My Valaskovce Roots

Valaskovce, in Zemplen County in the old Austro-Hungarian Empire, was the birthplace of my grandfather, Janos Bubnas, Americanized as John Bubnash. He was born to Paul Bubnas and Mary Szorokacs in 1891. In 1910 he arrived at Ellis Island and settled in the bituminous coal country of Western Pennsylvania. He married my Baba, Suzanna Csornej-Maczko, in Clairton in 1912. Seven of their eight children survived childhood, and four of the five boys are veterans of World War Two or Korea. In 1951 my grandfather was crushed in a slatefall and survived, though largely paralyzed from the chest down. This was the grandfather I knew--a man who figured out how to hoe the garden with one free hand while leaning on a crutch with the other, and who strived to do whatever job or work was within his power. More about him in a future post.

In this blog will be posted information about the village and its families from sources such as the 1869 Zemplen County Census, Greek Catholic Parish Records, my relatives still residing in the Old Country, and my own personal observations. I welcome your input, information, and comments and would hope that this blog could become sort of a gathering place for descendants of the shepherds and farmers of Valaskovce.