The Official Blog Of Hungary Exchange

We had previously mentioned the 1767 Urbárium census in our latest  Research Tip #12 , but we felt it needed much more attention. As previously mentioned, these "records were ordered by Empress Mária Terézia in 1767 to help grasp a better understanding of the peasantry of Hungary. The over 300,000 pages of material contains a wealth of information such as how much livestock a peasant had, who the serf owed his obligations to and the amount of land the serf cultivated. These records only provide the name of the 'head' of the household/land. Most images are available for this collection and the front page [of the website] is available in English. Navigation of the documents are easily organized by county and then town or village name, alphabetically. Archaic or older spelling variations for the town or village name may be used. These records are not indexed by name." Carl Kotlarchik and Martin Votruba have created and provided column header translations for the 1767 ...

The theme of today's tip is: Taxation Records Although Hungarian taxation records aren't immediately beneficial to the genealogical aspect of research, they do provide an insight into the lives of our ancestors that church records otherwise wouldn't. Many taxation records for Hungary have been digitized and made available online, but you have to know where to look. In this article, we're going to highlight several of these digitized and available taxation records. Urbéri tabellák, 1767-1773 These taxation records were ordered by Empress Mária Terézia in 1767 to help grasp a better understanding of the peasantry of Hungary. The over 300,000 pages of material contains a wealth of information such as how much livestock a peasant had, who the serf owed his obligations to and the amount of land the serf cultivated. These records only provide the name of the 'head' of the household/land. Most images are available for this collection and the front page is avail...

The theme of today's tip is:  'Notes' On A Record The one thing I will always emphasis on, is reviewing the actual parish records. A great deal of information can be uncovered about the family simply by just looking at their baptismal, marriage and death/burial records. One thing that is always a pleasant surprise, is later-written notes indicating a marriage, death and even possibly a name change. The remainder of this article will be the examination of the various 'notes' that can appear on church and civil records. I hope it makes you pay close attention to the entirety of your family's records. Alföldi Juliánnának törvényes férje Nácsa János él ugyan: de 2. év óta [olta] nem laknak együtt. Jegyzette Szalai István, lelkész This excerpt was taken from the 'comments' (észrevételek) column on a baptismal record from 1854 in the Reformed parish of Szentmihály in Szabolcs megye, Hungary. It states that mother of the child was the same...

          An interesting discovery today on the internet! I found this publication written by Mihály Hajdú which contains approximately 1,230 of the most common surnames up to the 19th century. In addition to explaining the frequency of the surname, it also explains the surname's origin, meaning and spelling variations. Surnames of other common languages such as German, Slovak and Romanian is also provided. You can find the publication HERE .

It's been a busy month for adding new marriage records to the Hungarian Marriage Project . Six new parishes have either been created or updated and over 1,500 marriages have been added. Here's a list of the new marriages that have been made available:

Ancestry announced two days ago a partnership with FamilySearch, that would add an additional 1 billion records to Ancestry's holdings via FamilySearch. Here is the press release: PROVO, Utah, Jan. 21, 2014 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Ancestry.com announced today an extension of their collaborative efforts with FamilySearch International that will make more than 1 billion additional records from 67 countries available on Ancestry.com. These already digitized records, provided by FamilySearch, are in addition to the agreement the two largest providers of family history resources announced a few months ago that will help digitize, index and publish an expected 1 billion global historical records never before published online from the FamilySearch vault over the next five years.  These additional records, which are already digitized collections, represent a significant expansion to Ancestry.com, which hosts the largest collection of global records available online. The records also add t...

Just recently, I have received word from my photographer stating that the Bihor county archives in Romania will be reopening soon. They had been closed for quite a long time due to construction and renovations going on at the archive, thus restricting access to researchers and photographers. We're hoping that the archive will be reopening by March/April of 2014, about three months away. Bihor county, Romania was formerly Bihar county, Hungary. There were many important towns and areas in the former Bihar county, Hungary, including Nagyvárad (today Oradea). The other important towns were Belényes (Beiuș), Margitta (Marghita) and Nagyszalonta (Salonta). There was a large mix of religions in Bihar county, Hungary, including: Evangelical, Greek Catholic, Greek Orthodox, Jewish, Reformed and Roman Catholic.

