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

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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