THE FIREPLACE

 

MEDIEVAL CHRISTMAS MUSIC - HUNGARY (HOLY EVENING - SZENTESTE)

posted by Bigas Daddy... go to the video on YouTube to read about this classical music form and how it may be a like or different from Bohemian or German music.

Christmas Eve is called Holy Evening in Hungary.

A PRAYER

 

VENI VENI EMMANUEL : ZOLTAN KIDALY (O COME O COME EMMANUEL)

HUNGARY : A GOOD PLACE TO RETIRE? A BAD PLACE TO GO AS A TOURIST?

Are Hungarians burned out on tourists? Unsmiling pessimists? Not willing to work in tourism and letting immigrant workers deal with tourists?

Is Hungary a great place for an American ex-pat to retire on social security? I hear the buying power is three times as much as in America.

These interactions occurred in recent days.

I talked to a Hungarian "cousin" who spends six months of the year living in Budapest, where he owns an apartment. He says he is "at peace" there, which he is not in the United States. In the U.S. he lives in a major city.  He is educated, intellectual, and artistic, and after many years in the U.S. he is also based here - marriage, children, grandchildren.

"You should get your Hungarian citizenship," he said. (He means duel citizenship.)  He urged me to walk into the consulate with my genealogy and I said "But there's a language requirement and I won't pass."  He said no there is not.  I quiet and look it up later - there most certainly is.

How difficult it is to pass a Hungarian language exam in order to get Hungarian citizenship is controversial.  Online you can read every opinion and experience about it. Easy! Difficult. 

Soon after speaking with him on the phone - outside a library where, upon the call coming in, I rushed out with book I had not checked out and sounded off alarms, I came in and apologized for the mishap. I explained I'd been waiting on the call and soon a library clerk came over to me.

"I just came back from Budapest and we had a horrible time."

According to this person, she and her traveling party, four women, had tried to speak Hungarian and thought they had done fairly well. This was a longed for and saved for vacation. However, she said people were not even willing to give them directions to the bus and were, overall, not nice to them. Then she said, "And they are racist." Since this woman could pass for a Hungarian I asked her what she meant. "One of the women traveling with us is from India. I think they snubbed us because they thought she's a Rom...."

Hmmmmmmm.

Any experience or opinion YOU want to share?  Leave me a comment!

A STAR

 

REMAINS OF SAINT NICHOLAS? CHURCH OF SAINT NICHOLAS ARCHEOLOGICAL SITE

DAILY MAIL SCIENCE - TOMB OF SAINT NICHOLAS FOUND?  Go to the article to see some terrific photos

Excerpt: The second church was found after researchers conducted electronic surveys under St. Nichoas church, finding gaps between the floor and the ground.

Then, in 2022, the team announced they may have found the tomb, but were still working to remove the Byzantine church's flooring to not damage it.

Osman Eravsar, the head of the provincial cultural heritage preservation board in Antalya, told Demiroren News Agency that year: 'The first church was submerged with the rise of the Mediterranean Sea, and some centuries later, a new church was built above.

HUNGARIAN COOKING : POGÁCSA (WHO WILL GET THE BISCUIT WITH A COIN IN IT?)

FOOD PERESTROIKA : HUNGARIAN BISCUITS  Love this website.  Well written by site owner Florian, interesting, and good recipes.... you'll get hungry just reading this.

Excerpt: In many Hungarian folk tales, the hero takes with him a pogasca baked in embers before setting off on a long journey. On St. Luca's name day (December 13th), a coin is hidden in a batch of pogis, and the person who finds it is said to win good luck for the following year.

Excerpt: One of the first written mentions of the famous pagasca can be found in The Science of Cooking, written by the court of the Prince of Transylvania around 1580 and available in English (link here.)  Not surprisingly for medieval cuisine, many of these pagacsa recipes include rose water, almond, wine, jam, or honey. Several of these use grated honey kalach mixed with soaked pieces of bread roll instead of making dough from scratch with flour....

