Stermenszky

Stermenszky One-Name Study

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Study details

Study: Stermenszky

Variants: Stermenczky, Stermensky, Stermenszki, Strmensky

Category: 2 - A study where research using core genealogical datasets and transcriptions is well under way, but currently in some countries only.

Website: stermenszky.one-name.net/index.php

Guild hosted website: stermenszky.one-name.net

Contact: Magda Miller

About the study

In doing the family history, I discovered that my Mother's Grandmother's surname of Sterman was neither English nor Austrian. I traced it back to a small village in the Carpathian region of Northern Hungary, which is where I began my Stermenszky name study.

Variant names

Stermenszky, Štermenský, Stermenszki and Stermenski are recognized variants worldwide. Strmensky and Sztrmensky are very early historical variants in 17th and early 18th century records but not totally obsolete. There are Stermenszky deviants in post - 1900 America that have been proven as a select family group of Stermenszkys that immigrated from Jablonca, Abauj, Hungary (now in Slovakia); they chose the spelling of Sterminski/Stirminski. There is also another group from the same Abauj village that shortened it to Sterman (like my Great-Grandmother). In America, in Broome county, New York, a related group but a different line of Stermenszkys trimmed it to Stermensky. In Europe, Stermencsky and Stermencski are deviants. There is also a variation spelled as Sztrmenszky that is still being used by contemporaries today that stems from the Trnava, Slovakia region.

There is also the added mystery about a possible variant in Staré Hory, Banská Bystrica, Slovakia where from 1700’s to modern times, the surname "Strmen" is abundant.

Name origin

The word 'strmina' means steep slope in Slovak and is, presumably, an old place name. There are indications of a Slavic origin so it can be Slovak, Czech, or Russian, as well as Polish (in which the '-ski' spelling is required). So, although Stermenszky is spelled according to Magyar spelling rules (the added 'z'), the '-sky' ending shows that it's definitely a Slavic surname. The first vowel is variable in the records precisely because it did not occur in the original; that is, it would be spelled as Štermenský, Strminsky, Strmensky, Strmensky in true Slovak.

Recently, while data collecting in Bratislava County in Western Slovakia, I came upon a tiny spot called Strmina which is mere miles away from the largest group of Stermenszkys in my collection. The surname, meaning "of/from Strmen__," may be derived from a populated place that no longer exists. I am not certain if this is the Stermenszky epicenter as I enter the tenth year of this One Name Study.

Is Stermenszky a locomotive or an occupational surname? The answer may lie in the Czech Republic in the village of Střmen (also called Střmenské podhradí) which was a medieval guard castle in 13th century. Presently, Střmen is now assimilated into the village of Teplice nad Metují. Střmen is believed to receive it's name from the Czech word, třmen, which mean stirrup. In Slovak, the word "strmen" means stirrup; "strmy" means steep, with "strmina" meaning steep ground."

At this stage of the Stermenszky One Name Study, there are more questions than answers as this English-speaking One Namer pursues more foreign resources.

Strmina, Slovakia
(near Borinka)

Name frequency

For 2013, although the surname profiler, Public Profiler, at - http://www.publicprofiler.org/ - does not display data from Slovakia and some regions of Hungary, it was surprising to see STERMENSZKY pop up in Bavaria (Munich region) as well as Slovenia in today's count. These are most likely migrants from Slovakia & Hungary. There are no details for the other variants as their frequency is not high enough for the website to produce any statistics.

For 2015, two surname search sites are available. One is http://slovnik.juls.savba.sk ; the other is http://locatemyname.com/slovakia .The Slovnik search site is more comprehensive.

Štermenský popped up (for a 1995 population count) in about 10 locations: All but one were in the Bratislava & Senica regions. The one location that was different was in Central Western Slovakia in the Trenčín Region (specifically in Prievidza) was a recent migrant named Ondrej Štermenský; it was revealed that he was born in Kuklov, in the Bratislava district, in 1915. The Stermenszky spelling brought in higher numbers in Mierovo and Hubice, Slovakia.

With the Locate My Name site, Stermenszky brought in only 15 in Hungary, Canada & USA and deemed the name as "very rare". Štermenský brought many more candidates, especially in Slovakia.

Mark Sabol, a recognized Slovakian researcher comments - "There were about 50 occurrences each of Strmensky (male) and Strmenska (female) in Slovakia in 1995, widely scattered within the western third of the country, with some concentration in the areas around to city of Trnava and the towns of Malacky and Myjava."

Distribution of the name

Before 1700, the distribution of the name Stermenszky appears to be centered in some villages in Slovakia that were once historically located in Hungary, like Sekule, Vysoká pri Morave and Malacky.

By 1800's, there was a handful of Stermenszkys living in Pozsony (formerly Pressburg, now called Bratislava, Slovakia) as well as

as a few strays surrounding Budapest in Pest-Pilis-Solt-Kis-Kun, Hungary. Branches of the Stermenszky surname also were living in other provinces like Tolna, Baranya, Szabolcs, Komárom and Abauj.

Thereafter, the surname Stermenszky, along with trickles of it's variations, extended to the post-WW II sections of Hungary (Romania, Croatia, Slovakia, and Serbia) as well as in the United States. The earliest occurrence of the name that was spotted is in a written record in 1600's in Malarcka, Hungary (now called Malacky in Slovakia).

Data

Microfilms and Online Digital Images of Parish Records at LDS
Tax Records, Census records of Hungary (LDS, World Vital, Arcanum)
SSDI (USA), Naturalization Records, Petitions, Military
Family Search Records, Ancestry USA Census, Passenger records
Obituaries, Grave sites, Land Deeds,Transcriptions
Google Books, School Records, Newspaper Articles
Hungary, Slovakia Archival Records
Ellis Island Passenger Records
Hamburg Passenger Lists

DNA

There are Stermenszkys who have DNA studies out there !

Links

https://stermenszky.one-name.net/index.php

Contact Details

Magda Miller

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