THOSE HOUSE NUMBERS and VILLAGES : USING FAMILYSEARCH FOR HUNGARIAN GENEALOGY RESEARCH - STRATEGY #4

Using FAMILYSEARCH indexed BAPTISMAL RECORDS, as well as DEATH and MARRIAGE records that exist on microfilms that are not indexed, you'll see in the notes what appears to be house numbers. Sometimes you'll see a note that the person is local but not in town - likely on the outskirts on a farm and the term commune is used. (Someone listed in commune is a higher rank than an Inquillis.  Sometimes, due to inheritance, someone who starts out as Subinquillis can rise to Inquillis and all ranks could have other people renting from them or living with them. Commune implies ownership of land.) 

You'll also notice that people from other places have their children baptized at the church.  And not finding an ancestor who "should" be in the same church record, perhaps they can be found at a neighboring village church or the larger, more richly decorated church in a nearby city in the same diocese. Usually this is because their town does not have a Catholic or Reformed church so they belong to the church in the village where there is one. I have not yet been able to determine if the common custom in the United States of marrying in the bride's church was done in Hungary. Since traditionally the bride went to live with the groom's family prior to marriage, that suggests she married in his church and town.***

I've read all around it but there seems to be no current information on why the house numbers or addresses given in BAPTISMAL (and other) records from Hungary, Slovakia, and the Slavic Lands (even if that means German immigrants or persons in Transylvania or Romania) are what they are. I'm told these do not reflect current house numbers. But then again people were living on streets that we'd consider lanes and this was long before there were paved highways with signage. Many of these places listed with house numbers were no doubt rural or farmsteads.

I recently read that these numbers refer to the order in which houses were built.  A lower number indicates an older building or perhaps a longer residency. Locals might know the history of the settlement so contacting a Historical Society, if there is one, is an idea. 

One educational paper I read suggested that the house number MIGHT BE CONSISTENT with the number on the 1869 Census of Hungary. (All counties are not available, not at FAMILYSEARCH or anywhere!)  That certainly is worth a go see!

I know this can be a disappointment when using Google Earth or YouTube videos of drone fly-overs, because you want to see where your ancestors lived, if their house is still there or a ruin. (I used Google Earth to see a house in New Jersey, still standing and listed with a real estate agent, which some ancestors lived in. The place looked to be in a decaying neighborhood but with real estate information and so on, I knew that it had only been built a few years before they moved in, so the brick was then bright and new. I noticed HUNGARIAN MOTIFS had been applied to the facade! ****)

You might relate the house number or property number in a rural village or town a bit to what happened on some of the early American and colonial era census of primarily agricultural lands. Farmsteads were divided and divided again due to inheritances and so there were clans of families living communally. Basically, everyone knew who everyone else was in the area and which farm was theirs and how to get there ("Go up the hill till you see the road by the fallen down apple tree...") So who really needed house numbers?

Here are some other things to consider:

Why is a family who is listed as Reform or Jewish in a Catholic Church record?  In that case it's because the Church is the official record keeper for the area. Also if a family lives in a place where there is no church at all or no church for their religion, they traveled to the church where the ceremony and record has taken place. Generally this was about 5 miles or less away as they probably WALKED. Finding they came from somewhere else to the church can lead you to another film, another record based on place. (Check the FAMILYSEARCH CATALOG for the location to see what houses or worship existed in the town or nearby.)

It may seem that house numbers are useless information. But they are useful!

Let's say that you notice that the family you have recreated through all those baptismal records, that family group, lives at #456.

You want to go through the years and see WHO ELSE LIVED THERE at #456 and when. Using house numbers you may just locate people who prove to be siblings, parents, relatives of some kind.  Maybe the house belonged to the bride's family or they moved in with an uncle.

Using this method I came to understand that someone 16 years older than my ancestor was coexisting in the same house with their own wife and children: too young to be a father, possibly an uncle or older brother (maybe from another marriage.)

