GREGORIAN CHANT FROM HUNGARY

Medieval Christmas Melodies from Manuscripts of the 15th century. Schola Hungarica Ensemble; Janka Szendrei, László Dobszay, leaders - So beautiful and relaxing.

MERRY CHRISTMAS

 

HUNGARIAN RHAPSODY PLAYED ON A CIMBALON BY ERZSI GODOR

EXCERPT:

The contemporary "concert" Hungarian version of the cimbalom was created by the aforementioned master Vencel József Schund in the 1870s in Budapest. The body of this instrument, which has a range of four octaves, has the shape of a trapezoid with sides of 140 and 95 centimetres long, on which strings are stretched. The whole is set on feet measuring about 70 centimetres. The instrument produces a distinctive and loud sound, which is produced by hitting metal strings with wooden sticks. The original, smaller and mobile version of the cimbalom from the sixteenth century, known as the kiscimbalom, is still used in the Balkans, Switzerland, Romania, Belarus and the western part of Hungary. This instrument is made almost entirely of pine wood, with a small addition of maple. In contrast to the concert version of Schunda, these cimbaloms are limited in use by professional musicians and usually do not have any metal stiffeners, which results in susceptibility to body deformation.

KURIER - HISTORY OF TRADITIONAL HUNGARIAN INSTRUMENTS

REVISITING THE UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH'S NATIONALITY ROOMS PROGRAM : HUNGARIAN ROOM

NATIONALITY ROOMS at PITT : UNIVERSITY OF PITTBURGH 

There are many rooms to visit featuring ethnic identities from those nations that were important to immigration to the Steel City.

Excerpt: The Hungarian Room features folk art designs and colors, especially so in the ceiling panels painted by a Budapest artist and sent to Pittsburgh in the 1930's. Repeated tulip patterns abound there and in the furniture's woodcarvings.

The windows show a timeline of Hungarian national birth, from legendary foundations to the seven tribes, all the way to 19th century artistic flowering of Hungarian voices in poetry, painting and music.

CLEVELAND HUNGARIAN MUSEUM

https://clevelandhungarianmuseum.org/ 

I just updated the link on the sidebar where you will find a great many links of Hungarian-American interest.  Run by the Cleveland Hungarian Heritage Society, they have come out of Covid-19 and are moving forward. 

Excerpt: We are pleased to announce that we have been awarded two grants by the Hungarian Government through the Bethlen Gábor Fund Management, in support of our efforts to share with the greater community our Hungarian culture and history and the Hungarian immigrant story of Northeast, Ohio.

SLEDDING

 

YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL - HUNGARY IS BEAUTIFUL PLAYED ON THE TARAGATO by SANDOR KECSKES

HOW DO YOU CELEBRATE A HUNGARIAN-AMERICAN CHRISTMAS?

Do you continue or include Hungarian traditions into your Christmas time celebrations?

Leave me a comment!

GIFTING

 

HUNGARIAN NATIONAL MUSEUM : LET'S LOOK AT CURRENT EXHIBITS : A COUNTRY FOR WOMEN VIRTUAL TOUR : WONDERFUL PLACES IN HUNGARY #21

HUNGARIAN NATIONAL MUSEUM - A COUNTRY FOR WOMEN

Excerpt:  However, from an archaeological point of view it is exactly women's graves which are more spectacular, richer and more colourful than those of men.  These women - including saints, queens, women and daughters of noble families, women brought in bondage or whose marriage sealed an alliance, and of course mothers intriguing for their children's prosperity - also played a significant role in the transformation of Europe. 

BEST BLOOMS IN A BASKET

In Hungary the chrysanthemum, which in the U.S. we say "mum", is closely associated with funerals and death, perhaps because it can bloom into the harvest season.
 

PUMPKIN PIE

THANKSGIVING may be the most popular American Holiday because anyone - any religion - can celibate it.  The tradition of eating Turkey - an All American bird - is strong but now there are so many people who are vegetarian or vegan - and so many people who have not adjusted culturally to eating the turkey.  I thought I'd feature a favorite desert - the pumpkin pie.  Pumpkin is extremely nutritious and the canned puree is available all year in American groceries.

That dollop of whipped creme cannot be avoided.  Give me three dollops!

HUNGARIAN MEDIEVAL DANCE : KINGDOM OF HUNGARY

THANKSGIVING IS A GOOD TIME TO INTERVIEW RELATIVES - BRING ALONG A HUNGARIAN DESSERT

The turkey or ham out of the oven. The sit down dinner accomplished.  Stomachs full.  A wait for dessert.  Coffee and tea. 

When everyone is settled, this might be the time to engage in conversation and to record interviews with relatives.  Ask them about their lives and also what they remember of their parents, grandparents, and and ancestors.

Ask people to bring along photos that can be scanned or photographed and uploaded and shared.

Be sensitive to people's sense of privacy. Not everything is for putting up on social networking, in databases, or on the Internet.  So ask individuals what they feel comfortable with and be sure they understand the possible implications of that sort of exposure. Consider the entire family including those who are not at the gathering.

I personally never put anything like that up for sharing.  It stays within the family.

