| The data | 3,934 family histories with 6,444 Slovak-born ancestors |
| Research period | Family histories received April 2022 – September 2026 |
| Where ancestors were born | 57% in the Prešov and Košice regions; most often in the districts of Bardejov, Stará Ľubovňa, and Bratislava |
| By historic county | Šariš (Sáros) 19%, Zemplín (Zemplén) 15%, and Spiš (Szepes) 12% |
| How far back | The nearest Slovak-born ancestor is a great-grandparent in 50% of family lines |
| When ancestors crossed | 56% of all crossings fell between 1900 and 1914 |
| More than one crossing | 20% of ancestors crossed the Atlantic more than once |
| Where ancestors settled | Pennsylvania 38%, Ohio 14%, New York 12%, Illinois 10%, and New Jersey 5% |
| Born outside today’s Slovakia | 107 families had no Slovak-born ancestor; most of their ancestors were born in what is now Ukraine, the Czech Republic, and Poland |
Where Slovak-American ancestors were born: Regions, districts, and historic counties
More than half of all ancestors whose birthplace we could place were born in two of Slovakia’s eight regions (in Slovak: kraj): the Prešov region (35.6%) and the Košice region (21.6%). The Žilina region follows with 10.6%. Each of the other five regions accounts for less than one ancestor in ten.
| Region of birth | Share of ancestors |
|---|---|
| Prešov region | 35.6% |
| Košice region | 21.6% |
| Žilina region | 10.6% |
| Bratislava region | 8.3% |
| Trenčín region | 8.1% |
| Trnava region | 6.5% |
| Banská Bystrica region | 5.9% |
| Nitra region | 3.3% |
At the level of districts (in Slovak: okres), the pattern is sharper still. Bardejov alone accounts for 6.2% of ancestors with a known district, followed by Stará Ľubovňa (5.3%) and Bratislava (5.2%). The ten most frequent districts together account for 41.1%, and the 30 shown below for 76.0%. Yet emigration reached the whole country: all 70 districts outside Bratislava and Košice, and both cities, appear in the data.
| District | Region | Share of ancestors |
|---|---|---|
| Bardejov | Prešov | 6.2% |
| Stará Ľubovňa | Prešov | 5.3% |
| Bratislava | Bratislava | 5.2% |
| Prešov | Prešov | 5.0% |
| Michalovce | Košice | 4.2% |
| Košice | Košice | 4.2% |
| Trebišov | Košice | 3.6% |
| Vranov nad Topľou | Prešov | 2.5% |
| Spišská Nová Ves | Košice | 2.5% |
| Košice-okolie | Košice | 2.5% |
| Myjava | Trenčín | 2.3% |
| Poprad | Prešov | 2.3% |
| Sabinov | Prešov | 2.3% |
| Svidník | Prešov | 2.0% |
| Medzilaborce | Prešov | 2.0% |
| Malacky | Bratislava | 2.0% |
| Trnava | Trnava | 1.8% |
| Senica | Trnava | 1.8% |
| Kežmarok | Prešov | 1.7% |
| Humenné | Prešov | 1.7% |
| Levoča | Prešov | 1.7% |
| Gelnica | Košice | 1.7% |
| Sobrance | Košice | 1.6% |
| Liptovský Mikuláš | Žilina | 1.5% |
| Martin | Žilina | 1.5% |
| Rožňava | Košice | 1.5% |
| Snina | Prešov | 1.5% |
| Trenčín | Trenčín | 1.4% |
| Čadca | Žilina | 1.4% |
| Brezno | Banská Bystrica | 1.3% |
Before 1918, Slovakia was part of the Kingdom of Hungary, and its territory was divided into counties (in Slovak: župa), not regions. A historic county is not the same as today’s district (okres), which is sometimes also translated as “county”: the historic counties were much larger, closer in size to today’s regions. Today’s Slovak territory was divided among about twenty of them, compared with eight regions and 79 districts now. Many American families know their ancestors’ county from old family documents, often under its Hungarian name. Counted by county, Šariš (Sáros) leads with 19.0% of ancestors, followed by Zemplín (Zemplén, 14.6%) and Spiš (Szepes, 12.2%). The five eastern counties of Šariš, Zemplín, Spiš, Abov-Turňa, and Uh, together with the city of Košice, account for 55.0%.