You may find generations of family, some with different surnames are living at the SAME ADDRESS contemporaneously. Perhaps the dwelling is large enough for them all, even though they lived in conditions more crowded than we like.  (Many of the houses were one room and included the goats and chickens living inside. I read that the leaders of clans long ago lived in the equivalent of a 12 by 12 log cabin, which might have been an upgrade from a tent.)

You may find that your recreated family group DID NOT LIVE THERE at #456 PRIOR TO THE BIRTH of the first child.  I was able to confirm 1876 as the beginning of any known family member living in a certain town by finding another non-related family living at that address in 1875 and before. That means the great grandparents were from somewhere else. I've also - eventually - learned the relationship of the people who lived in the house years earlier to the people living in it later.

You may find that either the wife or husband's family has roots in the village, but not both.

I've found that persons of nobility or wealth or both seem to have traveled further for marriage. In villages it was generally the girl or boy next door who became a spouse. *** Traditionally in Medieval times, it was the wife, at 10 or 12 years old, who was sent as a girl to the house of the groom, but I do not find that to be the case in the 1800's. So employment then, as it is now, was probably the motivating factor. If a young man went to a relative or nearby village as an apprentice, this might be where he encountered his wife to be.  He married there and they stayed there. (Consider too that an orphaned child might be taken in by relatives miles from his or her birth place.)

I believe that one of my ancestors who proved to be an orphan at the time of marriage probably was invited to live in with an uncle and that lead to his apprenticeship and eligibility for marriage.  As for his bride, I suspect she was also orphaned but cannot find her birth, her parents, their marriage...

Following house numbers and locations, you may find you have more surnames and families to focus upon.

*** Added information and editing done on August 27, 2019  In some places brides spent most of their time among other women in the village while the men went to work elsewhere.  It was almost as if, other than the marriage partner, they had separate lives and did not much associate with other men. This implied a support system among women, individual mother-in-law's likely had different personalities.  In other places, young men and women were free to associate with each other and have friendships.  In some places the teenage women would go to the spinning house to spin together in the evenings and teenage men were allowed to go visit with them (and flirt).  

If you do not find the bride or the groom in the village they appear to be settled in, baptizing their children in that church, this is where scanning the database to find the birth village may be the next thing to do.  It is incredibly helpful to find the AGE of the bride and groom from their marriage record.  However, sadly, it may be the DEATH record in the same village that gives you an AGE.  Find the person who would be the right age based on the death record and scan for someone of that name and age elsewhere.  Go to that place and first thing, look for a MARRIAGE there. *** Recent reading indicates that in some villages the whole town had expectations of who would marry who, based on what part of the village (which land) they lived in. Consideration was to keep the village intact.  There was much interdependence. **** These same motifs appear on some Hungarian's tombstones.

Please note that this is one of a series of posts about the usefulness of certain genealogy-based websites and you can find the other posts by searching through the archives, by searching within the blog for the term genealogy, and so on.

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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, 

PINK IVY GERANIUM

MASSIVE UKRAINIAN GENEALOGY DATABASE UP AND RUNNING - 1650 - 1920 BIRTHS

Originally published on the MAGYAR-AMERICAN blog on July 22 2019

Special note November 2018. Some parts of Historic Hungary are now in Ukraine. Ukrainians also lived in Hungary.

Those of you who have been in the United States for a couple generations at least may be only partly Hungarian / Magyar.  Your family may also have origins in Slovakia, Poland, Yugoslavia, or Ukraine as well. Yes, we intermarried with our "own" people : people who shared a religion or the experience of Central and Eastern Europe. Those of you who remember grandparents or great-grandparents who lived in ethnic ghettos of immigrants before the family started moving out to the suburbs may remember hearing so many languages spoken when you went to visit. You might also be part RUTHENIAN, of the mountain people who lived in the Carpathians in what became four different countries. Close to 4 MILLION people in the database born between 1650  and 1920  - rush to the site and see the possibilities.


A wealthy man who instigated his own genealogy research and believes the ancestors remain with us so long as we remember their names, Igor Howszowski, is responsible.


