Is Szlachta a version of Slechta?

Had a facebook conversation the other day(see below).  Cecilia reminded me of something I read awhile back, but never did anything with it.  Is Slechta a version of Szlachta?  Or maybe the other way around.  I have found records of both names back to about the same time.  Could they be related?  There is a good chance since they both mean nobility in there respective languages.  Szlachta is Polish and Šlechta is Czech/Bohemian.  

If you take look at the area over there it is not very large( see map below).  Since the Czech Republic is roughly the size of Iowa, movement of people over a number of years makes it possible for the names to have the same origin.  What is that origin?  Is it Czech?  Is it Polish?   Could it be German?  Both Slechta and Szlachta have hints that they were derived from German words.   

"Szlachta" derives from the Old German word "slahta" (now "(Adels) Geschlecht", "(noble) family")
Slechta  see previous post  http://slechtahistory.blogspot.com/2009_11_01_archive.html

Someday I hope to find out.  If there is anyone out there that knows more or has a resource to help prove or disprove, I would love to hear from you.

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  Cecilia Burkhart

  • Hi Paul,
    I read your blog about the origin of the name "Slechta". I was born Cecilia Marie Slechta , father is Henry, grandfather is Bohumil.
    
    The origin of the name comes from the name Szlachta from Poland. They were the nobility of Poland. In the 1700s, the Polish economy began to deteriorate. Some Szlachtas emigrated to what is now Czechloslavia and Austria.
    
    Sorry, couldn't figure out how to use your blog page so I came to Facebook.
    Cheers, Cecilia
    
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  Paul Slechta

  • Thanks Cecilia! Yes I have looked in to the name Szlachta. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Szlachta I believe the name originated from a German area called Schlechtbach. A research center I contacted years ago mentioned this to me. However the area over there is so close together it is hard to say without concrete proof. Hopefully someday I will get that proof.
    
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    Szlachta - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

    en.wikipedia.org

    The szlachta (Polish: szlachta, [ˈʂlaxta] ( listen), Belarusian: шляхта, šlachta, Lithuanian: šlėkta, šlėktos or bajorai ) was a legally privileged noble class with origins in the Kingdom of Poland. It gained considerable institutional privileges during the 1333–1370 reign of Casimir the Great.[1] I...
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• 

  Paul Slechta

  • Do you mind if I repost this on my blog?
    
  • On another note. Are you a Nebraska, Iowa, Wisconsin, Illinios or Texas Slechta?
    
  • Looking at my information I would say Nebraska.
    
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  Cecilia Burkhart

  • You can post it on your blog. I live in Nebraska. Go Big Red!
    
  • Oh, also, my greatgrandfather owned a farm outside of Prague. It was rare for people other than the aristocracy to own property. I don't know how long it was in the family, however. My ex-husband was the one who stumbled on the Polish connection. He loves reading big, thick, dry history books.
    
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  Paul Slechta

  • What town was the farm near? Was Prague the closest? I like to plot out locations were any Slechta lives or once lived. It let me see where most Slechta's were located.
    

Fredrik T Slechta

I am currently trying to contact a Fredrik T Slechta in New York State.  When I try to call phone numbers I found online they are either no longer in service or the person on the other end says you have a wrong number.  Anyone out there know Fredrik T Slechta?  If so please let me know and the best way to contact him.


Thanks Paul!

Viewing previous post

If you want to get a better view of the image in the previous post, left click the image.  Once the image pops out the right click on the image and pick view image if you are using the firefox browser.   If you are using Internet Explorer, save the image and then in a image viewer you can zoom in.

Thank you,
Paul Slechta

Past Slechta Locations in Czech Republic

Here is a map I have been putting together of Slechta Locations in the Czech Republic.  These locations are of Slechta's that I have found during my research.  These are past locations of Slechta's found in different records.  They may or may not have any Slechta's living there today.  If anyone knows of any other Slechta locations in the Czech Republic could you send them to me so I can add them to my map.  Also if anyone has ancestors from these towns please let me know.  My research is becoming more difficult the further back I go.  One other note, the Germany location is of Schlechtbach( the believed but not proven location of the origination of Slechta). 

Thanks Paul

Found the Mahoney's

Had a good weekend.  I found the descendants of Barbara Alice Slechta Mahoney.  I had been missing the descendants of Barbara and her brother Thomas's branch in my family tree.  Well now I am just missing Thomas's.  This weekend I found the descendants of Barbara and was able to add some of their information to my tree.  I was able to contact one of her descendants and am now in the process of setting up a time to meet with her. 

We are the same age and both live in Minnesota, makes me wonder if we had ever met.  My parents would take my siblings and I to visit Barbara in Hastings, MN when we were growing up so it makes me wonder if ever our paths have crossed.  I do remember visiting her at her apartment, but it was small so us kids would leave the apartment and go to the common area and play with the toys  and whatever we could find.  I can remember a few times playing with other kids there, so you never know.

Now I have just to locate Thomas Slechta's descendants.  His children's names are Ruth, Maurice and Mary.

Researching your Ancestry

I added some information earlier in the blog about tracing your ancestors, but my wife mentioned I should let people know how I went about tracing mine.  So I am going to put down the process I went through.

