by Dr. Viktor Pratscher, 1936
Translated by Brad Schwebler

About the question of when the first Germans settled in Feketitsch, they have little to worry about. We must undertake a detailed examination of those explanations which touch on this question before all else.

1. The first notary from New Sivac, Johann Eimann wrote in the year 1820 in his work ” The German Colonist” about our village the following: “Feketehegy is a picturesque village built in 1782 in the Teletschka Valley settled by reformed Hungarians, lays in the direction of St. Tomasch. In in there lived 20 Catholics, 4 Old Believers, 1,763 reformed Hungarians, and 23 Jews, in total 1,810 souls.” Eimann got his data from the Archbishop’s Kalotschaer calendar for the year 1820 and did not know that Germans already lived here at that time. One should not forget that these statistical data appeared already appeared the year before and even appeared in the 1820 calendar. There are also no contradictions that can be seen in the Sekitsch church register or in the villager’s Hungarian reformed church community which can prove that not only were Germans here in 1820 but Germans lived in Feketitsch before then. Eimann’s record about the establishment of our village was also not correct because Feketitsch was not founded in 1782, but in 1785, as this was the date recorded in the Hungarian reformed church community minutes in 1786. Since the completion of the Sivac notary’s work concluded with certainty that numerous Protestant Slovakians were in the Hungarian reformed church community at the time, it became clear that the German Protestants had already arrived in Feketitsch. Perhaps the missing document could have clarified this. Besides the linguistic difficulties, the Protestant pastor, Johannes Gottlieb Weinrich, in the neighboring Sekitsch with the organizing of his own community completely occupied and meanwhile he aged and the successor, his son Samuel August Weinrich, from 1813 to 1827. However, a lost field was found. The descendants of these Protestants have turned out a nice church community today.
2. A further record about the time of the migration of Germans to Feketitsch comes from the village’s first Protestant pastor, Ferdinand Hamel. In his paper about the Canonical Visitation in 1874 he wrote that the first Germans settled here in the year 1823-1824. These unsafe explanations have not substantiated anything. The existing parish registers, which are the property of the local church community already showed an organized church life in the year 1826. Probably in combination with all the data that could be derived from the first settlements the dates could be pushed back two or three years to the years 1823-1824.
3. The historian of the Monographic of the Batsch-Sremer Seniorates: Gustav Bierbrunner, the senior notary and pastor of Pacicevo (Altker) at the time got his dates, which referred to the settlement of the first Germans in Feketitsch, from the above mentioned statements of the local pastors at the time.
4. Just as the dates in the short history of our Protestant church community, which on the ocassion of the 400 year Reformation celebration on the 31st of October, 1917 were written and the church protocol was laid down, from the above-mentioned sources were simply adopted without verifying them.
5. Next we turn to the truth-giving of the single commendable schoolmaster, Johann Jauss in Sekitsch. He wrote in his thorough and valuable work: “Szeghegy in the first century of its existence” on page 215: “Notice that already Germans had settled here in Feketitsch since the year 1820.” The task of determining the exact date when Germans arrived in Feketitsch does not belong to the historians of Sekitsch.
6. In the baptismal register of Sekitsch one finds the following dates:

At this baptism it is noticed that on the same day, on the 27th of June a baptism is also registered which the pastor of Sekitsch, Samuel August Weinrich had carried out.

According to these it is certain that already in the year 1818 Germans were living in Feketitsch because it is assumed that Christina Karbiener did not come to Feketitsch after the New Year in 1819 for her to deliver her baby here on the 16th of January. As you know it was and is still today in this scenic district during Michaelmas in the fall the period of migration.

Starting in 1820 the names of the fathers whose children were baptized by the local pastor Kertvelesy in Feketehegy are listed as follows:

By the 17th of February 1822 it is noticed that baptisms took place that were entered before the baptisms of 19 February 1822 in which Reverend Weinrich was the baptizer.

On the 5th of June 1826 the child of Daniel Pister was baptized by Reverend Kertvelesy.

Before this a baptism is entered which Reverend Weinrich had planned for the 7th of June. In other places four baptisms are squeezed into the margins at the top and bottom of the pages. All of the baptisms were performed by Reverend Kertvelesy of Feketitsch. The fathers of these children are:

The column listing baptisms lists 1 January 1819 first. Before that it is not cited whose baptism was planned. And already on the 19th of January 1819 the Hungarian Reformed pastor of Feketitsch functioned as the baptizer.
It was this baptism which was already planned for the children of Evangelist Germans living here. The local Hungarian pastor performed these baptisms in Feketitsch, which were then transferred to the register of the Evangelist church community in Sekitsch. This resulted in the registration of the baptisms performed in Feketitsch later causing an interruption in the sequence of the dates which was frequently the case.

On one and the same day Reverend Weinrich and also Reverend Kertvelesy baptized, ruling out standing in.