LINK TO THE DATABASE UKRAINIAN GENEALOGY DATABASE - PRA.IN.UA

JOSEF SZALAI - HUNGARIAN ROMANI VIOLINIST! THRILLING!

GODPARENTS and WITNESSES AS A CLUE : USING FAMILYSEARCH FOR HUNGARIAN GENEALOGY RESEARCH - STRATEGY #3

While using the indexed BAPTISMALS available currently on FAMILYSEARCH, record the names of the Godparents present at the Baptism. When sloppy handwriting (quill and inkwell) or surname spelling variations due to Latin, Hungarian, German, Slovak, or other languages and levels of literacy have effected the priest's handwritten records, seeing consistent Godparents can be a clue that you're actually recreating the family of siblings and parents accurately. 

Quite often the Godparents, who took the idea that they would be responsible for the child's religious education, their ethics, morals, and character, far more seriously than today's Godparents do, are related. Sometimes there was an implied duty to help care for or adopt children who became orphaned. (Possibly, if DEATH RECORDS prove that the child is alive when both parents are not, and neither parent remarried, you might look to see if the child resides in a Godparent's household.)

On one record I found it said the Godmother was widowed and the Godfather (whose surname was the same as the Father's) was unmarried. The Godmother proved to be the grandmother of the bride. The Godfather proved to be the brother of the father. It gave me surnames to consider a generation back. I also considered that the Godmother was the mother's mother and widowed and perhaps the two of them were living together far from home. 

Today parents tend to ask another married couple to be the Godparents of a child. Godparents on these old Hungarian church records could also be the employer and his wife - or the Baron or Noble who owns the property the family lives on. Read around that microfilm and see if Godparents were the same people repeatedly for a great number of children. If they were very often it may be because they were called in to the church to stand as Godparents. If you see the same couples over and over again being Godparents, maybe they were popular people in the village, maybe they were respected nobles, but maybe they were just there at the Church. People who came to a new town to work and spawn might not have had any close-by relatives and would ask friends, or if no friends were available, depend on the locals.

This would be like if you eloped to Vegas to get married in an Elvis Chapel and the witnesses who sign on the dotted line are people employed at the Chapel who happened to be on staff that day. 

Also notice what the priest is writing in about the father's profession and status, such as Military Officer, Noble, or Farmer or Official. Prior to 1848, there is generally much more about nobility written in at the Baptism. The Military Officer may be found in Military Records, the Noble in patents of nobility, etc.  In one town the priest wrote in the status akin to those Urbarium lists.  This father is a Nobilis.  This father is a Subinquillis.  Made me want to go right to the Urbarium 1767 and see if the family was there earlier on those lists.

Also notice the witnesses to marriages, often four men!  In my own genealogy search I found the MARRIAGE of a man in my lineage (through the process previously described of going to the microfilm's not indexed portions) and the listing gave full information on who the parents were.  A blessing - it was clearly written - and the birth year for each. I went about proving this. On the groom's line, based on the marriage, I've gone back two more generations. The bride's side is more complicated.  So far I have not found the marriages of either's parents.  I proved that the groom was orphaned, though it doesn't say that on the MARRIAGE.  I found his parent's deaths prior to his fifteenth year. On his father's death was given the location he was born and by going to the next village microfilm, I found this easily. Terrific!  

Since there were four men as witnesses, I wondered who they were. The first is a City Judge (who happens to be HV - Helvetica meaning Lutheran, though this is a Catholic marriage.)  Then there is the father of the bride, listed as a furrier, listed as RC - Roman Catholic.  Makes sense he'd be there. The third man's surname is familiar but I can't place him yet.  I think he may have been a Godparent.  Also RC. I can't read his profession but as the groom is listed as an apprentice, I suspect he is the apprentice to one of these men. The fourth man has the same surname as the groom and his profession is also a question. I suspect that he is the uncle or other relative of the groom though there might have been older siblings born in a different place who do not come up in BAPTISMALS for this town or on the FAMILYSEARCH database, using the names of the parents to try and bring up more children. The name is common and there are at least SIX candidates with that name in the same town. If I can go back further without doing charts for all six until I can find a tie-in of this MARRIAGE witness, I will.

