Fifth Generation

24. [Progenitor] PODLESZEK was born (date unknown). Our Podleszek (Podlecek) ancestors were poor peasants living in Rónafö (Predanovci) in the Muravidék region of historic Hungary. The earliest written records of this family are found in the registers of the Lutheran church in the nearby town of Battyánd (Puconci) which began in 1828. Unfortunately, many of these records for the 1830s are illegible. Podleszek is one of the most common surnames in the area. We've gleaned from the data that there were at least three Podleszek households in Rónafö ... a village of about forty homes ... at the beginning of the 19th century. These were house #22 (where my grandmother lived), #23, and #32. BTW - these are the house numbers in the latter part of the 19th century ... we believe they were changed earlier and many of the records do not specify a house number, adding to the confusion. We have no evidence about how these three Podleszek households were related, but their heads were likely brothers or cousins.

As for the names of the three heads of the Podleszek households about 1800, we know that Miklos Podleszek was associated with house #32, and we know that one of the other two was named János Podleszek (1762-1828) from his death record, but can't definitively associate him with either house #22 or #23. We know with certainty that Ferencz (b 1808) and Mihaly (b 1811) were his sons. Therefore, in a leap of faith we've associated János with house #22 because these sons fit well into that family group. That leaves the name of the head of house #23 unknown. Since the most common Podleszek male names in Predanovic are János, Miklos, and Iván, I've arbitrarly called the head of house #23 Iván ... allowing for the possibility that the three actually were brothers. Also remember, that in these households were based on peasant holdings from the era of serfdom, often multiple family groups resided together in one "house."

Children were: