Finding your Slovak ancestors

First, find the village, its Hungarian name and its parish

Slovak records are filed by place: first the parish (farnosť) that kept the registers, then the state archive (štátny archív) that now holds them. Before you search, you need the village's present Slovak name, its Hungarian name, the old county and the parish it belonged to.

Hungary, then Czechoslovakia. For centuries Slovakia was part of the Kingdom of Hungary, and genealogists often call it Upper Hungary. In 1918 the Slovaks joined the Czechs in the new Czechoslovak Republic, and on 1 January 1993 Slovakia became an independent republic. A family paper from before 1918 may therefore say Hungary or Austria-Hungary, and one from 1918 to 1992 says Czechoslovakia. For the Hungarian years see also our Hungary guide; for the Czech lands, our Czech Republic guide.

Three names for one village. FamilySearch notes that every locality in Slovakia has a Slovak and a Hungarian name, many also a German one, and that place names are often misspelled in American sources. Except for modern records, registers were written mostly in Latin and Hungarian, so the village may appear under its Hungarian name. Milan Majtán's Názvy obcí Slovenskej republiky (1998) gives the modern Slovak spelling of every locality, its older Slovak, Hungarian, German, Latin and other forms, and the historical county. The Hungarian gazetteer of 1913 (A Magyar Szent Korona Országainak Helységnévtára) gives the church parishes as of 1910 and the civil registration offices. Both are described on the FamilySearch Slovakia Gazetteers page, with links to the 1913 volumes.

The county. Hungary was divided into counties (župa or stolica in Slovak, vármegye in Hungarian), and the counties had their own archives. Old records usually name the county with the village; Spiš, for example, is Szepes in Hungarian. Write it down with the village.

Village or parish. Several villages often belonged to one parish, and their entries are in the parish registers. The archive inventories list each parish with its filial villages (filiálky): the Bytča archive's inventory, for example, lists the village of Lysica under the Roman Catholic parish of Belá. Search for the parish, not only the village.

Which archive. From 1952 the state gathered the church registers into the state archives, which belong to the Ministry of the Interior; the Slovak National Archives (Slovenský národný archív) in Bratislava is the central state archive. Each regional state archive keeps a Collection of church registers (Zbierka cirkevných matrík) for its area, and some have published its inventory, parish by parish, on the Ministry's website: for example the Spiš collection (Levoča) and the Bytča collection.

Church registers to 1895, state registers from 1 October 1895

For more than a century the parish register (matrika) was the official record of births, marriages and deaths. A decree of Joseph II of 20 February 1784 fixed the form of the registers and their columns. An act of 1840 required all registers to be kept in Hungarian from 13 May 1843; in the Žilina area, Hungarian entries appear from 1843/44 to 1849/50.

Duplicates. An act of 1827 ordered priests to keep duplicate registers (druhopisy) and hand them to the county or, in royal free towns, to the town. The Spiš archive notes that the county archives hold more or less complete duplicates for 1828 to 1895: look there when a parish book is lost.

State registers from 1 October 1895. Hungarian Act XXXIII of 1894 introduced state civil registers (štátne matriky) on 1 October 1895. From that day the church registers lost their status as public records, and the state registers took it over. The churches went on keeping their own registers.

1950: all registers to the state. The matriky law of 1949 (No. 268/1949) came into force on 1 January 1950. All church registers became state property, and local national committees kept the registers from then on. The church registers, except Jewish ones, were gathered at the district national committees, and a Ministry of the Interior order of 20 December 1951 sent them on to the regional archives.

Where they are now. FamilySearch notes that registers more recent than those in the state archives are still at the local registry offices. Under the Registers Act (No. 154/1994), a registry office (matričný úrad) keeps its birth, marriage and death books for 100 years from the last entry, then hands them to the competent state archive. The Žilina-area collection in Bytča, for example, has Roman Catholic registers from 1628 to 1952 and Jewish registers from 1800 to 1955.

Read the registers online, or ask the archive to search

FamilySearch. The free collection Slovakia, Church and Synagogue Books, 1592-1935 has images and some indexes of baptisms, marriages and burials from Roman Catholic, Lutheran (Evangelical) and Reformed parishes and Jewish congregations. It includes records from the archives in Prešov, Bytča, Košice, Levoča, Banská Bystrica, Nitra and Bratislava. When the index finds nothing, browse the images of the parish book for the right years and read the entry yourself.

The archives' e-service. The Ministry of the Interior's electronic archive (Elektronický archív Slovenska) takes requests online, among them requests to view historical registers, but you must log in with a Slovak eID card (slovensko.sk).

