Summer has begun and though I'm also enjoying the warmer weather and the beauty of nature and indulging in other pass-times, I'm hot on my genealogy.
I know some of you who read MAGYAR-AMERICAN BlogSpot are also hot with your Hungarian and Hungarian American (and Slovak and Slovak American) genealogy projects. Maybe I can help. You see, I've spent more than five hundred hours using the FAMILYSEARCH databases and let's face it: much is to be desired. It's my hope that somebody out there whose involved with FAMILYSEARCH will hear our collective call, so I do hope some of you will leave comments.
As a bit of background for those new to the research and those of you who, like me, have been stalled due to "unavailability" of records, I began my research so long ago it was pre-Internet. It was pre-Databases. It was using books and microfilm to document family stories - oral tradition - some of which proved to be not true. As a result, I know that there are massive gaps in what is presently available when it comes to indexing projects. (UPDATE July 23, 2019: I checked again and there is presently an indexing project for the Civil Registrations for BUDAPEST, meaning that if you searched in the Civil Registrations for HUNGARY before, it did NOT include Budapest, the Capital and largest city in Hungary.)
My understanding is that Latter Day Saints Family History Libraries - which are around the nation - some Kis - some Nagy - and the headquarters in Salt Lake City, Utah, decided to no longer send out the microfilms for loan. In the past we paid a reasonable fee for using the films and maybe it just wasn't lucrative to LDS, which is first a church with missionaries all over the world. Some of the films I used once. Some I used for weeks - months. But if, like me, you are not going to travel to Salt Lake to research there, then you're probably stuck needing to see what is on films that do or did exist, but which are not a high priority for them to make available. (Some Family History Centers have microfilms remaining in them that can be used if you go there. Some of the indexed films have images NOT available.)
So I'm going to share what I've learned and perhaps model some strategies for you. Some of you may read my advisory and say, "I already knew that!"
Of course, Hungarians are in Slovakia and Slovaks are in Hungary, as are some Croats, Czechs, Romanians, Ruthenians (Carpathian - Rusyn) ... There were also colonies of Germans, Italians, and other ethnic groups. There were/are several religions; Roman Catholic, Lutheran (called Evangelical), Reformed, Unitarian, Greek Catholic, Jewish and so on. Borders changed and today Hungary is about one third what it was before 1920. (And I'm aware that the Hungarian population in Romania wants their part returned to Hungary.)
In order to get to posts on genealogy here at MAGYAR-AMERICAN BLOGSPOT, you have three options. One, you can go through my archives one by one. (Doing so you will find plenty of non-genealogy posts and can learn about Hungarian society and culture.) Two, you can use the search feature embedded in the front page of the blogger to bring up posts using a term such as "genealogy." Or, three, you can click on the labels you see beneath posts; I really try to label in a helpful way. (For the set of advice particular to Urbarium 1767 click on Urbarium 1767). For this new set of experientials, click on "Family Search - use of databases."
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This post is part of a series.
To bring up all posts in the series, click on the tag Pro tips: FamilySearch for Hungarian Genealogy,