| Historic county or city | Hungarian name | Share of ancestors |
|---|---|---|
| Šariš | Sáros vármegye | 19.0% |
| Zemplín | Zemplén vármegye | 14.6% |
| Spiš | Szepes vármegye | 12.2% |
| Nitra | Nyitra vármegye | 9.9% |
| Trenčín | Trencsén vármegye | 7.6% |
| Bratislava | Pozsony vármegye | 6.2% |
| City of Bratislava | Pozsony szabad királyi város | 4.9% |
| Gemer-Malohont | Gömör és Kis-Hont vármegye | 4.2% |
| City of Košice | Kassa szabad királyi város | 3.8% |
| Uh | Ung vármegye | 3.1% |
| Liptov | Liptó vármegye | 2.8% |
| Orava | Árva vármegye | 2.7% |
| Abov-Turňa | Abaúj-Torna vármegye | 2.4% |
| Turiec | Turóc vármegye | 1.8% |
| Zvolen | Zólyom vármegye | 1.7% |
| Tekov | Bars vármegye | 1.2% |
| Novohrad | Nógrád vármegye | 0.8% |
| Hont | Hont vármegye | 0.7% |
| City of Komárno | Komárom szabad királyi város | 0.2% |
| Komárno | Komárom vármegye | 0.1% |
| Ostrihom | Esztergom vármegye | <0.1% |
| Ráb | Győr vármegye | <0.1% |
| City of Banská Štiavnica | Selmec- és Bélabánya szabad királyi város | <0.1% |
The family histories name 1,230 different municipalities. The cities come first: Bratislava (202 ancestors), Košice (157), and Prešov (65), followed by Bardejov (49) and Michalovce (40). Among smaller places, some names recur again and again: Jakubany (30 ancestors), Zborov (22), Šarišské Jastrabie (17), and Široké (16) in the east, and Vrbovce (19) and Brezová pod Bradlom (18) in the Myjava district in the west.
Ancestors born in Bratislava stand apart. More than a third of them (37%) were the parents of the person who contacted us, against 9% elsewhere, and one in five of their crossings came after 1945. They belong to the emigration of the decades after World War II, not to the great wave before World War I.
How far back: The nearest Slovak-born ancestor by generation
On each line of descent, we counted the Slovak-born ancestor nearest to the person who contacted us. In half of all family lines (49.9%), that ancestor is a great-grandparent. Grandparents follow with 29.8%, great-great-grandparents with 10.6%, and parents with 9.8%.
| Nearest Slovak-born ancestor | Share of family lines |
|---|---|
| Parent | 9.8% |
| Grandparent | 29.8% |
| Great-grandparent | 49.9% |
| Great-great-grandparent | 10.6% |
The generation matters. Section 7(8) of the Slovak Citizenship Act reaches parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents, so half of all family lines in our data stand at the furthest generation the descent route allows. For about one line in nine, the nearest Slovak-born ancestor is a great-great-grandparent. Section 7(8) stops at great-grandparents; for these families, the path runs through the Slovak Living Abroad certificate, which has no generational limit.
When Slovak ancestors emigrated to America: Crossings by year and period
We counted every recorded crossing, not only the first: 3,689 crossings by 2,958 ancestors with at least one known year. More than half of them (55.5%) fell between 1900 and 1914, and the busiest years in our data were 1905, 1907, and 1910.
| Period | Share of crossings |
|---|---|
| Before 1900 | 9.3% |
| 1900–1909 | 33.5% |
| 1910–1914 | 22.0% |
| 1915–1919 | 1.2% |
| 1920–1924 | 15.5% |
| 1925–1939 | 13.5% |
| 1940 and later | 4.9% |
World War I stopped emigration almost completely. Between 1915 and 1919, our data record only 45 crossings, against 183 in 1913 alone. When the war ended, the crossings returned at once: 176 in 1920 and 179 in 1921. The Immigration Act of 1924 then cut the annual quota for immigrants from Czechoslovakia from 14,357 to 3,073. Crossings continued after 1924, but nearly a third of those between 1925 and 1939 (29%) were made by ancestors who had crossed before.
Many ancestors crossed more than once. Of the 2,958 ancestors with a known year, 594 (20.1%) appear with two or more crossings, and some with as many as five.
Nearly half of all ancestors (46.2%) first arrived before 1910, and two-thirds (66.3%) before 1915. Cases with pre-1908/1910 emigration form a group of their own. Our article on them covers the 2025 landmark case that changed the Slovak Ministry of the Interior’s practice on ancestors who emigrated before 1908/1910 and naturalized in the U.S. before 1918.
