TravelGuides

(TGA) - My wife and I will be in eastern Europe in a couple of months. We would like to go to Slovakia, but don't speak the language at all. While in Eastern Slovakia we would also like to do some genealogy work on her mothers family.
Does anyone have any recommendations of any guide that also could help on the genealogy?
Thanks
Read more: frommers.com/community/…ixzz0iZ248MOx
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An earlier Trip Tip poster recommended this chap http://www.cisarik.com/ for genealogy searches and guide services. From experience, genealogy work should be done in advance in this part of the world - records can be kept in a number of places so to start before you get here could end up saving you a lot of time.
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Thank you for this URL. We are looking into my wife's Jewish ancestry and upon searching this person’s web site, I don't think he knows or believes there were hundreds of thousands of Jews in this country before the Nazi's and WWII. Well at the least he doesn't seem to have Jewish names listed much on his site.
Thanks and we'll keep looking.
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I think by anyone's reckoning there were only 130000 or so Jews in what is now Slovakia before WWII. The problem is that the vast majority of records of Jewish families were unfortunately destroyed so there isn't a lot to work on - that's why you won't find many Jewish names on the aforementioned site. Try this site as well http://www.slovak-jewish-heritage.org/73.html
Edited: 4:44 pm, March 19, 2010
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That is interesting, because we have found in the Family History Library microfilms that Jewish families existed in most all of the villages, towns and cities in Slovakia (northern Hungary) before WWII,
For instance, in Jasenovce the Bloch and Weinberg families are not listed in this tiny village in his surname listing. Likewise, in Girovce the Bloch family has been expunged from his listing of surnames in this tiny village. Moreso, in Michalovce two prominent families, the Friedmans and the Schwarzs do not exist in his surname listings. Even in Vranov nad Topl'ou the Blochs and the Blochavos, who between them owned 3 businesses in this town, do not exist in the surname listing.
I wonder is this an attempt to expunge most reference to Jews in this area.
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