There is no direct record that the parents lived in Feketitsch, but Reverend Weinrich had hardly died when his successor, Reverend Skultethy, had already baptized children of some families who lived in Feketitsch in 1827. But Reverend Kertvelesy continued to baptize and the parents are always residents of Feketitsch. Reverend Weinrich just did not consider it necessary to remark that the parents lived in Feketitsch because these families belonged, of course, to the church community in Sekitsch and came exclusively from Sekitsch initially. It is even assumed that the parents of the children who Reverend Weinrich baptized lived in Feketitsch. In our death register it is recorded that Christian Gerber, who died in 1876, was born in Feketitsch on the 10th of November 1819. His wife was M. Elis. Henkel. Also Gottfried Lackner, who died in 1871, was born on the 19th of October 1820 in Feketitsch. These dates clarify the issue.

Therefore the baptismal register of Sekitsch only determined a part of the first families were residents in Feketitsch where the baptizer was Reverend Kertvelesy.

In the register of the Hungarian Reformed church community these baptisms are not performed but took place on the days of the child’s baptism of Hungarian parents. The same thing happened at the baptism of the children of the local German Evangelist parents. But they were not introduced into the register because there were no Reformers. Nevertheless, in 1820 the following German baptisms were introduced into the Hungarian Reformed register:

These families are Reformed families who are also entered into the register of the Reformed church community.

More German Reformists also resided in Feketitsch in 1820. In the years before that no German names are found in the register of the local Hungarian Reformed church community. The owners of the aforementioned Evangelist and Reformed German family names are therefore the very first Germans which resided in Feketitsch. Some of them migrated again out from Feketitsch and in some cases they came back again after so many years.

After the new pastor, Josef Skultethy, took over his office in Sekitsch we notice in very many cases the remark next to the names of the parents that they lived in Feketitsch, which his predecessor had never noted.

The first baptism where it is noted that the parents resided in Feketitsch is the following:

Starting in July 1827 the children of the following fathers were baptized and lived in Feketitsch:

 In the year 1828:

In the year 1829:

From the year 1830 on a separate column was made for the birthplace. According to this the number born in Feketitsch in each successive year are listed below:

From the start, after Reverend Kertvelesy was buried, the new pastor, Skultethy, noted the birthplace and residence of the deceased and already on the 16th of March 1827 we find that Carl Spengler, a child only 6 years and 5 days old, died in Feketitsch and was born in Feketitsch. That is also a clear indication that nothing was left unanswered.

It is also noted that of the settler ancestors who came from the Empire, several of them died in Feketitsch. So it is recorded that on the 10th of March 1828 the Feketitsch resident Balthasar Müller died at the age of 72. His birthplace was in Grumbach in the Empire.

The first weddings were: 28th of May 1822: Balthasar Burger and Anna Maria Jentzen; 13th of June 1822: Georg Jud and Elisabetha Weintrank.

The exact dates of the weddings are first found in the year 1842: Johann Stutzmann, a 20 year old carpenter was born in Feketitsch in 1822; Peter Heck, a 20 year old miller, was born in Feketitsch in 1822.

Reverend Weinrich did not pay attention to birthplaces in 1822.

The census of Germans in Feketitsch around the year 1820 was not exactly determined. But it is certain that the Germans who lived here in 1820 were already so numerous that the Hungarian

Reformed church community saw reason to separate the community from the political community which up to then were one in administration and finance. This separation did not seem necessary to them before then, although according to Eimann’s records there were already 20 Catholics, 4 Old Believers, and 23 Jews who lived there, altogether 47 souls. It is therefore accepted that the number of Germans and their taxable abilities was significant.

The Germans came from the neighboring Protestant villages. And initially they came exclusively from Sekitsch. For the most part two to three families were drawn to Feketitsch. Their homes were the Hungarian colonist homes which they bought from the Hungarians.

The first Germans were dispersed in the village from one end to the other, yet they already preferred the streets which were conveniently near to Sekitsch. They built new homes in the “outermost row”, today the street of the steam mill which is across from the pathways to the homes. Around the year 1900 the Germans lived united on the streets which lay near Sekitsch.

The Germans set themselves up in business here, as is still the case today. The resident Hungarians here did not place any weight on business, so the efficient German masters found sufficient work opportunities here. The first business was the cabinet maker Nikolaus Reitenbach which proves all things already came from Crvenka.

Most of the Germans who resided here were farmers whose yards and fields of the father’s homes were too narrow. The older brother received the father’s possession and the younger brothers would buy a field which was just and must have been cheap. Such a purchase gave the larger Feketitsch Hotter a rich opportunity. It gave cheaper fields which were also not so good as the ground of the smaller Hotters of the German community had been diligently worked for three or four centuries by German workers.

Last updated: 10/27/2026