Perhaps a few days before is the perfect time to get the children involved in making some Hungarian recipes for the dessert.  Here is a link to a site that has 26 Traditional Hungarian Desserts - poppyseeds, walnuts, almonds, sugar, apples... stacks, crepes, cakes.... bread pudding, dumplings, pancakes.

INSANELY GOOD RECIPES - HUNGARIAN DESSERTS include

Rakott Teszta - Baked Noodle Dessert.

Kakaos Csiga - Hungarian Chocolate Rolls.

Piskotatekercs - Basic Sponge Cake

And my favorite, which I grew up with, Kolachy Cookies, although mom called them Vienna Tarts...  cream cheese filling... we used apricot jam and strawberry jam. In a tin in the cold closet they took on an even better flavor three days old, if we could stand to hold off that long on eating them.

GATHERING

 

HUNGARIAN FOLK SINGING CIRCLE : YOU CAN SING FROM ANYWHERE ON VIRTUAL CLUB MEETINGS : Népdalkör

What an interesting idea!  You link first to them to get the other details and can sing with others around the world.

FACEBOOK : HUNGARIAN FOLK SINGING CIRCLE

THE GENETIC LEGACY OF THE HUNYADI FAMILY : KING MATTHIAS and the SEARCH FOR HIS GENETIC ORIGINS THROUGH HIS DESCENDANTS

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9678726/  THe NATIONAL LIBRARY OF MEDICINE is with the UNITES STATES OF AMERICA GOVERNMENT...

Excerpt:  The Hunyadi family is one of the most influential families in the history of Central Europe in the 14th - 16th centuries.  The family's prestige was established by Johannes Hunyadi, a Turk-beater who rose to the position of governor of the Kingdom of Hungary.  His second son, Matthias Hunyadi, because the elected ruler of the Kingdom of Hungary in 1458.  The Hunyadi family had unknown origin. Moreover, Matthias failed to found a dynasty because of lacking a legitimate heir and his illegitimate son Johannes Corvinus was unable to obtain the crown.  His grandson, Christophorus Corvinus, died in childhood, thus the direct male line of the family ended.

****

This scientific article explores the DNA of the Corvinus (Crow) family heritage.  Matthew the Crow or of the Crow clan, as I see it, is linked with the Hunyadi family.

HEREND MANUFACTORY : SEE THE MUSEUM - TAKE A TOUR OR A CLASS! HEREND HUNGARY : WONDERFUL PLACES IN HUNGARY #20

Perhaps you would like to own some chess pieces or a religious statue or perhaps the latest figurines of tortoise or tigers.  Perhaps you would simply like to eat off fine porcelain plates or pour tea from a porcelain tea pot or put your flowers in a special vase. Well, it will set you back a few hundred to many thousands of dollars. You can purchase in Canada or in the United States and other locations. But if you happen to be in Hungary...

Herend is the finest porcelain in Hungary and has been around for quite some time since 1826.

HEREND VISIT INFORMATION HEREND HUNGARY

According to a German website the Herend Manufactory is the largest of its kind in the world and everything is down in century old traditional ways, each and every phase by expert skilled crafts persons.

While sometimes someone sells on e-bay, these are collector's items.

I found this video that is simply wonderful.  It features deaf sign language and even a scene in which a Hungarian deaf signer is translating!  And scenes of the artists finally painting the porcelain.

JOEL BARISH : VIDEOS : HEREND TOUR Joel has traveled the world and is the founder of Deaf Nation. 

Click on the label Wonderful-Hungary to get to the entire series on this theme.

ANCIENT MAGYAR DEER

 

ANCIENT HUN MUSIC by KARAKURT

I always wonder about videos that come under the Ancient Magyar theme as I believe most of the music is a revisioning, a romanticism of the past.  I like the sounds of this one though, and maybe YOU know more about the origins of this song?

Leave me a comment if you do?

FLOWERS IN THE SNOW : TRADITIONAL HUNGARIAN EMBRODERIE

From Tribal tent design to using gold and silver as thread...

Not marriageable until you could prove you knew how to make lace? 

Learn about regional designs .

ISRAEL : I TOO AM HORRIFIED AT THE ATTACKS ON CIVILIANS

A few days ago a planned invasion of Israel, focused on Jewish civilians began - though citizens of other religions and ethnicity have and will be injured or die. I've listened to hundreds of YouTube video reports.  These range from standard news carriers such as Reuters, PBS, BBC, CNN, ABC, and NBC - to stations in Australia and France.  I've listened to "Christian" stations that suspect that what is happening is Biblical prophecy and that this is part of progression to the End Times. Protests by college students who favor the terrorists. Numerous paper - Internet journalistic reports, have also reported on the devastation and the murder of civilians including children and babies, as well as the capture of hostages and the rape of women. 

And meanwhile the war on Ukraine by Russian continues.

We have economic problems in the United States, we had 9/11, we have terrorist attacks but the mass murderers seem to be mostly the work of mentally ill persons who have access to weaponry including children. The United States has superior intelligence and when we go to sleep at night, assuming we will wake in the morning to the status quo, we do so forgetting that our military is watching over us.

Why is peace so difficult to achieve?

So much evil!