Addition to the original post.  The 1869 HUNGARY census 
(also available on FAMILYSEARCH) has whole families on it and is the closest thing to a United States Federal census there is for Old Hungary.  However, you will find that what has been released and perhaps what exists are the counties NO LONGER IN HUNGARY, such as now in SLOVAKIA.  For counties that were cut in half such as Abauj and Zemplen, you won't find settlements that are STILL IN HUNGARY included. 


C 2019  Magyar American BlogSpot
All Rights Reserved including Internet and International Rights.
Please credit me when using this information. It's hard won for me and good karma for you!  This post was edited providing more information on July 23, 2019

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, 

DEEP RED GERANIUMS

 

HUNGARIAN WOMAN ARE BLUNT IN THEIR ASSESSMENT OF RELATIONSHIP : HUNGARIAN STEREOTYPES

 

Here goes another stereotype of Hungarian WOMEN...  If you're a Hungarian woman (and this may carry over to you Hungarian-Americans) you waste no words in telling your partner what you do or do not like about the relationship.

Despite this bluntness, you still expect a man to simply know or remember what it is you like or want!  When he does you are satisfied with him. Therefore, if he is not used to this bluntness, even if you are sure to list the good things first  - and more of them - he will fear what it is you have to tell him.  It's implied that once he knows what you don't like he will improve.

What you think of sex with him, for instance.

Hey, at least you spoke up.

This is very modern.

It has nothing to do with how your great-grandmom, grandmom, or mom dealt with men.

Does she also enjoy you being so blunt with her?

Are you kidding?

C 2019 Magyar-American BlogSpot

RECREATE THE FAMILY - READ THE BAPTISMAL NOTES: USING FAMILY SEARCH FOR HUNGARIAN GENEALOGY RESEARCH - STRATEGY #2

Here we go! 

USING BAPTISMAL RECORDS, build the family, looking for siblings with the same parents.\hough this information is more likely on a death or marriage record, on the baptismal records also look for words such as "Widow" or "Widower" in the notes.

What the priest is communicating when noting the death of a parent is that the child was conceived in marriage but the father has died before it was born or the mother died in childbirth or soon after. Sometimes you'll see a little cross icon somewhere on the same line where a priest has written in that the child died or that the mother died. (You still want to cross reference that with a DEATH record.)

Notes on BAPTISMALS can include TWINS, ILLEGITIMACY, FATHER is DEAD, MOTHER HAS DIED, child was baptized by MIDWIFE or someone else, or child has died. I've seen "premature" written in. In the case of a child who was born dead or died right after birth, there was no waiting for a priest for baptism.  I've also seen notes such as "Father in America."

(In one case I found that a pregnant widow was being married by my ancestor, but I have yet to find her first husband's name or if she had other children with him since marriage and death record images are not available for the town she apparently lived in before this next marriage. I descend from the second child of this couple, not the first child she was pregnant with. Without marriage records it is impossible to proof and unproofed genealogy is sloppy.)

Speaking of, these BAPTISMAL records are listed on databases with the BAPTISMAL DATE, as if to emphasize the title of the collection, or to assure us that they are Christians, but it's the DATE OF BIRTH THAT WE REALLY NEED.  Even though in most cases there is a baptism recorded within a day or two or three after birth, various delays can occur that can make it difficult for you to verify you are following the same person from their birth in Hungary or Slovakia to the United States. For instance, a date of birth for Industrial Revolution immigrant men can appear on records such as United States Military World War I draft registrations. So record the DATE OF BIRTH, though the DATABASE is bringing up DATE OF BAPTISM!  For one location it seems a one month wait was typical and the indexer has listed both the date of birth and the date of baptism!  Thank You!)

(Some state census taken in the United States ask the MONTH and YEAR of birth, however "May" could be the last day of the month, and so while scanning you'd find this person in "June" baptismal records since they were baptized that month.)

