The Official Blog Of Hungary Exchange

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...

The theme of today's tip is: In-Depth Analysis of Hungarian Marriage Records Today, I'm going to teach you how to decipher every  part of a Hungarian marriage record, and share with you what each piece of information can tell you. I am going to put each piece of the marriage record we're analyzing, into red boxes for ease of use for you, the reader. We will work through this marriage record, step-by-step. For easier viewing, you can click on each image for larger views. Let's begin! For reference, this is an 1830's marriage record from the Reformed parish of Taktaszada, Zemplén county, Hungary. The beginning of the record (after the entry number [#6] and the date of marriage [December 17]), states the place of residence of the groom. It states "Dadáról helységünkbe". This states that the groom was a resident of the town of Dada (shortened form of Tiszadada). This tells you that his baptism record may be found in the Reformed parish records of Tisza...

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:  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...