HUNGARIAN FOLK MUSIC ANTHOLOGY SERIES

ANTHOLOGY OF HUNGARIAN FOLK MUSIC I. / MAGYAR NEPZENEI ANTOLOGIA I - TANCZENE ( 3. LP/A)

Loved this album.  You can hear the real, untrained voices of the Hungarian men, women, and the children.  I love listening to Hungarian music while I work on this blog or do my personal Hungarian - American / Amerikai Magyarok genealogy research.

YouTube poster Karmol Torma has the whole series on her channel.

GOOD WINE STARTS HERE

 

MISSING CHURCH RECORDS ? WOOPS! DID YOU READ THAT RIGHT? OR IS IT AN INDEXING ERROR? : GENEALOGY PRO TIP #4

IS THE CHURCH RECORD MISSING or IS INDEXING THE PROBLEM?

Reading the records correctly may also help you turn up the missing ancestor, the ancestor you cannot find on the church records.  By records I mean the source material that was long ago filmed at an archive, put onto microfilm, and then digitalized and put into a database.

So here is where I'm going to complain about the indexing that appears on FamilySearch, which is the best database to use in the United States if you're doing Hungarian research. You really do have to go page by page looking for marriages and deaths. I can tell you that I rarely, if ever, can count on the indexing. If it brings something I was searching for up, easy, one - two - three, that's great. But I actually spend as much time as I used to spinning microfilm in viewing machines going page by page on the records on the computer. I think the microfilm spinning was easier on my eyes and my body.

For those of you who are beginning to research, you can use those church Baptismal records to build family groups, finding the children that were born of a couple until there seems to be no more. Then say the first child was born in 1820.  You can use that date and look for marriages 1820 and back. Since people died younger, there were often quick remarriages and half siblings and step-siblings.

The advantage to the microfilm having been digitalized is that the" viewer" gadget allows us to change the brightness and contrast to bring out the best of the page.  Also I can sit at home or even go to the beach area with a modem and work remotely without traveling. I can also print out at a library terminal remotely and go in and get my copies, though, I don't always get the quality of the printing I would like. Yes, that can make it easier for me since I'm now a bit of a commute from my best Family History Library run by the Latter Day Saints, who own FamilySearch.  An advantage is that I don't have to pay for a film and wait for it, nor hurry into the library to use it before it has to be returned. The fees were reasonable back in the day.  However, you can't order ANY films in anymore, and that's not good. My understanding is that the cabinets are still full of microfilms that were planted there at some Family History Libraries, but it seems that when I check for a location it always says the Salt Lake location, which is a massive library, but one I'd have to travel to.

All those advantages given, there are just so many errors. Dropping endings of surnames creates a database full of abbreviated names.  For instance there is a surname Hornyak.  I'm finding Horyanszke and Horanszke's who are listed as Hornyaks...

The indexers were not knowledgeable of Hungarian names, as if they were, then some of the bad handwriting could have been transcribed closer to the spelling of the Hungarian names. 

I know that surnames spelling through history was not as stable as it seems to be right now. I'm aware that some names have one t or two, and so on.  Even if your search the surnames within the National Archives of Hungary site, Hungaricana, you may find these variations. 

Sometimes you're going to see suffixes that vary as well, depending on how close to the Polish border or how Slovak the area.  You could say these are Slavic variations of Hungarian names and I know that in Slovakia they say some of these people were Slovaks from the start and not Hungarian. Or the priest who wrote the church record was.records of a marriage, baptism, or death was not Hungarian and wrote names his way. You might see some words in Latin, some in Hungarian. Still, there are hundreds of Hungarian surnames that there is reference for, but the indexers did not know it or research it.

Perhaps your ancestor was indexed and the problem was that the indexer did not get it that the person was a twin or triplet and thinks that the two or three names belong to one person when two or three babies were baptized. 

When I see two or more given names I look for the word gemelli, Latin for twins. Hungarian for twins is ikrek.  

I also look to see how many godparents are listed for a person. If there are two names and two sets of godparents, you're probably looking at twins. (The godparents will almost always be one male person and one female person, though not always a married couple. 

Marriages can have two to four men as witnesses, again these may or may not be relatives. In some places you might see the same men showing up as witnesses time and time again. There are three scenarios as to why. One is that they actually were asked or are related or know the people who married. The second is that there were some people who sort of hung out at the church who were always available to witness. This may sound ridiculous until you remember that people died young and children were left orphaned so it's possible that by the time they married they had no parents or siblings left to show up. The third is that the witnesses are important people, such as employers, often the landowner the groom works for, or the local nobility. The witnesses are there for more than religious reasons.  (With marriage and birth come possible inheritance rights.)

If the baby was given four or more names at baptism, it's likely they are of a high noble family.  Is it mentioned that they are noble or that their godparents are?

There may have been a custom of giving a baby a certain number of names at at baptism depending on their status.  (King Charles III was baptized with twelve, I believe, and when he married Diana Spencer, she was to say four of them at her wedding to Charles but flubbed the order of his names.)

So...

Two names, one set of godparents, no mention that this is twins, a lower noble.

Sometimes the only reason we can tell that there were two babies born and not one was the death record or notation on one of them.

(Though it is possible that some Hungarian people had started giving their babies more than one name, a more German custom, I'm not swayed.)

Then there are marriage records. Again, if the bride and/or groom was born to a Baronial family, they may have more than two testimonials otherwise thought of as witnesses or sponsors to their marriage, and the chances are good at least one if not all these people are also listed as nobles.

