Tuesday, June 20, 2017

HUNGARIAN URBARIUM 1767: ZALA COUNTY : FUN WITH PLACE NAMES Genealogy Tip #9

Please read updates as of June 2019. These posts are popular and have been edited to include more information for genealogy and family history writers.

I'm going to pick on ZALA COUNTY in the Urbarium (census of landowners) that began in 1767, here as we continue to explore a bit of the Hungarian Language and learn more about the history of the country at a time when it is mostly rural and agricultural.  I'll tell you a bit about why I decided to read ZALA. ARPAD GONCZ's (Ex President of Hungary) interview that is published on the internet, mentions that while the town of GONC is up north, his family came from ZALA COUNTY and there is a belief in the family that they may have been resettled or moved because someone was a courtier to a noble in the CSAKY family. 

Well, if you read Zala, or want to search for CSAKY in the Urbarium database on line provided by Hungaricana, you will find a whole lot of wealthy landowners named CZAKY.

Zala is a county with 493 pages of census, so very populated at the time compared to many other counties.

Let's continue to seek out root words of the Hungarian language and suspend our ideas of places being named after family farms or streets after people who put up the first house on them, or some developer in California naming his housing subdivision after famous estates in Great Britain!  OK?


1910 Map of ZALA COUNTY, HUNGARY from WIKIMEDIA


First let's imagine the times. The American Revolution is brewing. (And so is the French Revolution!) The census starts a decade before the official Declaration of Independence and before George Washington will become the First President of the United States. There are no freeways, highways, cement roads, planes, trains, or automobiles. The census takers must go slowly by horse and carriage and if they are lucky they have a little entourage. They would be lucky to do their interviews an estate a day. (On the final pages of each settlement there are signatures, dates, and red wax seals to make it all official.) Bad weather and road conditions can make it very difficult.

Now I'm going to go a bit alphabetical here, but we know that the census taker didn't go alphabetical in his travels to get all the information he needed to for Queen Maria Theresa, ruler of the Hapsburgs' Austrian Empire, of which Hungary is a part at the time

The census is declared or begins in 1767 but takes years to complete.  Officially I read it ended in 1773 but have already found a citation dated in 1774. What's written below is fictive but here we go!

Imagine the census taker, who I'm going to call Gyorgy (George) just for the fun of it, arrives at a 475 hold owned by HG Miklos (Nicholas) Esterhazy, and believe me when I say that his lands and those of his family are well beyond what we'd call "the 1%" today.

BAGONYA  - GONYA means potato or nightshade plants and the Ba refers to fields of a farm.

Now our Gyorgy goes over to the even bigger 689 hold estate owned by Baron Antal (Anthony) Senney, where he identifies it with its apparently unique feature, BAK. BAK means tree as in high up perch.  Perhaps there was a huge tree or a place where you could rest the horses and see the entire estate overlooking it!

Gyorgy continues on, sure that the nobles don't really want to talk to him, but he will not leave without their signatures and red wax seals making it all official. He finally gets to BANOKSZENTGYORGY, which is 858 hold owned by HG Miklos Eszterhazy.  It was nice of Nick to name it after Saint George, his namesake!  BAN means AT so simply, he is writing in that he is now at Saint George.

After checking in at BARABAS - apricot or peach tree, where there are only four small family plots, he goes to BARATSZIGET.  Too bad they won't let him stay indoors.  BARAT means chaste or religious and SZIGET is island, so he's at an island of chastity, a convent perhaps or a retreat center. It may be associated with TUSKEVARI PALOS KONVENT... a Pauline sisters convent, TUSKE means briar or thorns and VARI bowl; we can be pretty sure this is all referring to the crown of thorns on the suffering Jesus's head!  The place sounds pretty severe, maybe it's a good thing that he next goes to BARHELY, where there is a gin mill and nightclub, on a 239 hold piece of land owned again by HG Nick.  He has one too many but he continues on anyway, stopping at BAZA, or Lava Rock where a widow Foky farms 29 holds.  Finally before nightfall, his speedy horse in need of water, he stops at BEKEHAZA, BEKE meaning a quiet and peaceful HAZ house.  Owned by the widow of Adam Csillag, a 97 hold piece of land; they aren't even noble! Ah yes, she will give him some bread a good bowl of stew and let his horse drink water.