CHRISTMAS TRADITIONS IN HUNGARY : CHRISTMAS EVE (SZENT-ESTE) IS THE MOST IMPORTANT and ACTIVITY FILLED DAY

Because Hungary is officially a Christian country - though there Hungarians with a variety of beliefs and non-beliefs, Christmas turns out to be the most important holiday to celebrate. The emphasis is on religion.  And so, Christmas Eve is called Holy Evening.  The holiday is far less commercial than in the United States, and perhaps purchasing from the equivalent of a crafts fair or farmer's market is part of that. Doing so as a tourist or citizen helps keep the local economy and micro-businesses afloat.

For instance, a Christmas tree (a Germanic custom) is put up in the family home by the family on the Eve. Traditionally, the Christmas Tree was lit with candles. Candles, as well as sparklers (!) may be placed on the tree, something that most Americans would fear doing in case of fire.  If the children are small and not participating, the tree can be a surprise to see. They may be told that the angels brought the tree. They will get their gifts that evening and will be told that they were brought by Jesus, or Jezuska (little Jesus). If they did not participate in decorating the tree and it's meant to be a surprise, they may be told to wait until their parents ring a little bell to announce the time to enter the room, glowing tree and presents awaiting. The presents are wrapped to make the discovery of what's inside more exciting.

Candles are also used to decorate around the house, but are not lit until Midnight (the first moments of Christmas Day) and this moment is called Silent Night.

All day during Christmas Eve the household is bustling with activities. Christmas carols may be sung. Food may be prepared.

A favorite desert is called beigli, which is called a nut roll.  The beigli can be filled with walnuts, almonds, chestnuts, pistachio - or poppy seeds, which are seeds and not nuts. Fish soup or stuffed cabbage rolls are popular choices for meals. Pork, however, is not eaten in the lead-up to Christmas, advent, so it is not until Christmas Ever that it can be used as a filling for the stuffed cabbages.

On Christmas Eve the last candle of the four used in an Advent wreath is lit.  Four candles, for four Sundays are used in the wreath. The first symbolizes faith, the second hope, the third joy, and the last one is for love. The first three candles are purple, the final one pink, in Catholic homes. Usually the candles are arranged in a circle among some pine branches.

SAINT NICK'S DAY - HITCHHIKING SANTA CLAUS!

Just love the idea that his horses or raindeers went on strike!

 

GYPSY SONGS MY MOTHER TAUGHT ME : GABOR BOLDOCZKI

GIVE THANKS

 image from powderkegwebdesign.com

ZOLTAN KASZAS STAND UP COMEDY

 I enjoy the YouTube videos by DryBar Comedy....  search for DryBar and Zoltan Kaszas.

ZOLTAN COMEDY  Funny!

Zoltan Kaszas is a Hungarian-American comedian and actor. He was born in Budapest in 1987 and moved to the United States in 1991. 

LUCIOUS

 

MEATLESS HIGH PROTEIN LENTIL STEW : FOOD BANK RECIPE

MEATLESS LENTIL STEW

This is a hearty stew and you won't miss the meat.

4 cups dried brown lentils (rinse and look for little rocks that might need to be removed. In my entire life I've only found one rock!)

One quart chicken broth (or use four packets from chicken flavor ramen noodles to flavor a quart of water.)

Two bay leaves.  (Some people say leaves of bay don't add any flavor to soups and stews but others say these leaves add soul - something no one can quite define but that exists!)

In a pot, cook the lentils in the broth. 

I bring to a boil, put a lid on it, and then lower the heat to medium.  At about the twenty minute point, when the lentils are softened, I shut the gas off and allow the lentils to absorb any broth left. This happens in about ten minutes. They should be soft and easy to chew.

Olive oil for saute.

One can potatoes (which are already cooked), drained, or boil and cut up one medium potato.

One can carrots (which are already cooked), drained, or two fresh carrots sliced.

One can tomato sauce. (If herbed, you may not want to add more spices.)

One fresh onion diced; red especially good.

Two tablespoons oregano or marjoram dried herb.

Two tablespoons powdered paprika.

In a sauce pan, on medium heat, saute the onion, add the sliced carrots, then the cut up potato, then the spices. Add the tomato sauce last.  You want the onions and carrots and potato to be soft.  Stir around, add more olive oil as needed, add salt, about a half teaspoon, or as desired. Then add the lentils to the sauce pan and stir well. Continue to cook on low with a lid on over the pan for a few minutes.