Remember that these records were just like legal records at the time. This is why illegitimacy was so remarked upon, because the child was born with no support, no rights to inheritance. Keeping a genealogy helped determine where titles and property were to go when someone died and our ancestors died way younger than us.  (I recently found a death notation of a woman who was 113 years old, which is truly the oldest I've encountered and put her birth into the 1600's! That said, here we are calling 60, an age most our ancestors never lived to be, "The New 40.")

Barons usually owned castles though the term castle is often applied to not a fortress with a moat or defense features but a house or estate bigger than most of the families around had.

Spuria is an archaic term for illegitimate.

But you may notice that not in every case where the word Spuria appears is the Father Unknown.  His name may be written right there and the word Spuria. So that means he came forward as the father for the baptism but the couple is not married.  (A good sign. Perhaps he intends to marry the mother or has pledged his financial support.)

In Hungarian Father Unknown is written apja ismeretlen.

If the mother died in childbirth, it might say mother died - anya meghalt.

What happened when a woman gave birth to a baby too young to have lived? A miscarriage?  If the child was baptized, often by a midwife, upon delivery, and named, it appears in the church record. You might see a notation of that, the midwife named.  Baptism by someone who is not clergy is still done today and valid.

Why would a woman have an illegitimate child in a culture and religion that is very much against it? After all, there is no Welfare.

Well, women were raped then too.  Women and men had affairs. Sometimes the couple loved each other and wanted to be together but there was no parental approval, because of class differences or because there was no money.  Any story that could happen today could've happen then. 

I ENCOURAGE YOU !

A way to check if a badly spelled name in an index can be coaxed forth into a Hungarian name that makes sense is to:

Keep reading the records until you find a more clearly written area and see if the name comes up again clearly written and spelled.  

(Blessings to those who cared so much to be neat and beautiful in their writing that it almost appears to be calligraphy! Let them inspire us to also be neat and beautiful in our writing and printing as we keep our records.)

Run the name through the database spelled that way and see if there are more coming up like that.  

Try running the spelling you think is right on the general internet which on Google has correction and suggestion features. Chances are some families alive today have the surname.  If none comes up, something is wrong with the spelling.

Some websites mention the surnames that appeared in phone books back in the day, so you might see if the name appeared in a Hungarian phone book.

Remember that the letter that looks like a small f substitutes in for a small s.

Also the letter V and the letter W are interchangeable. 

The letter that looks like a Capital Y, is probably a Capital T.

Andrassy may look like Andraffy.

Palffy, however is correct as Palffy.

Yovenko is likely Tovenko.

Ke may actually be Szke.

ai endings may eventually turn into ey: Szendrai - Szendray  Szendrey.

It is true that many a noble Hungarian has a surname that links to the family stead, a location. However the House or Family Clan may have a variety of surnames within in as well, that do not sound like the name of a location.  Over the decades the family probably fanned out.   As a man of Hungarian noble heritage told me last year, his family went long distances for marriages, even to Italy.

Remember that we are not all looking to link to nobility for reasons of our own status. Nobility was abolished mid 1800s in Hungary and upon American citizenship Hungarians of noble heritage gave it all up.  Hungarian-Americans seek noble status while researching their genealogy because we're genealogy fanatics who can't stop researching and the link to nobility sometimes leads to records that allow us go way back - even into the 12th century!

C 2023 Magyar-American BlogSpot  All Rights Reserved including Internet and International Rights.

To bring up all posts in this series click on the tag/label 

Pro Genealogy Tip : Missing ? Church Records

ANGELIC

 

CHURCH RECORDS : USING CLASS AND STATUS ON CHURCH RECORDS TO GO BACK IN TIME : GENEALOGY PRO TIP #3

C 2023 Magyar-American BlogSpot  All Rights Reserved including Internet and International Rights.

To bring up all posts in this series click on the tag/label Pro Genealogy Tip : Missing ? Church Records

The following information appeared in a slightly different form in a previous post which appeared as an addition to my series on using the Urbarium of 1767.  The original post appeared in September 2022.  That series should come up if you click on the lable/tag Pro tips: 1767 Hungaricana Urbarium

This series on Church Records is intended to help you bridge the generations and make connections as the trail of church records seems to leave you not knowing how to proceed in your research, perhaps because the records you want are "missing."

I mentioned that sometimes you will find in birth, marriage, and other church records the profession or "status" of the person listed. On church records, particularly before 1849, you will see notations about the person's status, not just their profession, but their class status.

On the Marie Theresa census, first is listed is the owner of the estate, then the Colony, then Inquilis and then Subinqulis.  I want to expand upon that.

I mentioned that sometimes in Latin or Hungarian (and sometimes in Slovak or German) the mention of Free People or People Free To Go.  These people are usually mentioned in COLONY.  I said that people in the COLONY list are sometimes called "Perpetual People" and that meant that they came with the land, or they were "always there." 

Some of these people did indeed seem to "always" live there, but some of the Free To Go or COLONY people were what is called Castle Warriors or the nobility of the lowest nobility, or sometimes nobility of the highest but for whom there is no more land or money to go around after generations have inherited land. Theoretically a castle was established and the ancestors of these people lived within it or near it.

