Hello Flo,

May I ask why so many variations? Spelling in this neck of the woods is a picky thing with regard to surnames. The endings with a -v or -f most likely will be completely different families. What is the name according to the paperwork you have? This will help me pointing you in the right direction.

Hi Zarevac,

thanks for replying. What I have from Banat church books refering to related people is Meszecsov and Meszecsev. A member of that family signed with Meszecsof and "Mesecsov" I saw on ship papers with a family branch leaving Europe.

The rest are variations I found in records on FamilySearch

Hello,

I am merging this post with the other one. Did you ever have contact with: http://www.arhivzrenjanin.org.rs/ ?

The archives in Serbia are not availible digitally. So you should most likely contact them the old fashioned way by snail mail.

I know of a Meszecsov family in Kovin, the Banat. Have you tried reaching out via people currently living in that area? The name is specific and I saw that they left from Bremen, some of them didn't leave.

Hi Sergej,

so far I didn't have any contact with the archive, because I didn't exactly know how to approach them. Additionally a fellow researcher told me some days ago that they refuse to communicate in English there. Maybe it would be an idea to have a colleague from work calling there, since he speaks the language ...

Can you tell the difference between the archives in Zenjanin and Novi Sad? Which of those covers which area?

Thanks a lot for the hint about Kovin. Does that family currently live there or do you know them from old records?

Best

Flo

Hi Flo,

Well, most likely its because they are manned by a generation that doesn't speak English 🙂 and they require every request to be in Serbian according to law. Depending on the town it can be very outdated, also on top of that Serbia knows a data protection law that is very strict. Only citizens or direct relatives that can make inquiries get replies. But the best way to get things done is to have someone on the ground there and go through the books. We used to have some active researchers here on the forums, otherwise you would have to Google for someone. What you can try is the Letter Template that we have and use that and see if it yields a response. You can always try calling them and see what they say.

Novi Sad covers the South Bačka area and Zrenjanin is more focused on central Vojvodina. The thing is that because the archives are not all microfilmed and digital it is still pioneering when it comes to research.

https://www.facebook.com/people/Meszecsov-Laszlo/100018340696035
https://www.facebook.com/karoly.meszecsov
These are people that still live there and I know Kovin pretty good. Kovin historically has a diverse community so it would be worth checking out in my opinion.

Let me know if you can find the Letter Template as wel are still into redesigning things on the website 😉