Hello my readers! I've decided to post genealogy research tips interspersed with some reportage on cemeteries in Hungary and the history of burials. We'll explore a bit together and it's my hope that by the end of this series, you will know much more about this subject.
This icon of an casket being pulled to the cemetery by horse and special cart will stand for the tag Hungary Death Records - Gen Tips, and when you click on that tag, it will bring up all the posts in the series.
In recent months I've made the most of using church death records to go back one more generation when the paper trail available for birth/baptism and marriages is not enough. I've written about using "house number" studies, before, and that has certainly been part of my personal research too. It was a labor of love to spend very many hours culling the death records for two villages that referred me to yet another, as the land was split among sons and some tenant farmers eventually inherited plots. I put together family groups and looked for the common ancestors among them, hoping there would be a reference or remark on one of the younger children's marriages that would help me identify who was whose father - and thus the father of the oldest child as well.
Of course, it would be interesting to take a trip to those villages and find tombstones that clearly identify some of the people on my charts. If they still stand or ever existed.
Are cemeteries in Hungary much different than American?
If you're an American, your notions about cemeteries may be about the cemetery your family uses, or perhaps the ones in your area, some which may not have markers, or simply small flat stones to identify the graves. Or maybe you know of a military cemetery in which the troops all have the same marker. I know of a cemetery in Santa Cruz where the single people were buried separately from the married, and where a small spot was for the Chinese.
Grave yards in Hungary in modern times have followed a rather predictable path that American grave yards have. People were buried on their own farmstead or where they fell in conflict. People were buried around a church. Or in a graveyard in which members were of a specific religion. As population increased and room around the church ran out, there was a movement into "park" settings, in which monuments could be larger and artistic. The public were encouraged to spend some time and stroll around to enjoy the scenery, even if they personally did not have any family buried there.
But what is different is the history of The States and that of Hungary, for unlike Hungary, we have not had World War I or World War II, on our land, nor have we been punished for World War II involvement by loosing two thirds of our country's land. Yes, we did have wars, including the Civil War, in which many fell in battle, but you know that was not the same as the Holocaust.
These days...
I have mixed feelings about tombstone projects. I believe that respecting the privacy of the dead is also about respecting the privacy of the living. Genealogy is about the past, our HERITAGE, and those connected to the dead who are alive should have their privacy respected.
Maybe the information doesn't feel so sensitive until you begin to see what I consider violations, such as people being allowed to put actual death certificates up to match the tombstone which give cause of death and more. I was outraged when I saw that being done at a popular tombstone search site. I'm feeling that cemeteries and burials - the whole funeral business - is becoming outrageous in costs.
So many people today are choosing cremation because the whole funeral business in the United States is financially burdensome and cremation is less expensive. There is also that some cemeteries actually consider the burial space you "bought" to be a rental and, when no family member can be located or afford to re-rent, have been known to "move" (loose) bodies.
A few years ago I had the death certificate of a woman who died in 1920 in the U.S. in hand and called the cemetery identified on it. The person I spoke with denied she was buried there and even suggested that the family might have "tried to do the right thing" by showing up with shovels in the night and putting her into the earth themselves. !!! Then there was talk about how the place had been flooded and an old employee would have to be asked since maybe he would know where the grave was. When I said I had the death certificate and was calling to know where the grave was because some relatives from Texas wanted to pay respects, there was silence. I was requested to send the death certificate... And the same man tried to suggest that when the grave was found, a new marker be put on it, which would cost $20,000... I could not believe what I was hearing.
So my genealogy quest hit into a sales spiel. I sent the death certificate (which mentioned the name of the undertaker, a business that was still in business into the 1970's) as well as the cemetery) and never heard back...
Oh how I felt for that woman who had been buried there, who had died at 26 of cancer, after having given birth to two children and who was likely quite sick when she gave birth to the second one. I wondered when last anyone had visited the grave. But perhaps visiting graves is not something people do much, not even on Memorial Day. Perhaps even those graves with expensive tombstones or markers go unvisited. Do cemetery employees notice which graves have been "attended" by family? I think they do.
To me, $20,000 on a tombstone is ridiculous. That's better spent on someone's college education. And so I do not anticipate burial or a tombstone for myself.
But back to genealogy. I also have a sort of reverence for the people who came before me and who I would not know about if it were not for the research. I always research around the person, so I can better understand the kind of life they must have lead, and with that, the kind of life span and death. The priests in the villages were very busy people. I showed copies of a death register from the early 1800's to a friend who is an anti-vaxer and said "This is a testimonial to the need for childhood vaccines."
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