These great noble families may have split land, sold land, lost land, or been disenfranchised due to the slaughter by the Turks or in war with them over hundreds of years. Now on small plots of land sufficient to feed their family and sell some on the side, they may also be listed in the 1828 land census. However, they are still nobles and recognized and honored as such. 

Let's say you are dealing with COMMON surnames. However you see on church records that someone with a common surname is listed as COLONY. If you see people of the same surname on the census in the COLONY you probably have a match. Colony people owned their land, so the may be matched with the names on the 1828 Land Census. Now, if the person with the common surname is listed as a subinquilis, a person sub-renting the land to farm on, thus close to the serf-landlord relationship with that surname, we can't link them with the family with that same surname in the Colony.

WE CAN LOOK AT CHURCH RECORDS and DETERMINE WHICH PERSON or FAMILY with a COMMON SURNAME is the one that we should accept as an ancestor, when their status matches up, provided that it also works on a timeline. Developing family groups to see if the timeline also works is a good check as well. (For instance, will the couple's marriage date and the births of other children allow for the history you've proven with documents unfold?)

The profession of the man itself does not determine if they are or are not a noble.  I've seen records in which a person was listed as a noble and also that they work as a weaver or tailor. 

However in some cases professions can provide another match, such as when the father and son are listed as both being in the same profession, say one the Master Craftsman in the vineyard business and the other is in an Apprenticeship in the vineyard business. (The term Master Craftsman isn't always specific and can include someone who has a large business as well as someone who toils in it. Even some of those in agriculture - farmers - will be listed as such.)

It's not a guaranteed match, for things did happen back in the day that were not usual.  It's always possible that someone who was a servant for the landlord inherited land from him.  It's possible that the beautiful maiden of a subinquilis married the landlord. (Or that the unmarried pregnant woman, who became pregnant by the Lord of the Manner, married another man.)  However, class structure was what it was, arranged marriages between people of very different status was not usual.

Arranged marriages continued the idea that one should marry in their own class. In farming communities who married who might be a community decision. Additionally, some landlords did act as though they owned every lesser man's woman, and might want to be with a virgin before she could meet up with her new husband on his wedding night. Such conditions were akin to what happened in American slavery, not all the time, but sometimes. I wish I could say that religion prevented this but I doubt it did. Sexism, as we see it, prevailed. 

Back in that day people were born into the circumstances that would effect, if not dictate, their entire lives. To have Choice is what Freedom as all about. Declaring freedom is not the same as actually having it. 

Noting class and status on records is important and may be just the thing that helps you connect correctly to the right ancestors.

C 2022 - 2023  Magyar American BlogSpot  All Rights Reserved Including Internet and International Rights

Quick note November 2nd 2023:  It is possible for a person who is COLONY to rent land to their own child or relative. That person might be elevated to COLONY upon inheritance. The rent might have been needed or seen as a way of teaching a child responsibility.

ASCENT

 

CHURCH RECORDS : DID THEY WALK OR CARRIAGE RIDE TO A DIFFERENT CHURCH? DIOCESE RECORDS: PRO GENEALOGY TIP #2

MISSING CHURCH RECORDS ?  

In the previous post of this series I mentioned that perhaps the reason there are gaps in one church's records is that the church did not exist or was closed for a time and during that time the usual parishioners went to a church in a neighboring area, usually within the same diocese. 

As well, Great Grandma might have been remarking on the Diocese she was married in, rather than the exact place where she was born or where she lived, or where she left, and it turns out there are so many churches to consider.

Research the history of the church. When did it open?  Was it closed for a period?  Was the church destroyed? Is it a working parish today?  What Diocese is it in today?  Can that Diocese tell you about the history of the church?  Do they have duplicate records or other records that would help, records that no one got permission to film?

Pragmatically, the people might have erected a small chapel rather than walk or ride every Sunday.  If they were without a horse or carriage, they might not have gone at all.   But information on them may still appear in a church or diocese record even though they didn't make the trip for a service.

This is where finding MAPS of the area about the time these ancestors seem to have gone missing on existing records, preferably at a time when they lived there, may be helpful.  

Try to find a map that was used at the time your ancestors were living there, preferably one that shows rivers, mountains, roads and railroads.  Let's see if they could walk or take a horse and carriage ride to the next inhabited place (less than five miles away). Then go into a database such as FamilySearch and see if that place brings up any church records. Some places only have Protestant Records, some also have Jewish records, so we know there were enough Protestant or Jewish people living there to have their own church or temple. Jewish people going to another place to worship and bury their dead was not at all unusual in the Old World but being able to walk there was important because Saturday was truly meant to be a day of rest.

While searching the Internet may bring up some good maps to use, we should not forget about a major source of information, and that is the National Archives of Hungary!  We go to Hungarica and then to Databases, and then to Mapire. 

Here is the link! MAPS ARCANUM

If you're researching for Hungarians in what is now Slovakia, you may find that the records are kept under present day Slovak place names, or within Slovakia itself.

Same for Romania.  Those "Saxon" towns, where people kept Germanic customs, including recipes, clothing styles, and architecture Germanic.  Romania is also where a great number of Hungarian noble families originated or lived.

