The Official Blog Of Hungary Exchange

The theme of today's tip is:  Neighboring Villages! Today's Hungarian genealogy research tip comes a day after I found a pretty significant discovery in my own family tree. Long have I been a promoter for Hungarian genealogists to check in nearby or neighboring villages for their families. And it continues to pay off. For the past eight years, I have been working on my Szük family from Taktaszada, Zemplén county, Hungary. Ever since, I have been stuck on my 6th-great-grandmother on that line, Zsuzsánna Fekete. I knew her name from the baptisms of her nine children with her husband, István Szük, but no where in the Taktaszada marriage records could a marriage be found. There was also the fact that the marriage records for Taktaszada didn't begin until 1773; their first child was baptized on 27 Dec 1771. Again, there was also the fact that there wasn't a single Fekete family in the Reformed church records at all. Zsuzsánna obviously wasn't originally from Taktasza...

The theme of today's tip is: Religion ! Knowing the religion of your ancestors is crucial to moving forward with your genealogy research. Most of the time, in old Hungary, people tended to marry within their own religion. But this wasn't  always  the case, and you must be cautious of this. It can be very easy to overlook the religion column in the baptism, marriage and death registers, by just assuming they were a specific religion. An ancestor having originally come from a different religion, leaves the door open to an entirely new parish and set of records to search in. One of the most common mixes of religions in Hungary, is Greek Catholic and Roman Catholic (top image; click for larger view). In this image you can see that the groom, Czundra Mihály, was "rom. kath." (Roman Catholic) and from Lenártó. The bride, Bucsko Maria, was "gr. kath." (Greek Catholic) and from Hrabszke. The next example (bottom image) is a case of a Reformed and Ro...

This is the beginning of a new theme that's going to be published here, on The Official Blog Of Hungary Exchange . The purpose of this new theme is to offer advice and tips to Hungarian genealogy researchers out there, with information ranging from beginner, intermediate and advanced. Each new post will highlight one specific tid-bit of helpful information to help you find your ancestors. The theme of today's tip is: Town Names ! As always, it's extremely important to be very thorough with your research and the records you're working with. The most important part of researching in the Hungarian parish registers is to read through the entire  record. There may be tiny pieces of information that could send you on possible leads, if you're stuck at a brick-wall. A perfect example for this is my own 3rd-great-grandmother, Mária Tóth. According to her marriage record (top image), her birthplace and residence were "Tiszadob 3". Looking for a baptism record...