Where Slovak immigrants settled in America: Pennsylvania, Ohio, New York, Illinois, and New Jersey
For 2,614 ancestors, the family history names the state or province where they settled. More than a third (37.6%) settled in Pennsylvania. Ohio (14.2%), New York (11.9%), Illinois (9.6%), and New Jersey (5.4%) follow, and together these five states account for 78.7%. In all, the ancestors in our data settled in 41 states, the District of Columbia, and eight Canadian provinces.
| State or province | Share of ancestors |
|---|---|
| Pennsylvania | 37.6% |
| Ohio | 14.2% |
| New York | 11.9% |
| Illinois | 9.6% |
| New Jersey | 5.4% |
| Connecticut | 2.7% |
| Indiana | 2.4% |
| Michigan | 2.2% |
| Minnesota | 2.1% |
| Wisconsin | 2.0% |
| Canada (all provinces) | 2.0% |
| Other states and the District of Columbia | 7.9% |
This is the map of industrial America before World War I: the coal and steel towns of Pennsylvania, the mills of Ohio, and the industrial cities of New York, New Jersey, and Illinois.
Ancestors born outside today’s Slovakia: Ukraine, the Czech Republic, and Poland
Not every family that asks us about Slovak citizenship has an ancestor born in today’s Slovakia. In 107 of 4,041 families (2.6%), none of the ancestors the family named was born in today’s Slovakia. Many such families think of these ancestors as Slovak or Czechoslovak, because the places they came from shared a state with Slovakia: Austria-Hungary before 1918, and for some of them Czechoslovakia between the wars.
The largest group, 37.4% of these ancestors, were born in today’s Ukraine, most of them in Subcarpathian Ruthenia, which belonged to the Kingdom of Hungary until 1918 and to Czechoslovakia from 1919 to 1939. Another 36.1% were born in today’s Czech Republic, in Bohemia and Moravia, and 11.6% in today’s Poland.
| Country of birth (today’s borders) | Share of ancestors |
|---|---|
| Ukraine | 37.4% |
| Czech Republic | 36.1% |
| Poland | 11.6% |
| Germany | 5.4% |
| Serbia | 2.7% |
| Hungary | 2.0% |
| Romania | 2.0% |
| Other countries | 2.7% |
What the numbers mean for your family
The most common family history in our data looks like this: a great-grandparent, born in a village in eastern Slovakia, who arrived before World War I and settled in Pennsylvania or Ohio. If that is your family, your history is the one we see most often.
The data also show where the difficulty lies. The further back the ancestor and the earlier the departure, the more it depends on how well the case is prepared. If your ancestor left Bratislava in 1968, proving that ancestor’s Czechoslovak citizenship is usually a formality. If your great-grandparent left a village in Šariš in 1903, it is the case.
How we compiled the data
The data come from family histories submitted to FALATH & PARTNERS for case review between April 2022, when the descent route opened, and September 2026: our case files and the inquiries sent to us through our contact form and by email.
- On each line of descent, we recorded the Slovak-born ancestor nearest to the person who contacted us. A family with Slovak roots on both the father’s and the mother’s side counts on both lines. This gives 6,444 ancestors in 3,934 families.
- Birthplaces were matched to today’s municipalities, districts, and regions of Slovakia, including their historical Hungarian names. The region is known for 4,202 ancestors and the district for 4,160. For 2,242 ancestors (35%), the birthplace could not be placed more precisely than Slovakia. They are included in the totals and left out of the regional shares.
- Every recorded arrival counts, from 1850 to 1970. An ancestor who crossed three times appears three times in the timeline.
- The state or province of settlement is the one named in the family history, known for 2,614 ancestors.
- Ancestors born outside today’s Slovakia are counted only in families with no Slovak-born ancestor at all, by today’s country of their birthplace. Lines where a family named only “Czechoslovakia” or “Austria-Hungary,” without a place, are left out.
- A family that appears more than once, as an inquiry and as a client case or in several inquiries, is counted once.
- The data describe the families who asked us about Slovak citizenship, not all Americans of Slovak descent. Details in inquiries are as the families reported them.
- We publish aggregated figures only. No family can be identified from them. The data are as of October 2026.
Where to start
If your Slovak-born ancestor is a parent, grandparent, or great-grandparent, the first step is the same for every family: submit your case for review. FALATH & PARTNERS was the first in Slovakia to take up citizenship by descent when the route opened in April 2022, and it has since reviewed 3,920+ cases and represented 1,025+ applicants. The review is complimentary and commits you to nothing.
General information on Slovak citizenship law, current as of publication. Not legal advice, and not a substitute for advice on your own circumstances. Past results do not guarantee future outcomes.