The next day Gyorgy gets up and makes one of the estates owned by Grof Gyorgy Czaky, a 639 hold place called BELATINC.  BELAT means Wise and Intelligent.  But his trip slows down as he gets close to 187 hold called BELSOSARD.  BELSO means interior - SARD means mud.

Then on to BENKOVEC, BEN means crippling and KOVEC means ROCK or STONY; let's say that this was a Killer Climb! One of the many estates belonging to Grof Mihaly Althann in Zala County. On he goes; serfs are running ahead to let their boss know he's coming.  After passing through to talk to the priests at SZABOTICAI PLEBANA, the Parsonage where priests take sabbaticals,  he goes to BERZENCE meaning Needles, a place of sharp rocky spires. Maybe because the land is so difficult it was cheap.  Here we find a lot of Petric family and a Takacs on small plots of land managing to make things grow on that rocky land.

In the weeks ahead Gyorgy will begin to talk to the MAGUS EMBERS (Big Men) with more ease.  He'll stop at HEGYMAGUS, Big Mountain, which the Lengyel family considers to be their stead and has a nice house with 316 hold. He'll go to KISPALI - KIS means LITTLE, PALI means COVE with two small plots of land, and KIS-ES-NAGY SATAR; Little and Big Encampment.

KISFALUD - Little Village, KIS-ES-NAGY-RADA, Little and Big Floodplain  where spring floods form temporary lakes that the geese look forward to, he'll go around KISGORBO, the Little Bend, KISLAKOS, the Little Habitation, and even stop at KISORS, Little Guard Post.

But the whole time all he can think about is his own HAZ.  Especially when he comes to KAPCA, a 273 hold place owned by HG Miklos Eszerhazy (again), which he names KAPCA because it means FOOT RAGS. The serfs are so poor here. He really misses his wife when he sees KAVAS, where four non-nobles live on a place that he calls SCRAP HEAP.




(To get to all the posts/genealogy tips regarding the NATIONAL ARCHIVES OF HUNGARY/ Hungaricana's URBARIUM 1767 you can search this BLOG by looking through my archives, through searching for the word URBARIUM using the Google Search Feature embedded in the blog, or by clicking on the link at the bottom of the post.)

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This post is part of a series.  To print up all posts, click on the tag Pro tips: 1767 Hungaricana Urbarium
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Saturday, June 17, 2017

HUNGARIAN URBARIUM 1767 : RELIGIOUS PRIESTS and NUNS in 1767 - FEW LANDOWNERS and OFF TO THE CONVENT Genealogy Tip # 8

Please read updates as of June 2019. These posts are popular and have been edited to include more information for genealogy and family history writers.




So many CONVENTS, MONASTERIES, SEMINARIES, and ESTATES OWNED BY DIOCESE and HOLY ORDERS are evident on the 1767 URBARIUM -  HUNGARY LANDHOLDER CENSUS. The Jesuits, the Paulines, the Benedictines...

Let me start with some Hungarian words translated so you'll be aware of what you're reading.  I'm going to list these is a progression so you can see how the word meanings go. Sorry I don't have the keyboard to put in the pronunciation marks.

TELEK - property (not real estate or buildings or houses - usually means equipment such as farm equipment.)
CSALAD - family home or stead. (On census may imply it is owned rather than rented or is considered the family stead.)
SZELLER - cottar (implies rented building such as a tradesman's workshop or store. Note that I recently learned that Cottar indicates a house on a small plot of land only big enough for a family's own vegetable and herb garden.)
OHAZA - old country - home country
HAZA - house or home - HAZY - "house of" as in Eszterhazy "house of Eszter"
EGYHAZ - church
EGYHAZI - old church
EGYHAZATYA - church father
EGYHAZATYAK - church fathers
FOLD - land
EGYHAZI FOLDEK - church lands
EGYHAZI ANYAKONYV - church register (births, marriages, deaths)

TEMPLOM - best to think of this as a Spiritual Worship Center of any religion but in particular Jewish or Muslim.
APATSAG - abbey
KONVENT - convent
PALOS KONVENT - convent of the Pauline Holy Order
BENCES - Benedictine
BENCESREND - Benedictine Holy Order  (Also called "Black Monks")
BENCESAPACA - Benedictine Nun
GROF - Count (GR is abbreviation)
GROFNE - Countess or Wife of the Count
BARO - Baron (BR is abbreviation)
BARANO - Baroness or Wife of Baron
BAROKISASSZONY - Unmarried daughter of a Baron
EMBER - person
FONTOS EMBER - important person
HELY - PLACE (geographic such as on map)
SZENT - Saint
TEMETKEZESI - burial place or grave
KAPOLNA - CHAPEL (sometimes indicates place for Baptism)
KAPTALAN - CHAPTER HOUSE (indicates place to pay taxes or make payments.)
(I will add to this list over time.)

