Deszpóth, Epner, Plehn, and Papp Family Ancestry Group

09/27/2025

Nicholas Plehn property location. 1910, Barberton, Ohio.

07/28/2025

I got a new DNA connection on Ancestry today. DNA doesn't lie, it's spot on. This one comes via the Szivák family line that I descend from twice. Once on the Despoth side and once on the Plehn/Papp side. This connection also runs through Gajary, Malacky, Slovakia where I have documented in full my Szivák line through and have the information and written documents to back it up. Her line also goes through the same village and the same family. Szivák wasn't exactly a hot name there so all of them in Gajary were related some way or another. I reached out and hope for a reply. I haven't exactly connected her line to mine but I can probably do it because I know who the families are and where they come from. I think I'm missing a generation or two but it's a matter of locating the marriage document in her line to tie into ours. It should be easy because I know the books and I know where the families come from. To me, this is huge. My great grand parents Despot were 3rd cousins once removed through that line. Great Grandma knew it but didn't know the names when we talked about it when she was alive, but I have since confirmed everything she told me since her death. It's all exactly as she said it would be. She knew.

10/26/2024

My grandfathers birth record came to me today in the mail from Detroit. He was born DESPOTH. Who changed the name to DESPOT? I was born DESPOT, so was my dad and his siblings and my sister. I am assuming my great grandfather did the change but his birth/baptism record out of Sotin, Szerem, Hungary says he's DESPOT even though his dad spelled the name DESZPOTH and DESPOTH or however he felt at the time. Mysteries, my friends....mysteries!

10/20/2024

08/19/2024

Found a couple receipts in my stash of stuff from when my great great grandpa bought the headstone for their graves. He paid a total of $250.00 for this back in 1931. I wonder what that would run today?

03/16/2024

The name given to me is old, in fact very old. It goes back over 300 years to my 7th great grandfather (late 1600s to early 1700s) and that is only as far as I've been able to document it in writing. Dad, grandpa, great grandpa, 3rd and 4th great grandpa, and 7th great grandpa. The ones not named Stephanus or Stephen all had older brothers named that and they were all first born in their respective family groups. I often wonder if this was some sort of tradition or trend?

03/08/2024

This here is my grandfathers cousin, Frank Joseph Cservenyak, Aunt Regina's son. He was a very smart man. Once he graduated college, the US Government recruited him to work in the mines. This was in 1949 per the news article here. Frank had a son named Barry, who supposedly also did the same once he completed his education. According to what my father told me, Barry was very intelligent. Barry and my father were second cousins. Barry knew several languages fluently. He obviously held a very high position with our government. When he died in 1998 he was buried in Resurrection Cemetery, Prince George's, Maryland.

Dad said that when Frank and Barry would come to town that they would visit Great Grandmas house on Brown Street in Barberton and gather in the kitchen with the men, great grandpa, my grandpa, Uncle Luke, great grandmas brothers - Nick, George, and Carl. They would all sit in there and sip on some whiskey and tell stories. Dad said all he would hear was Barry say, "Well, you didn't hear it from me, but...." and he'd go off on some crazy sh*t the government was doing. So we're talking late 1950s early 1960s here. Yeah, they were kind of up to secretive stuff then. Meanwhile the women were in the living room doing their talk so dad was kind of in between the talk while he was in the dining room, probably building model cars, staining great grandmas table with model glue, and eaves dropping all this.

02/25/2024

Leona Elef. A descendant of the Szivak line. She lived to be 102 years old. Her dad used to visit Barberton once in a while to hook up with Great Great Grandpa Andrew Despoth and make whiskey.

02/25/2024

Plehn Family. Great Great Grandpa wasn't doing too well by this time. He wouldn't live very long after this photo was taken. Notice my grandpa Steve crying in the front row? HAHA.

02/25/2024

Aunt Regina Cservenyak Obit.

02/21/2024

I have to say that this, by far, ranks in the top 3 most valuable finds ever in all my years of research and may even be #1 when all is said and done. This is the book I was talking about that has the PLEHN families in it. It starts with Great Great Grandpa Nicolaus Plehn and goes back from there. I started with some information out of this book about two months ago by contacting someone in Recaș, Romania. Once I got some basic information from that person, it became apparent that I needed to get more. I didn't feel the need to have to ask that person all the time to do my legwork for me. So, as opposed to the other option of traveling all the way out to Utah to visit the Family History Center where the other, and probably only, known copy of this book exists in the USA, I decided to reach out to the author, Franz Bertram, personally and communicate with him about it. Turns out, he has several copies in his possession but it's limited. Meaning, once those are sold, he has to make more, but it's been in publication for 21 years so he hasn't exactly been selling a lot. I reached out to him and asked if I could buy a copy. I had to actually prove my family was in it first but that was fine. He confirmed it and I made the transaction to buy the book. He shipped to me all the way from Germany. It took two weeks or so to get here but in today's mail I got my surprise! I have to say, I am stoked! I got some work to do.

02/18/2024

Great Grandpa Stephen Despot obituary from the Akron Beacon Journal - July 1971