, an F and I can look alike if you write them with a flourish.
Some first names are likely to be incorrect (e.g. Adain #9-5, Iatana #106-8)
It took me a while to realize the written name was "ILONNA", because the 'I' looked like a capital "H" or "G", and the 'L' did not have a loop on it. Only when it was spelled "ILONA" with one "N" did I know what the first letters were. This particular enumerator had always made a loop on the 'L' for other names.
Further quirks in the handwriting on this census:
Common last names: Liszi 35; Schonfeld 27; Vojtko 23; Husztyak 22; Kopka 21; Haburtsak 20; Galisin 20 Uram 17; Kantsak 17; Braszo 17; Grundza 14; Petrovay 13; Hajko 13; Dzugan 12.
YOB = year of birth; GC = greek (gorog) catholic; M=jewish (religion of Mozes); RC = roman (romai) catholic ev and het = other Christian denominations
22% of the population was Jewish (178 out of 824); there was a rabbi in the village, Simon Schonfeld, house 104
There was a teacher, too, even though most of the school age children could not read or write, as you would expect. Not just children, but few of the farmers could read or write either. These were not learned people.
I counted 824 people in town, vs 786 listed in the 3-volume set of Slovak town histories The foreign visitors or absent residents may not have been included in the 'official' 786 number.
The residents in #86-1 were 3 men who were railroaders. Henrich Schellhorn was born in Berlin, the other 2 were younger apprentices or helpers. They were the only Christians not Greek or Roman Catholic.
The oldest resident was Maria Haburtsak, house 80, born in 1780.
There were 105 houses, 125 families or households
Average age was 21.4, median age was 16.5
Average household size is 824 / 125 = 6.6. This was a young village with large extended families
There is a large increase in number of people born in years divisible by 5 between 1800 and 1850. Does anyone know why? For example, from 1808 to 1821, there were 0, 0, 12, 1, 1, 1, 1, 12, 3, 0, 0, 3, 25, and 3 people still alive at the census.
Columns N and P list the birth year and the number of villagers born in that year.
View 1869 Census Data [LARGE FILE]