You may find that at the same church, town, or general area, that there are many people with the same surnames, the same given and surnames; extremely common names. (For one town, only by talking to a living descendant was I able to verify that two large families with the same surname were NOT related and lived on different sides of town.) 

By RECREATING SEVERAL FAMILIES with the same parents names WHO ARE HAVING CHILDREN with BIRTH DATES occurring contemporaneously, you may figure that these particular families are not the SAME. (If the surname is extremely common take extra caution.  Even an unusual name doesn't mean they are related because they go to the same church.) So if you see Janos Szabo and Julianna Arvay are having babies every couple months, or two births the same year (though it is possible for a woman to have more than one pregnancy in a year), it's time to question. One or more of the families will be eliminated as not yours.

Additionally, sometimes only the mother's name is on the indexing because the child has no father. More on this another post. Quite possibly the woman has a child without a husband and then marries him or another man.

You may also get closer to the date of marriage of the couple by recreating family. As an example, let's say your ancestor was born in 1804, but using this strategy you find siblings born in 1806, 1802, 1808, and 1800. If you recreate  a family and find that their oldest child (for that church, town, couple) was born in 1800, you can possibly also figure they were married about 1799. That is, if they are a typical young couple in a first marriage.  

My experience is that a first marriage in the 19th century and before was typically to a young man about 20 -21 and a young woman between 16 and 21, but usually a couple years younger than her groom. My experience is that when the people are noble and do not need to work for income, do not have to become apprentices or learn a craft first, they marry EARLIER. 

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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, 

TRUE RED GERANIUMS

 

FOURTH OF JULY

WHAT'S WRONG? USING FAMILYSEARCH FOR HUNGARIAN GENEALOGY RESEARCH - STRATEGY #1

This begins a series of genealogy research tips based on my experience.

The LDS Church (Latter Day Saints - also known as the Mormons) based in Salt Lake City, Utah, provide a free database called FAMILYSEARCH. These days, when it comes to genealogy research, what is available for free and what is available for fees and where reveals there is a lot of cross-over of data on various genealogy oriented on-line databases in general. Currently FAMILYSEARCH welcomes volunteer indexers and transcribers.  You need not be a member of LDS to contribute. There is no charge for using their databases. (My opinion is: Not yet anyway.) However, when you post your charts/research on their database you agree others can use your research and that FAMILYSEARCH owns your research and it's their copyright - so think about that. (Should you give up your account what you post remains.) There are people out there using genealogy databases to privacy invade, which has happened to me, and other illegal activities, such as identity theft.  And some people are very lazy with their research and yet post it authoritatively.  You can't trust what's posted. You've got to proof it all for yourself or hire a pro.

When it comes to FAMILYSEARCH and LDS, theirs is a vast undertaking. I want to be appreciative. But I must also caution my fellow researchers to not depend on any databases. Quite often you will need to use older methods - such as sending that check for records to an archive or government entity. And when it comes to Hungary and much of the "Slavic Lands" or Europe, I know there is much frustration.  My own for starters.

I've used microfilms owned by LDS prior to FAMILYSEARCH. That's why I know that the database of church records and other offerings such as the 1869 census, divided between Hungary and Slovakia (which was once part of Hungary) and which features BAPTISMS / BIRTHS is not comprehensive. Marriage and Death records are not included when it comes to these INDEXES. That means that you need to go to the film number itself by searching first for the town in the catalog and then searching through the IMAGES when available in order to find marriages and deaths.

It has been years now since LDS Family History Centers stopped being the temporary homes of microfilms which we genealogists ordered in for a short-term rental fee. Sometimes after several renewals the films were kept at that location. Putting the cart before the horse, LDS / FAMILY SEARCH promised that through indexing projects and putting these microfilms online for free, there would be no need to ever use microfilm again. As of a couple weeks ago I looked to see if ANY of the PRESENT indexing projects include areas of our interest and they do not.*** 

If you're like me, you can't afford trips to Salt Lake City, Utah, where the LDS runs the world's largest genealogy research library, to research there. (The stereotype is that genealogy is the hobby of the aged and retired with time on their hands and money in their hands). You may also not be able to afford heritage travel to the Old Country (For Hungarians reading this in Hungary - that means YOU!) or hiring a researcher long distance. Though we probably all know someone who has hired a long-distance genealogist and been happy with their work, I think the problem of affordability is real for most Hungarian-Americans.