If you use canned potato and carrots, the cook time in the sauce pan is less, but just use lower heat, because the tomato sauce will still need to thicken.

Part of the fun of this recipe is the differences in textures and colors.

*** Green and other colors of lentils will work but be sensitive to the cooking instructions on the package as they do have different cooking times.  Don't throw different colors of lentils in the same cook pot.

If you use the raman noodle chicken flavor packets, you can still boil up the dried raman and use it for another recipe.

COPPER POT

 

GENETEKA POLAND DATABASES - SEARCH FOR HUNGARIAN SURNAMES

 

Yes, there are sections of the Geneteka for Ukraine and Belarus, and it is a work in progress, but here we will link to the PODKARPAKIE province which hugs the present Slovak border - which used to be the Hungarian border.

GENETEKA POLAND DATABASE - PODKARPAKIE

Try running some names such as Szabo and Takacs... Matyas*  Balint ... Soltesz ...

UKRAINIAN GENEALOGY DATABASE PRA.IN.UA and THE STATE ARCHIVAL SERVICE OF UKRAINE

The top post was 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

**********************************************************************************

STATE ARCHIVAL SERVICE OF UKRAINE as of 2024

February 2024 : The United States State Department announced that it will provide aid to the Archival Service of Ukraine to ensure the protection and digitation of the documents of the National Archive Fond of Ukraine. International Alliance for the Protection of Heritage in Conflict Areas in cooperation.

March 2024 : A records searching on-line project to document the victims of repressions of the 1920s-1950's added to the Ukrainian Martyrology of the XX Century database.

Go to the site to see what's happening in this war-torn country with archival records and charity support of the effort to preserve them.

NOBLE ROT

 

THE AUSTRIAN-HUNGARIAN EMPIRE : GALICIA : CADASTRAL MAPS : HOUSE NUMBERS : GENEALOGY GEN-TIPS SERIES #7

PLACE NAME WORDS OF HUNGARIAN SETTLEMENTS - THE ROOTS WORDS  and OLD MAPS OF HUNGARY

My intention here is to help the English speaker and reader make sense of Hungarian place names so that they will feel more familiar. You will see some of these word "roots" all over the maps!

***

OLD MAPS ONLINE - HUNGARY  (Yes, yet another map resource.)

This is a list of root words.

HAZA - Home

HAZ - House

HELY - Place

FALU - Village

FALUSKA - Hamlet  (Suggests very few inhabitants, maybe around a bend or in a valley, smaller than a village)

KISVAROS - Small town

NAGYVAROS - Big town

VAROS - City or Town

UTCA - Street

***

PATAK - Creek (Smaller waterway than a stream)

FOLYAM - Stream

FOLYO - River

TO - Lake  (accent over o)

OCEAN - Ocean

***

SATOR - Tent  (Used to describe the look of a hill or mountain.)

PUSZTA - Villa or Big House (at least compared to the average house in the neighborhood.)

KASTELY - Castle  (Applied also to large houses.  Does not mean there is a fortress or moat.)

ISTALLO - Barn

TEMPLOM - Church

***

UJ - New

REJI - Old

***

MEGYE - County 

Note about names of colors for settlements, rivers, and so on... Sometimes places were named, not because they looked white or black or red or yellow, but because the color indicated a direction.  I realize this could be map-centric.  White would be north, Black would be south.  So for instance The Black Sea is South of where?

FEHER - White or Light Color

FEKETE - Black or Dark Color

PIROS - Red

SARGA - Yellow

****

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CAVE DIVING UNDER BUDAPEST : MOLNAR JANOS CAVE SYSTEM : WONDERFUL PLACES IN HUNGARY #27

SCUBADIVING COM : CAVE DIVING UNDER BUDAPEST

by Tobias Friedrich

This is a beautifully written article about the extensive cave system under the city which has tropical heat.... Technical advice for scuba diving is given.

