The Official Blog Of Hungary Exchange

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: 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...