In 1711 churches in the countries and counties ruled by the Austrians by law began taking notes like these below. The listings are often in LATIN the universal language of the Roman Catholic Church. The notes may also be in German, Slovak, Hungarian, Polish - Russian, reflecting the education and ethnicity of the local priest.
You may find some churches have listings for people who are not Roman Catholic included depending on how small a town or how far it was that people had to travel to go to their Jewish temple or Greek Catholic church. This was the closest thing they had to a civil registration and be careful when reading their religious information to realize that they are listed not because they actually go to this church but because they live near it! But since Hungary declared itself to be a Christian country after overcoming the domination by Moslem Turks and aligned itself with Roman Catholicism, I'll start there.
CONSIDER THESE SAMPLE LISTINGS.
Maria, daughter of Janos Nagy. 1715 (no mother's name at all. A fairly worthless listing because of the common names. Maybe if the person is a noble and has a name like Maria Elizabeta Julietta Szalia (I'm making this up but I've noticed that the more names given the higher the rank of the noble with an average of four names for say the equivalent of a count/graf) the record becomes valuable.
better is:
Maria, daughter of Janos Nagy, Baptised August 1, 1715 (But it's as if the man gave birth!)
better is
Maria, daughter of Janos Nagy, Born July 28, 1715, Baptised August 1, 1715
priest's note : father is farmer.
better is
Maria, daughter of Janos Nagy, Born July 28th, 1715 Baptised August 1, 1725
priest's note : father is farmer. Mother Maria Toth. Mother is nobilis.
(You may be convinced that nobilis could only marry nobilis but I've found MANY marriages of mixed status and even mixed religions particularly in towns. As I understand it, the children's status was dictated by their father. So a noble woman would keep her own status marrying a common person but the issue was that her children lost their noble heritage because of this unequal marriage. On the other hand some noble women preferred to marry a wealthy commoner rather than a poor noble! Also today we tend to think that a couple marries in the BRIDE'S church but I've come to believe by reading)
NOW YOU CAN LOOK THROUGH THE CHURCH REGISTER FOR OTHER CHILDREN BORN TO A JANOS NAGY AND A MARIA TOTH, assembling a family group.
NOW YOU CAN ALSO LOOK FOR A MARRIAGE OF THIS COUPLE, based on the oldest child born to them (give it a year or two.) You may find something like this:
Marriage of the widow Janos Nagy, 45 and the virgin Maria Toth, 18, April 15, 1720. Husband is a farmer - land owner.
Maria, daughter of Janos Nagy and Maria Nagyne, still born. December 22, 1721. Baptised by midwife.
Maria, daughter of farmer - landowner Janos Nagy and the nobilis Maria Toth, Born July 28th, 1715, Baptised August 1, 1725 by Priest Andras Szabo. (It is common for a couple to name a newly born child the same as a deceased child!)
Janos, son of farmer - landowner from Zemplen, Janos Nagy and the nobilis Maria Toth who was born in Budapest, Janos Born August 15, 1726, Baptised August 16, 1726 ...
I would like to say that all the records get more informative as they years go by but that hasn't been my experience.
Priest's notations about status are common even after 1848 and there always seems to be great concern about the father's profession, after all most women didn't work for money. They were either supported or inherited or became sisters or nuns supported in convents by the Church.
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C 2014 MAGYAR AMERICAN BLOG - All Rights Reserved on this and all posts, including Internet and International Rights.