*****
... So I want to write a bit about GOTHIC FICTION which I took a class on in college..  GOTHIC FICTION began with the REFORMATION.  Novels featuring lusty and bloodthirsty sinning monastics, priests, and nuns were popular. These fictional characters had sex, got pregnant, murdered people, were sadistic or mean.

You could say that these novels were media and they were a lot like FAKE NEWS today, in the case of GOTHIC FICTION intended to promote Protestantism.  We know about them because so many were printed (the printing press having been invented and used primarily for printing Bibles) that some of these novels still exist in archives!  Were they based on true stories?  It's always possible some were but we don't really know for sure. Today GOTHIC FICTION is written by authors such as Anne Rice, who wrote pornography featuring castles and nobles and virgins and horses under a different name... but who is better known for her VAMPIRE novels, such as "Interview With A Vampire," which was made into a film. (In her book "Interview With A Vampire"  her characters search the world for others like them and stop in Central Europe where they are surprised to learn that People Actually Believe They Exist.) To be literary about her work, Rice is writing about Power being played out, about people who when told to jump say, "How high?" Rice has been known to have a personal struggle with Catholicism.

So now I want to write about the opportunities that women had back in the Medieval period, back in the mid 18th century when the Urbarium of 1767 took place.  We see that there are many places in the counties where there are parishes, churches, temples, retreat houses - and islands!, monasteries, schools, and convents.  Most women had two choices, to be a wife and mother or dedicate her life to God or Jesus in a Holy Order.  But convents were more like old YMCA with it's inexpensive rooms for women who wanted to get way and go somewhere to grieve their widowhood, preserve their virginity until a marriage contract could be discussed, or hide away to heal a heart break and preserve or renew their reputation. 

Some convents were boarding schools, and some took in orphaned girls. (When the fashion designer CoCo Channel was a girl in France and their mother died, her father took her and her sister to a convent and then deserted them there.) So you see, there was much to learn besides prayers and needlepoint at the convent. Wealthy and noble women were often taught to read and do the math they would need to run large estates at the convent while their husbands went visiting or off to politics or battles.  And on the URBARIUM YOU WILL SEE QUITE A FEW WOMEN WHO ARE COUNTESSES or BARONESSES WHO ARE WIDOWED, and we can assume running the estates they have inherited, at least temporarily, until a son comes of age, the estate is lost in debt, or THEY REMARRY.

YOU WILL ALSO SEE A FEW UNMARRIED DAUGHTERS OF COUNTS WHO HAVE LAND OF THEIR OWN.  A WOMAN WITH LAND IS A WOMAN WITH A DOWRY, a desirable marital partner.

(To get to all the posts/genealogy tips regarding the NATIONAL ARCHIVES OF HUNGARY/ Hungaricana's URBARIUM 1767 you can search this BLOG by looking through my archives, through searching for the word URBARIUM using the Google Search Feature embedded in the blog, or by clicking on the link at the bottom of the post.)

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This post is part of a series.  To print up all posts, click on the tag Pro tips: 1767 Hungaricana Urbarium
C 2019 Magyar-American BlogSpot
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Sunday, June 4, 2017

HUNGARIAN URBARIUM 1767 : BLACK MADONNA and THE PAULINES HOLY ORDER Genealogy Tip #7

Please read updates as of June 2019. These posts are popular and have been edited to include more information for genealogy and family history writers.



There are several thousand locations in Europe where the BLACK MADONNA icon is enshrined as a focus for prayer. The Shrine of the Black Madonna in Czestochowa, Poland is the most famous, that also being a place of pilgrimage. Some people believe this original painting was painted by Saint Luke the Evangelist himself. Some people believe that the darkness of the skin of Jesus and his mother, Mary, was intentionally painted dark to indicate they were of African origin, others that the pigments darkened with time especially with all that exposure to incense and candle smoke!  Copies have been made with the dark  appearing skin for hundreds of years.


Why, you might ask, am I posted about the BLACK MADONNA here at Magyar American BlogSpot and the Hungarian Urbarium (census) of 1767? 

