Research Page

The Task Of Family Research

Research into a family history can be very time consuming. Over the last ten years I have found more
than 300 Hajostek birth/marriage/death records in the Ruzbach area between 1675 and 1895. These
records are microfilm copies of Slovak church records for Stara Lubovna (from the Levoca Archive).The
microfilm copies were printed and then scanned into the computer. These computer copies are in the
JPEG format and are displayable on most Windows type computers with the use of a photo edit
program.

All of the birth/marriage/death records have been found thanks to the efforts of The Church Of The
Later Day Saints (LDS, Mormon Church). The Stara Lubovna records are in old latin and difficult to read.
The microfilms that were most helpful were LDS numbers 1-739-657,658 and 659. This research would
not have been possible before 2000 because of the unavailability of the microfilms and the internet.
Ability with the computer is an absolute necessity to do a study like this. Image enhancement is a help
when trying to read a damaged birth record.

To date, I have found 33 records of immigration of Hajostek family members in the late 1800's. Some of
the needed manifest sheets were missing from the Ellis Island database. Thanks to the help of the Ellis
Island Foundation, some of the missing sheets were found on the Steve Morse database. It is easy to
forget that when our family came to America, some of them were grammatically challenged and could
just barely write their names. I am living proof that this disability is genetic.

My convention has been to name birth record microfilm scans Mscan_(letter)(number).jpg.
Manifest records are M_(immigrant initials)_(last two digits of the immigration year).jpg.
Death certificates are DCrt_(initials)_(state).jpg. Each record category has an index.

I store all of the family history files on recordable CDR disks.

I welcome all comments. Please send comments to hajostek@uniontel.net.

Do you disagree about something? Let's talk about it.

This homepage was placed on the internet in late summer, 2006. I am not sure how long this homepage
will be available. It depends on how many Hajostek/Hayostek people will find it useful.

The Slovak language is beautiful. I am presently trying to learn the language.