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To bring up all posts in this series click on the tag/label Pro Genealogy Tip : Missing ? Church Records

GIRL IN RED SCARF

 

RELAXING BUT HAUNTING : THE ABBEY SCRIPTORIUM : SOUNDS FROM AN ABBEY

Thought this was unique among relaxation music videos...

CHURCH RECORDS : MISSING CHURCH RECORDS? ARE THEY REALLY? : PRO GENEALOGY TIP #1

WELCOME TO MAGYAR - AMERICAN BlogSpot and my offerings of Pro Genealogy Tips. You will find many topics on Hungarian and Hungarian-American genealogy here. Look in Pages for more information. In order to pull up an entire series on a Google Blogger such as this one, simply click on the label/tag for the series.

THIS SERIES IS INTENDED TO HELP YOU MAKE IT THROUGH CHURCH RECORDS, which are primarily held in the United States through the FamilySearch database, which is free to use via the Church of Jesus Christ -Latter Day Saints, also known as LDS.  However, no database has everything and using the National Archives of Hungary is also a good idea.  Plus there are regional archives.  It's an ever expanding site. You may also want to write to the existing parish or church where you believe your ancestors lived for more information.

NATIONAL ARCHIVES OF HUNGARY START PAGE

Let's say you're looking in a large database that has Hungarian/Slovakian records. You found your immigrant ancestor's native village on a steamship record, or their naturalization papers, or maybe on a World War I draft document. Or maybe someone just told you the name of the place they left. You search for a the records for that place that you have reason to believe is where your ancestor was born or got married. And you find them right there on those records on the very date you know.  Success!

How I remember that day years ago when I found my first Hungarian ancestor's baptism, right where it should have been!

So, you start going back in time with those very church records. You make your family groups - children of the same parents, the parent's marriage.

However, you hit into what we call "the brick wall."  Can't get through it or see over it and you start thinking of your way around it.  After spending hours - days - months trying to figure out a way around it, you admit to yourself you're stuck and frustrated. You may go over the microfilmed/digital images book page by page hoping you missed something and even think that maybe the pages are out of order. Hey, It's happened!

Be sure that you check the film to be sure that the filming isn't the problem. Perhaps it was some space saving measure, but I've seen later dates mixed in with earlier dates on some microfilms and when digitalized that error remains. So be sure that what it says on in text description and what it says on the microfilm agree when it comes to what was on a "reel."

Some Church Records are truly missing books or pages. Who knows what happened? It could have been soldiers set the records on fire, or rodents chewed them, or someone spilled their wine on those very pages! We all know that some of those old, lovely books were entirely destroyed by time, by weather, by historical circumstances.

Perhaps some books or missing pages will show up again someday, somewhere. 

You're stalled out because you don't find the ancestors that "should' be there at some point. And then you notice that the records are not available for the period you need to see. They cut off just about the time that a couple you're focusing on likely got married. 

Maybe years ago some person was filming in an archive somewhere and missed those pages?

Oh it said so right on the information about the records, that there was a gap, but until now, you didn't quite pay attention to it. 

In general 1711 is about when churches were committed to write records in books.  (Prior to that records were kept in noble family archives, if at all, though in general the larger the city, the bigger the church - a cathedral - the better chance someone was keeping records earlier. Those records may still be with the Diocese.

I want to share that with you that it may not be hopeless at all.

Sometimes a church did not exist in a small village, not yet, so you can't expect there to have been records.  Maybe only a chapel existed, or a grotto, and a traveling priest came there to hold services or do baptisms.

Or a church did exist in the village but it was Protestant rather than Catholic, requiring those who were Catholic to travel to a church. (You might have to realize your ancestors changed religions! More than once. I just found a record in which there were a couple marriages in which both parties were listed as Ref (Reform Protestant) so I wonder at the circumstances that they married in a Roman Catholic church.  Maybe they eloped!)

And you may see something that I have, a cholera or other epidemic hits, and people remarry quickly. Now they are pragmatic.  And they start intermarrying - Catholics and Protestants.  As has been the case traditionally, when it comes to marrying two people of different faiths in the Catholic church, a conversion is not usually needed, but marrying in the Catholic partner's church and raising the children Catholic is.

So far the only "Conversion" lists I found were in a Reform church book. Just consider that you should go ahead and look in the other religion's church records when you're stuck.

But another realization was the inspiration for this series.

Perhaps the church that existed got closed for a while it was refurbished or reconstructed.  So, during that period, the parishioners would have to use another church, usually in the Diocese, or a neighboring village that was not too far to travel to for services and therefore what you are looking for is simply in the records of that other church.  

I've seen that if I go over to the next village's church, during the "missing records period" the people are over at the other church with notations that they come from the other place!  You will see how the priest writes in that they live elsewhere.

I see that the further back I go for a certain church, the more I see people from other villages using it, so they went to this church because they did not have a church where they lived.

I wish there were a database of church openings and closings ...  But you may have some luck by researching the HISTORY of the church or the Diocese, or contact the present Diocese archives for more information!

Also consider that Lutheran (Evangelical), Hungarian Reform (Calvinist), Greek Catholic (more common in Slovak and Carpatho-Rus/ Rusyn families), Jewish and other records were or are held in special archives for that religion. Also a Roman Catholic Diocese may have duplicate records that were hand copied from the originals.