The theme of today's tip is: Military Record References Through-out Hungarian research, it isn't uncommon to come across a notation on a baptism, marriage or death record that mention a soldier's military service. A very large majority of the notations mostly appear on the marriage record of the individual. Within this article, I'm going to show you examples and discuss how to interpret these notes. I'm going to begin with a notation from a marriage record that's very important to me. It's from the marriage record of my 3rd-great-grandparents, József Gombás & Zsuzsánna Gulyás. It was one of the first records I ever found, when I began my own genealogy research well over 13 years ago. "Férfi, Gr. Pállfy 14 huszár ezred 44 századábán káplár. Szül: 1845. Soroztarver 1866 14/3. Szabadság levele kelt Marburg 1869 29/10 (:Jelentetett:)" The above is an image and transcription of the notes from the marriage record of József Gombás ...

If you have ancestors from the (then) east portion of Hungary, that now belongs to Romania, you're in luck. Romania has given photographers access to church registers (baptisms, marriages, deaths), and we can now easily research our Hungarian/Romanian ancestry. Due to the Treaty of Trianon in 1920, after World War I, much of the south-east portion of Hungary was ceded to Romania (map above). With the allowance of photographing the church registers, it has opened up a wealth of information to genealogists that hadn't previously been available before. The LDS haven't been allowed into much of Romania, to microfilm and preserve records. Because of that, anyone with ancestors whose home village now lies within the border of Romania, has probably come to a stand-still. Thanks to a good friend of mine, I have made contact with a phenomenal photographer in Romania, that photographs church records professionally. I have already used him several times, and I would recommend him...

The theme of today's tip is: Reusing Children Names . This topic was brought up recently by a member of our Hungary Exchange Facebook group , so I thought I would discuss it a little bit. Make sure to check out the group and join us in the discussions! It's a very sad topic to discuss, but it's an extremely crucial part of genealogy. If you have ancestors that came from Europe, odds were that within their family they probably had an infant child pass away young, and they named a newborn child after them. It was the family's way of keeping that specific first name going on, whether it be of someone from their immediate family or not. Off hand, I knew of a great example. It was a family from the village of Tiszadob, where my 2nd-great-grandmother was born. I don't believe I am blood-kin to this specific family, but they do have a Szabó surname in their ancestry, which I also have from Tiszadob. Unfortunately, the records don't go back far enough for me to a...

The theme of today's tip is: Spelling Variations The Hungarian language is one of the most complex languages in all of Europe. This list/post is aimed at being a guide to help understand all the possible spelling variations you may come across in your Hungarian research. *The confusion between CZ and TZ: The Hungarian language is infamous for the use of CZ, and sometimes it's [technically] inaccurate use of TZ. As for the pronunciation of CZ/TZ, it's pronounced as the "C" in "dance" or the "TS" in "pots". Although CZ and TZ are used interchangeably, CZ should always be the correct spelling. The TZ variation is more commonly found in older documents; 1800's and prior. Here are a few examples: Bencze & Bentze Berecz & Beretz Czakó & Tzakó Ferencz & Ferentz Herczeg & Hertzeg Koncz & Kontz Kurucz & Kurutz Lőrincz & Lőrintz Rácz & Rátz Vincze & Vintze *The additional confusion ...

The theme of today's tip is: Hungarian Churches in America! As any genealogist with European ancestry knows, or should know, it's that church parish registers are the most important records in the aspect of family history. No matter when they arrived in America, whether it was the turn of this past century in the early 1900's through Ellis Island, the 1880's through Baltimore, Maryland or even the 1600's to the colonies, the most important records to continue further research are church records. These church records documented the baptisms, christenings, marriages and deaths of our early family, and if you're lucky the presiding clergyman was very anal-retentive about the details in the records. That very anal-retentiveness, or lack thereof, could be the reason you have absolutely no leads on the next generation of your family or it could very well give you clues and hints to the next generation. Today, I'm going to highlight the First Hungarian Reform...

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...