Jelenec (, formerly Ghymes) is a municipality and village in the Nitra District of the south-west of Slovakia, in the Nitra Region.
The village of Jelenec (also Gýmeà ¡, Ghymes, Dymes and GÃÂmes) lies below the southeastern spurs of the Tribeàmountain range at an altitude of 192 m above sea level. In terms of territorial and administrative division, it belongs to the Nitra Region and Nitra District. Its territory is built up of granitoid and sedimentary rocks (granites, quartzites, limestones, clays, sands). Some local minerals formed by hydrothermal mineralization are rare (e.g. ibaryte, lazulite, limonite and wad). Irregular seams of lignite coal, which are of variable quality, also occur in the Neogene sediments.
The first written mention of the village dates back to 1113, when the name of the village as Gimes appeared in the Zobor Documents of the Zobor Benedictine monastery. There are several theories about the origin of the village name, the most probable of which claims that it is formed from the word "gÃÂm" which means deer. According to a later transcription of a document from 1226, the Hungarian king Andrew II donated the village to Ivánek of the Hunt-Poznanov family. His son Andrew, who received the village in 1253 for saving Bela IV.'s life in the fight against the Tatars, had a castle built on DÃºà  hill.
It has a population ofÃÂ people (31 December ).
Jelenec is known to be the home of Gýmeà ¡ Castle (Slovak: Gýmeà ¡ Hrad) also known as Jelenec Castle which are the ruins of a medieval castle located on the steep quartzite hill DÃºà  (514 m above sea level) on the southern slope of the Tribeàmountain range, approximately 5 km north of the village.
The ruin is a prominent landmark of the wide surroundings. Gýmeà ¡ is one of the ancestral castles of the noble Forgáàfamily â together with the Galician Castle. Despite the fact that the Turks<nowiki/>conquered and caused damage to it, the structure was restored and occupied until 1865. Following that year, it fell into decay. Only a portion of the castle walls still remain intact.
The Baroque mansion was built in 1722 by Bishop Pavol IV. Forgách. The Forgách family lived and stayed in it until the end of World War II. This noble family is quite important for Slovak history, which is why a permanent exhibition of the Forgách Family Museum was established in 2009. The museum presents a range of life stories of the Forgách family, who have appeared in Slovak history for more than eight centuries.
The church, which is still functional today, is located in the central part of the village. According to its location on the manuscript map of the 1st military survey from 1782-1784, it shows that the church originally formed a landmark in the northwestern part of the village.
The records for genealogical research are available at the state archive "Statny Archiv in Nitra, Slovakia"