The Official Blog Of Hungary Exchange

Béla Lugosi is well known for his portrayal of Count Dracula in the classic 1931 film  Dracula, but many do not know that Lugosi wasn't his original surname. He was born as Béla Ferenc Dezső Blaskó on 20 Oct 1882 and baptized nine days later on 29 Oct 1882, in the Roman Catholic parish of Lugos, in the former county of Krassó-Szörény, Hungary. Lugos is today known as Lugoj in Timiș county, Romania. He was the legitimate son of István Blaskó, a bank director of Nyitra, and his wife Paulina Vojnits, who were residents of Lugos in house number 6. Béla's godparents appear to have been Ferenc Bayer, a municipal deputy judge, and Vilma Küszer. He was baptized by the assistant parish priest, Albin Teppé, and was delivered by the midwife Róza Perisutti. Information was later recorded in the 'Observationes' column which mentioned his marriage to Ilona Szmik on 25 Jun 1919 in the Roman Catholic parish of Szent-Anna in Budapest. Their civil registration marriage record was ent...

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...