To bring up the series on this subject click on the tag/label Pro Genealogy Tip : Missing ? Church Records

C 2023 Magyar-American BlogSpot

November 29, 2023  a slight edit for clarity.

MEN IN LINEN

 

MORE HUNGARIAN MUMMIES REVEALED : EXHIBIT IN BEKESCSABA : HUNGARIAN MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY : NUN WITH MISSING FINGER

HUNGARY TODAY : NUN WITH MISSING FINGER - MUMMY EXHIBIT 

Excerpt:  Visitors to the exhibition in Bekescsaba can see ten mummies in the exhibition hall, including Teresa Sandor, aged around 4o, whose coffin had no name, but it was known that she was buried in 1783 in a nun's habit.

Two of Teresa's fingers were found wrapped around her left leg.  Tests revealed that her fingers had not been cut off in a robbery (the coffin was intact), nor had they been amputated due to illness (X-rays showed no infectious complications or lesions suggestive of healing). It was probably mutilated for unknown reasons after death before the body was placed in the coffin.

LINK TO THE MUSEUM EXHIBIT NHMUS - Natural History Museum

SAINT STEPHEN'S DAY - NATIONAL HOLIDAY IN HUNGARY

Celebrated quite like our Fourth of July, with fireworks, parades, and sports.

FASCINATION

 

COOKIES THAT INCLUDE OATS - NO VANILLA OR FLAVORING? NO PROBLEM! : FOOD BANK RECIPE WITH SUGAR SUBSTITUTES TOO!

When you're on a budget, or just plain broke, you may not be able to buy spices or food flavorings or the basic vanilla that is used in most recipes for cookies and baked goods.  

However, you can nicely flavor a basic healthy cookie by using the zest and juice of an orange or lemon. You can use very little sugar in a recipe and depend on raisins - or other dried  fruits to add the sweet. Looking over standard recipes for most cookies, there really is a whole lot of sugar being used - too much.  

Maybe you picked up free sugar packets when you had coffee out?  *** At the bottom of this recipe there is yet another way to substitute for sugar.

Food Banks give out a lot of oatmeal. Oatmeal as cereal is healthy for you because oats are supposed to lower cholesterol. The oatmeal comes in bags,  boxes, and as instant cereals. It's rather bland by itself.

These cookies are closer to a "health bar" than the usual cookie and have a lower guilt factor if you eat a few at a time!  They also provide fiber to your diet.

Oven temperature 375 degrees. Time to bake depends on how large you scoop the cookie.  A cookie lump using about a fourth cup of batter takes 20 to 30 minutes. Baking sheets do not need to be buttered or oiled but the bottoms of these cookies will be browned so lightly greasing them won't hurt. Since ovens have variations just watch the first batch you make and take notes.  These cookies will not spread out, so you can fit a lot of them on one sheet. The baked cookie is not hard, but dry, but for the sweet fruit.  The crunch comes from the nuts. You may not notice the oatmeal at all!

****

Wet Bowl Ingredients:

One egg.

1/3 cup liquid oil.  (soybean or vegetable OK)

1/2 cup water (plus more set aside to be added gradually, as needed.)

1/3 cup sugar - brown best - or less.***

The juice of one lemon. Or the juice of one half orange. Before squeezing make zest from outer skin of the lemon or orange and add to this mixture. I use the whole lemon peel or half orange peel.

Wisk these in a separate bowl gently to blend. 

Dry Bowl Ingredients:

1 1/2 cup wheat flour

3/4 cup dry oatmeal  (instant is fine)

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon baking powder (not soda)

Any dry spices you wish to add such as pumpkin, allspice, or cinnamon, instead of the lemon or orange juice and zest.  Use one teaspoon or less.

Stir around with a fork to blend these dry ingredients well.

Fruit and Nut Bowl

Half a cup of raisins, small cut figs, cranberries, or as you like.  

Three fourths cup of nuts such as peanuts, almonds, walnuts.  Coconut flakes can be used. 

****

NO OIL?

Substitute in 1/4 up peanut butter or 1/4 cup mashed banana (blackened best).

***

Turn the oven on to preheat.

Gently pour the wet mixture into the dry and, using a fork.  Add extra water bit by bit as needed. You want a thick mixture, not too gooey or runny. Once you are satisfied that there is no dry flour - oatmeal remaining, fold in the nuts and raisins. Scoop out on baking sheets...  Do this by hand.  It only takes a minute, if that.

 ***

With this basic recipe, whatever you got at the food bank will work, just vary it as you want.

Some suggestions include peanut butter and walnut with raisins, almonds with banana and raisins using lemon zest and juice, orange and raisin or orange and cranberry - whatever combo you come up with.

SUGAR SUBSTITUTES:

Now, if you are low on sugar you can also add one flavored packet of instant oatmeal. For instance the MAPLE flavoring usually also has a lot of sugar in the packet, enough to flavor the whole recipe. The APPLE flavored instant oatmeal may be nice with some cut up apples and you can use apple sauce instead of oil.

You may also use 1/4 cup of jam or jelly instead of sugar.  Wisk it in with the Wet ingredients.

Be creative!

