Hungarians settled in the Árpád Age in the valleys in Gömör county situated between the Gömör-Szepesi Hills and the Bükk. In the 14-15th centuries, the number of Slovakian population grew in the North while Germans arrived to the mining towns. The Huszita wars, the Turkish subjection and the Thököly-Rákóczy War of Independence halted development in the region. The region began to recover around the middle of the 18th century. Mining and iron manufacturing developed faster.

The family acquired the estate in Putnok through marriage. The baroness Orlay Borbála married the count Serényi András sometime in 1670-1674 and all the wealth of the Orlay family was taken over by the Serényis. Their son, Farkas, born in 1685, worked as an overseer of the estate of Gömör County for decades. However, he neither lived in Putnok nor Gömör but in the castle of Záblát.