The Official Blog Of Hungary Exchange

An often overlooked Hungarian collection on FamilySearch holds a treasure trove of genealogical information.  Hungary Funeral Notices, 1840-1990   are printed funeral or death notices, similar to obituaries in other counties, and the originals are currently held at the National Széchényi Library (Országos Széchényi Könyvtár, or OSZK) in Budapest, Hungary. Over a quarter of the collection covers Budapest and the remainder for the rest of Hungary, although I have seen notices for individuals in Austria, Germany and what is now Croatia, Romania, Serbia and Slovakia. The funeral notices were preserved on microfilm by the LDS between 2003-2006 and consists of 582 microfilm and can be reviewed in the microfilm catalog . These were later digitized (accessible through both links above), but 9 microfilm still remain to be digitized. It's unclear why Syatmárz, Syecsez, Syeibert, and Syékely are spelled with SY, when it should be SZ. Ebeczki-Blaskovich, Ernő-Edelényi Szabó, Józse...

The FamilySearch database entitled  Austria, Vienna Population Cards, 1850-1896 documented local residents and travelers living in Vienna for the time period of 1850 through 1896, with the original documents being housed in the Wiener Stadt- und Landesarchiv (Vienna City and Provincial Archives). These records have been preserved on microfilm through the LDS and consists of 3,173 microfilm, which can be reviewed here in the microfilm catalog . Although there lacks to be a complete index for this collection, a great deal has already been indexed and provided online. I personally found the search form for this database to be rather limiting, with it not providing an option to search for an individual's place of birth, so I figured out a work-around. Running a basic search for Hungary in the "Any Place" section on FamilySearch pulls back over 31 million results. We can restrict these results to specific Collections through the filter options on the bottom left of the ...

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.

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...