In the census you're going to find a number of religious oriented places that have been counted for their land holdings and buildings and you're going to see the word meaning PAULINE.  It turns out that there has been and is more than one HOLY ORDER based on Saint Paul, so I want you to know that when you see Pauline on the Urbarium it indicates the ORDER OF SAINT PAUL THE HERMIT, which was founded by Blessed Eusebius of Esztergrom, Hungary in 1215 - the Medieval period. 

According to some sources, at one time there were over 5000 monks belonging to this order just in Hungary. The Order spread to Germany, Poland, Austria and Bohemia (Czechoslovakia), and Croatia.  Estimated to be down to 500 members, the Mother House of the Order is now in Czestochowa where the icon thought to be original is cared for by them.


If you're researching in Szegred County, Hungary, you may find that the center for this worship is at Saint Nicholas Serbian Orthodox Church, as Serbians began to immigrate there in the 1500's after bloodshed in that hotbed called Kosovo.  If you see a surname ending in IC, that is likely a Serbian surname.


(To get to all the posts/genealogy tips regarding the NATIONAL ARCHIVES OF HUNGARY/ Hungaricana's URBARIUM 1767 you can search this BLOG by looking through my archives, through searching for the word URBARIUM using the Google Search Feature embedded in the blog, or by clicking on the link at the bottom of the post.)

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This post is part of a series.  To print up all posts, click on the tag Pro tips: 1767 Hungaricana Urbarium
C 2019 Magyar-American BlogSpot
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Friday, June 2, 2017

HUNGARIAN URBARIUM 1767 : IT BEGAN IN 1767 Genealogy Tip #6

Please read updates as of June 2019. These posts are popular and have been edited to include more information for genealogy and family history writers.


With
my precious dog at my side, I've picked back up with my EXTREME GENEALOGY practice of reading the front pages by settlement in each county - yes the ENTIRE 1767 Census that Maria Theresa ordered be done, so she could access the economic condition of the country she ruled as part of the Austrian Empire!  Now I will eventually focus on what is personal to me, but I think I have lots to share with those of you who are just now also facing this census. 

It's wonderful that the HUNGARIAN NATIONAL ARCHIVES have put up a searchable text database with the basics under each landholder's surname. I could easily use the search feature to look for just specific surnames, but I really want to get the lay of the land.  It's one thing to notice that the Eszerhazys or Andrassys are the 1% at the time, another to see how their holdings compare with the few farmers who are not land barons or of nobility: Yes there are a few!

I've been reading around Queen Maria Theresa, ruler of the Hapsburg's Empire of which Hungary was a part. She wanted to tax the nobles and land barons.  They had not been paying taxes and didn't want to, so it's said that they lied about the vastness of their holdings and that up to 2/3rds of the country was not actually represented in this census. They may have even had the cooperation of those serfs, servants, retainers, and employees who lived on their land to keep quiet about how much they owned.  

But first of all, I know the date of 1767 is on it, but that's actually when the census began.  In actuality it took about 6 or 7 years to cover the country by census takers who were traveling on horses and carriages or on foot. I've found my first notes taken in 1848, a pivotal year in Hungarian History, as well. So you know that in 1848 there were more notes taken in certain places, that census takers or other officials were sent back to those places.

I've printed out a map of the countries so that I can keep track of where I am in this quest, and yes, I'm finding that rare surname I've been searching for, which I believe is in Hungarian documents at least back to the 1300's. 

Those of you who are following along with me are probably wishing I would hurry up already and post everything I know to share with you. And those of you who live in Hungary and these counties and know the language fluently are probably thinking "I already know that! What I could tell her!" (There's always Comments!)

Others of you who read MAGYAR AMERICAN BLOGSPOT and don't do genealogy are probably wishing I would post on the here and now of my life as an American Citizen of Hungarian heritage!  I will try to please all of  you a bit but this is going to be a URBARIUM KIND OF SUMMER. 

(To get to all the posts/genealogy tips regarding the NATIONAL ARCHIVES OF HUNGARY/ Hungaricana's URBARIUM 1767 you can search this BLOG by looking through my archives, through searching for the word 

URBARIUM using the Google Search Feature embedded in the blog, or by clicking on the link at the bottom of the post.

C 2017 Magyar-American BlogSpot
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This post is part of a series.  To print up all posts, click on the tag Pro tips: 1767 Hungaricana Urbarium