After you've experienced researching Hungary and the Slavic Lands, American Genealogy research is easy. I've helped many people with their work as a teacher, coach, as a volunteer and as a professional. Yet I too have spent hundreds of hours trusting the supposed comprehensive nature of  even the BAPTISMAL databases on FAMILYSEARCH. 

What is WRONG with the LDS FAMILYSEARCH indexed databases particular to Hungary, Slovakia, and the "Slavic Lands"?  

Here are my notes:

1) Please be aware. THERE are so MARRIAGE AND DEATH RECORDS on the SAME MICROFILMS THAT HAVE THE BAPTISMALS.  It IS NECESSARY, especially as there are so many common surnames, TO HAVE THE MARRIAGE INFORMATION in order to proof.  

The INDEXING is ONLY for BAPTISMALS even if the "fine print" in red says RECORDS rather than BAPTISMALS. Even when indexed, the film may be one of those with NO IMAGES AVAILABLE. (I currently have two brick walls based on no images.) 

2) BECAUSE OUR ANCESTORS LIVED IN A TIME AND PLACE WHERE LIFE SPANS WERE LIMITED (especially for women), and there were so many BLENDED FAMILIES due to death (rather than divorce) we need both the MARRIAGE (and REMARRIAGE RECORDS) to be supported by DEATH RECORDS. I see no indexing projects for marriages or deaths planned or being worked on.

3) INCONSISTENCIES: Some of what was INDEXED needs to be redone:  It seems as if a different format was used at some point and as a result, there seems to be information missing, but you won't know that until you go to the original microfilm. The missing name of a parent is just one of these.

The information is not always transcribed accurately and so you don't know what you're missing till you do. 

Missing mother's names are on some records. But worse, I've encountered the feminine names of mothers coming up where the masculine father's name is supposed to be.  (i.e. When you fill in the SEARCH BLANKS for father's name do you put in Julianna or the mother's name as Istvan? Then you wonder why you tried every spelling variation and misspellings, and nothing is there. So that means you should try doing this to see if that will bring up what you need.)

4) NO MOTHERS LISTED AT ALL. We can count on our ancestors' cultural sexism for the reason - sometimes.  (Genealogy has enforced my feminism for sure!) In some of the records, as you go closer to 1711, you find records written with just the father's name, and some just the mother's first name (implying illegitimacy). They were not trying to save paper.  What you are reading is that the child's father is important, not the mother. That the child was considered the FATHER'S PROPERTY, not the mothers.  (And so a child born illegitimate was NO ONE'S PROPERTY!) But that's not what I mean. I mean I went to the original record and there was so a surname for the mother, but someone indexing skipped it because they couldn't figure it out or didn't know what column to look at.  

5) I've also noticed some entries in which someone indexing assumed that a profession listed was the person's name or middle name.

6) And due to ignorance of Hungarian names, I've located several where, because the person originally handwriting the document stopped to dip into the ink well with their quill, and they didn't connect two parts of a surname, the indexer only listed the first part. (So you would search for the first syllable!)

Yes LDS does have a link to report errors, but...

In coming posts, I'm going to give you some RESEARCH STRATEGIES TO USE that may help you get past these errors while using BAPTISMALS!  Hopefully, this will help you move forwards (or is that backwards?) a bit.  

Some of these strategies have worked for me.

Christine

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Please credit me when using this information. It's hard won for me and good karma for you!
This post was slightly edited on July 6, 2019 and July 13th, 2019 and July 29th. *** A project of indexing CIVIL REGISTRATIONS in BUDAPEST is underway.

GERANIUM LEAF