Mike Henczovsky
Mihály Henczovszky was born about 1854. He was of Rákócz, a Greek Catholic village of Zemplén county in the northern part of the Kingdom of Hungary. The village is Rakovec nad Ondavou today, in the Michalovce district of eastern Slovakia. The Greek Catholic church was the church of most villages in that part of Zemplén. Its rite was Eastern, and it was in union with Rome.
Henczovszky is the Hungarian spelling of the name and Hencovsky the Slovak one. The priests who wrote it down managed half a dozen more, from Henczovszki to Hencóvszki. Mihály is the Hungarian Michael, and in America his daughter's family called him Mike.
His parents are not known. A Michaël Henczovszky was baptised at Vranov in September 1853, son of Georgius Henczovszky and Maria Maczko. That family was Roman Catholic on both sides, and this Mihály was Greek Catholic, so the Vranov boy is probably someone else.
His own baptism belongs in the Greek Catholic books of Rákócz, which survive from 1827. Two books cover 1853 and 1854, the years of his birth. Both are written in Cyrillic script, where his surname would begin with a G, as Genczovskij, and neither has been indexed. Two Henczovszky couples were baptising children at Rákócz in the 1860s. Andreas Henczóvszky and his wife Barbara Harmagyi had Andreas baptised in 1863 and Helena on 14 November 1867. A Mihály Henczóvszkÿ and his wife Ilona Kovácsik had a daughter Ilona baptised in 1867. Either man might be his father, and no record known says so.
He married three times. The first wedding was at Alsó-Körtvélyes, now Nižný Hrabovec, on 22 November 1877. The Roman Catholic priest there entered "Henczovszki Mihály" of Rákócz, Greek Catholic, twenty-three and single. The bride was "Gajdos Francsak Anna", Roman Catholic, twenty, a maiden. The witnesses were two men named Mihály, Ivaly and Bancsey. Anna was dead within three years.
On 4 October 1880 he married again, as a widower of twenty-six. The bride was Mária Vasily of Vehécz, a widow of twenty-five. The wedding is in the marriage book of Varannó-Csemernye, written in Latin: "Michael Henczovszky viduus" and "Maria Toncsomak Vasily vidua", widower and widow. Both witnesses, Stephanus Gyurko and Joannes Grecula, were entered as colonus, a peasant farming land he did not own.
Mária Vasily was the mother of his known children, all baptised at Rákócz. Mihály was baptised in 1883. Mária was born on 24 April 1887 and baptised the next day. András was born on 19 May 1889 and baptised on the 21st. At that baptism the priest entered the father as "Hencovszky Mihály gk. zsellér". Gk. is Greek Catholic. A zsellér was a cottar, a man who had a cottage and perhaps a garden but no farmland of his own, and who worked on other men's land. András died on 10 June, three weeks old. Pál was baptised in 1890, and a János also belongs to the couple.
By 1892 the family was living at Rakócz-Berettő. Berettő, now Bracovce, is a few miles from Rákócz. His wife died there on 18 May 1892, aged forty, of sorvadás, wasting, the usual word for consumption. The priest of Falkus entered her as "Hencóvszki Mihály (Misó) hitvese", the wife of Mihály Hencóvszki, and the word in brackets reads like a pet name for him. She was buried at Berettő the next day. He was left with young children, Mária among them, aged five. His eldest, Mihály, died on 29 March 1894, aged ten.
He married a third time within two years. On 25 February 1894 a daughter was baptised at Rákócz to Mihály Hencóvszki and Mária Ragancsik, and she was named Mária, like her half-sister of seven. The marriage itself is not in the index.
Two later records name him through his daughter Mary. In February 1910 she sailed from Fiume to join her husband in Pennsylvania. Asked for her nearest relative at home, she named her father, "Hancovszky Mihaly, Petrocz". He was alive then and living at Petrocz, which is neither Rákócz nor Berettő. On the next line her baby son had the same man down as his grandfather. Thirty years later her death certificate at Cleveland gave her father as Mike Henczovsky, born in Czechoslovakia. Her husband John Kovacs was the informant. He knew his father-in-law's name and did not know his mother-in-law's, and the clerk wrote Unknown.
Other Henczovszkys from Rákócz crossed to America in the same years. In March 1909 a Mrs Henczovsky of Rakocz landed from the Brandenburg to join her husband Miklos at Windber, the coal town beside Jerome. In July 1913 a Maria Henczovszky, nineteen and single, of Rakocz, landed from the George Washington. Her nearest relative was her father, "Henczovszky Mihaly, Rakocz, Zemplen", and she was going to her brother John at Newark, New Jersey. A girl of nineteen in 1913 was born about 1894, the year his daughter by Mária Ragancsik was baptised. No record joins them.
An earlier crossing may be his. A Henczovsky Mihaly, thirty-six and married, a labourer, landed at New York from Bremen on the Aachen on 17 March 1896, bound for Hazleton in the anthracite country. That age puts his birth about 1860, six years after this Mihály. Ages on manifests drift, and nothing on the list ties the man to Rákócz.
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If Mike Henczovsky is in your family, start your own tree.
Cite: Heirology, "Mike Henczovsky (b. 1854)", https://heirology.com/ancestors/mike-henczovsky-1854-8bd8f9.