I first started out by writing down everything I knew about my ancestors.   Next I put that information in a family tree program.  I used Family Tree Maker, but there are other free ones out there that can be used.   One free one that I really like is MyHeritage Family Tree Builder.  The reason I used Family Tree Maker(FTM) is because it is made by Ancestry.com so it interfaces with their online database.   FTM does cost money as well as a membership to Ancestry.com, but once you have your information in FTM and connect to Ancestry.com the software starts searching the online database for possible name matches and when it finds one it flags it in FTM by putting a little green leaf next to the name the match applies to.  You can then click the leaf and inspect the hits it found in the database.  If you do find the match you can import the information directly from the database into your family tree.  That feature is really nice.   Even if you do not keep the subscription to Ancestry.com you keep the account you created and FTM continues to monitor the online database and will still put the green leaf next to the names.  That way if you decide you want to pay for another month of the subscription( which has a month by month plan) you can at your convenience.   OK, enough of my advocacy for Ancestry.com back to the process I went through.  

I then went back to my home town to talk with my relatives to find out what they knew.  I took along my laptop, camera and scanner and any information and pictures they had I wrote down, scanned in or took pictures of.  Just doing that I compiled so much information I could not believe it.  You really need to go talk with and write down the information your older living relatives have, because once they are gone so is the information. 

I put all that information in FTM and spent next few months searching through ancestry.com and found a lot of information about descendants of my ancestors, that I did not even know about.  I was surprised to find out how many relatives I had out there.  I then took that information and went and started calling some of those relatives.  I called a number of them out of the blue and kind of freaked some of them out, sorry about that.  I started out by telling them my name and that I was researching my family history.   Some of them I told them what information I had  and gave them enough information about me to calm their concerns  about this unknown person calling them about their family.  Some had to check me out first, some passed my information on to their parents and other where familiar with the last name and had no problem with helping.  The nice thing was that eventually everyone I talked to got back to me.  That was a huge step in the progression of my research. So again I loaded up my car with my laptop, camera, scanner and old photos my grandmother had kept and passed on to me. 

My grandmother did a lot for my research by keeping all the old photos that we stored in the attic of the old farmhouse my great grandfather build and many of use grew up in.  She had a lot of very old photos that I had never seen, even my dad and aunts and uncles had never seen.  The only bad thing was that not all of them had names of the people in the photos.   So I had to try and find out who they were.  So with my car loaded up I went around to relatives I knew about and ones I just found out about and started collecting information and photos again.  I met for the first time many relatives and reconnected with ones that I had not seen since I was a young boy.  The information and new photos was overwhelming.   I was able to get names of people in many of the photos, still not all, and received many more original old photos.  I scanned in more photos, added pictures of heirlooms passed down and gained many stories about common ancestors.   These visits led me to finding and meeting relatives all over Minnesota, Oregon, Wisconsin and Iowa. 

I used the phone, e-mail and facebook to connect and talk with the newly discovered relatives.   I created a blog, created groups in facebook, joined and created discussion groups in Ancestry.com and used google to search for all information Slechta related.   Once I exhausted all these resources I took classes on searching your past at the Minnesota Historical Society, joined the Czech Genealogical Society International,  went to county court houses and went to churches ancestors attended.  Once I collected all I could find  I then used ancestry to find records of my ancestors entering the United States.  It was tough, but with tips learned from the classes I took, I was able to find their records. 

The key to finding them was a this tip.  Take your last name and any information where they may have come and find out how the name might have been spelled by the person recording the spoken name.  For example I  pronounce my last name Slechta as  "Slek ta".  I know my ancestors are Czech so I found out my last name in Czech is spelled  Šlechta  the Š in Czech had the Shhhh sound  and the ch has the  k sound like in loch, thus pronounced   "Shlek ta".   So if you look at how it would spelled in other languages by a person hearing it spoken you could get, for example,  in German "Schlechte".   This led to these variations:  Slechta, Šlechta, Schlechta, Schlechta, Szlachta, Schlichta.  Then there are spelling mistakes and handwriting interpretation mistakes:  Slecta, Sleckta, Shlekta, Shlekta and it goes on.  So you need to closely examine all these.   Using a soundex is another way to help find a name that was misspelled.  The soundex for Slechta is S423.  Ancestry has a soundex generator site that can explain this more.  I did prevail and was able to find the lists and how last and first names where spelled and represented in other languages with the help of sites like this one http://www.behindthename.com.  

I was then able to hire a researcher in the Czech Republic to continue find information in the church archives in Prague.   With information I gave him he helped me complete my trace back through Sadska and into the Prodebrady Estate where I am today.    In that process I was able to connect with a distant relative still living in Sadska.   She does not speak or read English, but with the help of google translate we were able to write simple e-mail messages and have then translated to each others language.  I was able to have her translate documents I had found online and this helped us to connect our trees together.

So my hopes with posting my research process it to help other Slechta's trace their ancestry back to Sadska or the Prodebrady Estate.   If anyone does trace their ancestry back to Sadska (a town) or Podebrady Estate( an area near Sadska with many other towns) please contact me to help link together.  Having research done does cost money and the further back you get more it costs.  So If I can link us together we can cut down the cost.  I do have to thank my brothers and sisters along with their spouses for helping me with the costs of the research without which I could not have gotten back to the earlier 1600's without.  

So again if you are researching back please feel free to contact me and I will help with what I can.

Thanks Paul