I made a batch of these cookies for a picky friend who usually takes one of those store bought healthy bars with him on the road and he loved them.  Two or three of these with tea can be breakfast.

C 2023 Magyar- American - BlogSpot

HUNGARIA

 

THE KING OF THE GARDEN

 

THE ISEUM : A TEMPLE TO GODDESS ISIS - ARCHAEOLOGY - THE ROMANS IN HUNGARY : WONDERFUL PLACES IN HUNGARY #19

As so much of what is now Hungary was part of the Roman empire expansion, we find archaeology sites such as a Roman temple of Isis. But what's interesting about Isis is that she started out as an EGYPTIAN GODDESS, and eventually the Romans believed in her too. The temple is from the 2nd century AD.

After initial excavation in the 1950's one temple was significantly reconstructed.  There is also a museum. 

ISEUM DAVARIAMUSEUM HUNGARY Some people think this is the finest museum in Hungary.

After four years of excavation, a large complex of buildings was discovered. In more recent history there is a museum of historical religion. The Savaria Carnival is an event held usually in the summer in which tourists can get a feeling for what life must have been at the time when Roman's were living in the area and worshiping Isis. 

If you go to this website on Google, you'll be invited to translate it into English.  You'll find that there is a database featuring magazines of interest such as the Vasi Review - cultural studies.

STRAWBERRIES

 

LIPTO as a HUNGARIAN PLACE

This video presents postcards of Hungarian Lipto County, which is now Liptov, Slovakia, but still has a Hungarian majority. Beautiful mountains and interesting architecture!  Part of many a Hungarian-American's heritage. The poster, Sicambria, has some other videos up that are also interesting.

That said, for hundreds of years people of various ethnic backgrounds, Slovaks, Germans, and others, lived in this area, and many intermarried. Religious differences payed out too.  The Germans were mostly Catholics and many but not all were from Southern Germany. Some of the Slovaks were Greek Catholic, as were the Carpathian Rus (Also called Rusyns) and Ukrainians.

There are controversies over the nobility and who was or was not of original Hungarian ancestry or really Slovak or Czech.  

Lipto is an area where Bogamar, one of the sons of one of the original Magyar tribal chiefs, Hauk Palko, who came into Hungary, spawned. There are a number of surnames associated with nobility coming out of this area and those lineages. You can use Hungaricana databases for the Marie Theresa Urbariam and see.

Most Americans who are "2nd" or "3rd" generations since immigration here are mixed heritage.  I know someone who is 3rd generation on one side and 4th on the other who has claim to 16 different European ethnicities!  (What fun her genealogy searches could be!)

So I tend to think people are the ethnicity they feel themselves to be, that they feel they can relate to and feel comfortable with.  And of course, our surnames tell the world about one of our ethnicities and it is from our surnames that other people assume what our ethnic identity is.

C 2023 Magyar American BlogSpot

PUMPKIN PASTA SAUCE : UP THE NUTRITION ! : FOOD BANK RECIPE

American food banks get and give away a lot of pasta, in particular the typical "spagetti" also called Number 8.  Now this is a lot of carbs for the food value and you can get fat on carbs and still be starving for vitamins and minerals even though pasta does have wheat protein. The best way to add value to any pasta is the vegetables and herbs and spices that go with. Pumpkin adds lots of nutrition value to your meal.

When I was growing up we called spagetti "noodles," a term that seems to only be used now when the pasta is in a soup. Now the trendy term for noodles is pasta, and there is so much fun to be had with different sizes and shapes, all of which can be used for this recipe. I always break my spagetti Number 8 into thirds which makes it easier to eat, although you might have a fork swirling technique that loads the long cooked strands.

The reason you get cans of pumpkin puree in Food Bank bags is that most people only think of pumpkin for the autumn season and to bake pies for Thanksgiving. So stores and people donate the cans. It''s spring and summer time and you can make use of that pumpkin. 

Cook pasta and drain it.  Set aside.

Skillet pan on medium heat and add:

One or two tablespoons of oil; olive oil is best.  If you don't have that you can use butter, lard, or coconut; 

One large garlic clove chopped small.

Let the garlic cook for about a minute.

Should you open the can of pumpkin and find it has settled and it is watery be sure to drain the water with a sieve first.  You want the texture to coat the pasta. Add the pumpkin puree to the skillet.

Also add about one third cup of grated parmesan cheese.

And a couple tablespoons of warm milk or cream. (Room temperature is fine.  You just don't want refrigerator cold.)  Full fat coconut milk is a good substitute and used with coconut oil will give a somewhat flowery taste.

Slowly stir together all the ingredients for about 3-5 minutes. If you notice that the paste forming appears to be too thick you can add a tablespoon of the water from the pasta, which has some starch in it.

Then gently scoop the cooked pasta in and stir to coat it with the pumpkin sauce.

A sprinkle of more parmesan on top is nice.

Makes about four servings but I won't blame you it you eat it all yourself. This should nicely coat about 8 ounces of pasta which is about half a typical box.

You may also want to add onions or celery, chopped small so that it will cook enough in a minute or two. A little salt, a little pepper... 

Pumpkin is noteworthy for having over 200% of your daily Vitamin A. Over 30 % of Vitamin K. and over 25% of your copper.

C 2023 Magyar- American BlogSpot