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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.
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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.
