Our Family In Slovakia

Naša Rodina na Slovenskom

Attempts to contact living relatives in Slovakia have met with surprising success. It was known that Ján, the older brother of Martin Gmuca remained in Slovakia while Martin immigrated in 1881. Parish records from their hometown of Kluknava revealed that Ján had married Mária Susová in 1882 and because of Ján’s occupation as railroad watchmen, he and his family lived above the railroad station in Kluknava. Ján’s wife’s maiden name, the masculine form of which is Susa, is pronounced exactly the same as the surname of the famous military march composer, John Phillip Sousa. This kernel of information may have lead to the erroneous family story that John Phillip Sousa was in some way related to this branch of the Gmuca family.

 

After finding an email address for the parish office of the Catholic church in Kluknava, St. Catherine of Alexandria, an inquiry was made as to whether there were still members of the Gmuca family living in the area. The answer returned in the affirmative and shortly after I received an inquiry from a Mária Gmucová. Her father, Jozef, had done family history research and posted the results on the www.myheritage.com website. Since he didn’t speak English, Mária, who had spent some time in England, acted as a conduit between her father and me to both inform

me of her father’s work and to forward his request to join the site so I could add information about the branch of the family who immigrated to the United States. Jozef’s father, also named Jozef, lived with his wife, Mária, in the neighboring village of Richnava and opened a small grocery store named “Sklep U Gmucovej” in 2003. The senior Jozef’s father was named Ján and was a son of the Martin’s brother who remained in Slovakia. From the information on myheritage.com, I filled in the various branches of the Slovak Gmuca family.

In 2017 I received an outreach letter from Slovakia from Mária Greňová on behalf of her father, Štefan Gmuca. He had received one of the many inquiry letters I sent to Slovakia to find living relatives. She wanted to pass along from her father a list of his siblings so my records would be complete. It turns out that Štefan is the brother of the Jozef who lives in Richnava whose wife opened the grocery store.

 

So, if we ever want to venture back to the ancestral home of Martin Gmuca, we are assured that our distant cousins are still alive and well in the surrounding communities.

Jozef and Mária Gmuca

from Richnava

 

Believed to be the wedding photo of Jozef  Gmuca and Mária Ivančová, Jozef being the son of the couple pictured to the left.

Family Jozef and Mária Ivančová Gmuca