Are there any experts on Slovakia here?

[acbrasil]

I've found my G-Grandmother (and G-G-Grandmother) after there arrival in the US. The census links, obituaries, and arrival at Ellis Island. But I'm not able to find them in Slovakia  . Can anyone tell me what I'm doing wrong?

This is the obit for my G-G-Grandmother:
http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1978&dat=19590211&id=Zy8vAAAAIBAJ&sjid=LqsFAAAAIBAJ&pg=3598,3069311

Her maiden name was Kremareck, but all variations of this name turn up nothing for me.

Her daughter – my G-Grandmother - Antonia Coppersmith (Lauro)
She was married to Franklin [Frank] Coppersmith, who was the son of John [Johann] Coppersmith (Kupferschmid) -> Sigmund Coppersmith (Kupferschmid) -> Blasius Kupferschmid -> Anton Kupferschmid -> Philipp Kupferschmid (out of Konstanz, Baden, Germany). That’s as far back as I can find for that side of the family. My personal suspicion is that the records are in Switzerland somewhere.

Back to the Great and Great Grandmothers:
Taken from Familysearch, which has been a HUGE help:
Anna Lauro , New York, Passenger Arrival Lists (Ellis Island), 1892-1924   residence:      Ribirry, Hungary , immigration:   7 March 1912   
   
Maria Lauro, New York, Passenger Arrival Lists (Ellis Island), 1892-1924   residence:      Ribirry, Hungary  immigration:   7 March 1912   
         
My G-G-Grandmother's birthday is OFF on this, but it matches with my G-Grandmother on something else I found.

But she also had an older sister, Ernestine “Mano”, whose record is this:
Ernestine Lauro - New York, Passenger Arrival Lists (Ellis Island), 1892-1924   residence:      Ribeny, Hungary - immigration:   24 March 1914   
   
But when Ernestine got married, she used “Edna”
Joseph Lauro - Father of bride - Michigan, Marriages, 1868-1925   
spouse:   Christina Kremarik - child:   Edna Lauro
other:   Tony Mano, John Mano, Mary Mikus

Christina, my G-G-grandmother died before Joseph did. Joseph remarried and they all share a grave here:
http://files.usgwarchives.net/mi/shiawassee/photos/tombstones/saintpaul/lauro165028gph.txt

What I would love to find are the birth records for the Slovakian branch. Can anyone help me out with this?

[jorose]

How do you mean "not able to find"?  If you're just searching by name on the major sites (paysites/familysearch), I wouldn't be surprised at that.

For a lot of European countries records are not online, or may be difficult to find - especially if borders have changed.  In order to search by name and find a record you require all of the following to be true:
1) the records have survived
2) the records are accessible to the public.
3) the records are accessible without physically visiting the archive/town hall/church/etc.
3b) the records are accessible online, rather than by writing a letter/email somewhere asking for copies.
4) the records are accessible online and indexed
5) the spelling of the name you have and the spelling of the name as the original records have it are the same or close enough that a search engine can figure it out.

First step: figure out what the modern name of your family's town of origin is.  I think
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rybany (Hungarian: Ribény)

Then you can start looking for what records survive and where they are kept. I often first check the familysearch catalog for the place, to see if anything is on microfilm.

As it turns out, there are some online, but they are probably not fully name indexed.
https://familysearch.org/search/collection/1554443
Choose "Browse through 1,615,473 images"
then
Roman Catholic (Rímsko-katolícká cirkev)
then
Bánovce nad Bebravou
then
Rybany

Using her birthdate from the obituary, here is Christine's baptism:
http://www.rootschat.com/links/01a5h/
father Antonius Kresmarik, mother Susanna Reynjacka
(the two other names are godparents).

This is like digital microfilm.  You cannot search by name, you must go through page by page looking for references to your family.  They only go up as far as 1893 in this case, but you should be able to look for siblings to Christine, births/marriage of parents, etc.

http://iabsi.com/gen/public/churches.htm

Post-1895 records are held by the village Registrar's office (town hall) and are subject to modern-day privacy restrictions.

So you may be able to get a copy of Antonia's birth by writing to Rybany .  (privacy restrictions probably primarily apply to records within 100 years).

[garstonite]

http://gw.geneanet.org/kjdreher?lang=en&v=KUPFERSCHMID&m=N    from Baden

I did find one record for Kremarik - but it was in France

[acbrasil]

Jorose, excellent! Thanks for the tip and the link! I'm new to all this, so I have a lot to learn 

[acbrasil]

http://gw.geneanet.org/kjdreher?lang=en&v=KUPFERSCHMID&m=N    from Baden

I did find one record for Kremarik - but it was in France

Garstonite, I don't know if those lines of Kupferschmid is/are related to mine. We were probably the "poor" Kupferschmid family. I didn't see any that look familiar...

I found my line by matching the record with Sigmund to his birthdate, immigration date, wife, son, wife's family name on obituary. Everything matched better than I had expected. It was also very easily retrievable (searchable) on familysearch. When I found that they also had two young children, I thought all was lost. Then I discovered that those two kids had really died young and they left for the US the next year.

[shellyesq]

I would recommend looking at the actual images of the passenger lists, and keep in mind that sometimes the entry will extend onto a second page.  Looking at Ernestine's passenger list, it mentions the nearest relative in the country from whence she came as an aunt.  The name is hard for me to read, but the town looks like Ribeny.  The second page indicated that she was going to join her father Josef in Michigan.

Also, there are markings on the first page of Ernestine's passenger list entry that indicate that she later sought naturalization.  There is information on interpreting these numbers here - http://www.jewishgen.org/infofiles/manifests/occ/  If the naturalization records can be found, they will likely include a place and date of birth and possibly other helpful information.