A search by the archive. If you cannot find or read the entry yourself, a state archive will search for a fee, charged by the hour. The Trenčín state archive's request form gives 15 € an hour for a simple search, 23 € for a complex one and 25 € for a complex combined one. You state the most you will pay, you pay even if nothing is found, and the report is sent once payment arrives. If the request is not for official use, the archive makes only extracts from the registers. Rates differ between archives: check the form of the archive you write to.

Newer records: the registry office (matričný úrad)

Registers less than 100 years old are at the registry office (matričný úrad). The register is kept by the municipality (obec), and in Bratislava and Košice by the city district.

Who may ask. The office issues an official extract (úradný výpis), or lets you look at the register in the registrar's presence and take notes, for the person concerned and members of the family. The Registers Act defines them as the spouse, parents, children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, great-great-grandchildren, siblings and their children; another close person may qualify by proving a legitimate interest. A word-for-word extract (doslovný výpis) is issued only for the official needs of public authorities, so ask for an official extract: for a birth, this is the birth certificate (rodný list).

Registers already in an archive. For registers kept in a regional state archive, the official extract is issued by the registry office in whose district the archive or its branch has its seat.

Fees. A duplicate birth certificate costs 7 €, or 3.50 € when requested electronically; the online form must be signed with a qualified electronic signature.

From abroad. Slovak embassies and consulates take applications for birth, marriage and death certificates. In the United States the form asks for the name, date and place, county, religion and parents' names, your relationship to the person and a copy of your passport or ID. The consular fee (item 250 a) is charged per document, in U.S. dollars, in cash or by money order. If you do not know the exact date and place of a birth more than 30 years ago, the form tells you to arrange genealogical research first. The embassy in Washington says it does not conduct genealogical research; research requests go to the Ministry of the Interior, Archives and Records Management Department, Križkova 7, 811 04 Bratislava, which sends payment instructions with its answer, and copies of civil records are sent to the Slovak embassy or consulate, which contacts you.

Censuses, urbarial records and military records

Censuses. Hungary took censuses in 1828 and 1869, among other years. The 1828 land census gives the names of property owners only, with very little about the household; FamilySearch describes it and its images on its Hungary Census page. The 1869 census lists each household member with year of birth, relationship to the head of household, place of birth, religion and occupation. It does not cover all of Slovakia, only the returns held by the archives in Bytča, Banská Bystrica and Nitra: FamilySearch has the images, without an index, to browse by county and then municipality.

The census sheets of 1930 and 1940 are kept in the Slovak National Archives in Bratislava. FamilySearch notes that the 1930, 1939 and 1940 sheets have been published on Slovakiana, the national portal of digitised cultural heritage.

Urbarial records. The urbária list the peasants who held land on an estate, sometimes with family members, and what each owed the lord. A few date from about 1750, most from the 1780s and 1790s. FamilySearch notes that they are kept in the Slovak state regional and district archives and in the Hungarian state archives.

Military records. FamilySearch's Slovakia page sends readers to its Hungary Military Records page, which says that most Hungarian military records are at the War Archives (Kriegsarchiv) in Vienna, and that records after about 1870 are likely in Hungarian archives.

Emigrants: where they went and how they were counted

Before 1918 Slovakia was part of Hungary, so the arrival tables have no Slovak line before the 1920s: emigrants of that time are counted under Hungary or Austria-Hungary, with everyone else from those countries. From the 1920s they are counted under Czechoslovakia, with the Czechs. The official tables shown on this site's map count:

Figures: U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Yearbook of Immigration Statistics 2019, table 2; Australian Government, Department of Home Affairs, Historical Migration Statistics (November 2025); Historical Statistics of Switzerland online, table B.21. Each country uses its own definitions: compare with care.

Look first for the arrival record in the country where your ancestor landed: it often names the village, but place names are often misspelled in American sources, so check the spelling in a gazetteer.

Writing to the matričný úrad or a state archive

For a record less than 100 years old, write to the matričný úrad of the municipality where the event was registered and ask for an official extract (úradný výpis) of the birth, marriage or death entry. Give the full name, the date and place, the religion and the parents' names, and say that you are a descendant: the law counts descendants down to great-great-grandchildren as family. Ask the fee and how to pay it from abroad, or apply through a Slovak embassy or consulate. For older entries, first look for the parish book on FamilySearch. To have a state archive search for you, use its request form: give the name, the approximate date (within three years), the place, the religion and the parents' names, and state the most you will pay, since the archive charges by the hour, even for a negative answer. Write your letter in Slovak with our free generator.

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