MJ CAVE HUNGARY : THE STORY OF THE CAVE

Excerpt: The cave is a good example of modern phreatic hypogenic caves, since it has been formed by mixing corrosion below the water table.  Mixing corrosion occurs where flow systems of different orders (with different chemistry and temperature) meet via tectonic lines or through diffusion. Besides the tectonic control, the network maze of cave passages follows the south-southwestward dip of the Upper Eocene limestone and marl.   

The scientists regularly analyze water samples and map the pattern of water flow inside the cave.  Research of the species is an exciting field as well.  They found 3 species of them in the the cave, and there are two Amphipoda one Isopioda and one Neotaenioglossa species.

The Molnar Janos cave is a protected area since 1982.

from Wikispecies - Wikimedia

Click on the label Wonderful-Hungary to bring up all posts on this theme.

THE AUSTRIAN-HUNGARIAN EMPIRE : GALICIA : CADASTRAL MAPS : HOUSE NUMBERS : GENEALOGY GEN-TIPS SERIES #6

Austrian-Hungarian Empire

Österreichisch-Ungarische Monarchie in GERMAN

Osztrák–Magyar Monarchia in HUNGARIAN (Austro-Hungarian Monarchy)

Maps for the Austrian-Hungarian Empire, which includes Galicia, now Southern Poland, as well as today's Slovakia, part of today's Ukraine including Cadastral maps (or in America Plat maps) will be in GERMAN, LATIN, Hungarian, or other languages...

Just as today there are SLOVAK names for previously HUNGARIAN NAMED settlements, some settlements were renamed in GERMAN.

Here are some links to what is sometimes called Village Finders.

JEWISH GEN START PAGE  Seek the GAZETTEER

But let's return to the LIBRARY OF CONGRESS LIBRARY OF CONGRESS : MAPS and GAZETTEER ADVISEMENT AUSTRIAN HUNGARIAN EMPIRE

Excerpt: We are equally fortunate in possessing a comprehensive gazetteer to search for place names in the former Austria-Hungary, and that is Josef and Karl Kendler's 1905 work title ORTS-UND VERKEHRS-LEXIKON VON OESTERREICH-UNGARN.   .... To our benefit the Kendler gazetteer has been digitalized in its entirety for research VIA THE LIBRARY's WEBSITE .... A major drawback of the gazetteer, however, is its absence of geographic coordinates, which can be remedied by using the online Jewishgen Gazetteer or some other published gazetteer.  

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A PATHE AMSTERDAM FILM PRESERVED : SCENES FROM HUNGARY 1926 BETWEEN THE WORLD WARS : HONGARIJE

There are seven parts to this film...  Mezokovesd, dancing, marriage in Debrecen, horses in Hortobagy, Kosice, and scenes in the Carpathian Mountains.  Those are the mountains which include the recently mentioned Dukla Pass, so important to the wine trade - Galicia into Hungary.

THE AUSTRIAN-HUNGARIAN EMPIRE : GALICIA : CADASTRAL MAPS : HOUSE NUMBERS : GENEALOGY GEN-TIPS SERIES #5

Austrian-Hungarian Empire - Gen Tip # 5

While MAGYAR AMERICAN focuses on Hungarian culture and society, we can learn a lot from research in Poland, Slovakia, and other parts of what was the Austrian-Hungarian Empire.

Hungary and Poland have history together - both good and bad. Rakoczi's armys destroyed towns in southern Poland, for instance. 

I mentioned before, here at MAGYAR-AMERICAN BlogSpot about finding some Hungarian surnames in church records for Galicia - Poland, and a notation in a marriage record in a Roman Catholic church that the bride came from Hungary. That was a small town involved in the wine business. I suspect this would be more true in records for cities, such as Krakow.

I think you'll find that people with means would travel far for marriages. They were also more likely to marry in the more impressive churches and cathedrals. And if you "know" that a certain noble ancestor lived in a place but their marriages and other records seem to be missing consider the larger church or cathedral not too far away.

Although it was an extremely small sample, I recently ran the names of the known nobility who owned a particular area of Galicia just a few miles from the then-Hungarian border in the GENETEKA databases and none of their names came up. So what was happening? First, some of the churches, while incredibly beautiful and ornate inside, didn't seat too many people. So if you were having many guests to your religious ceremony, you needed more space. But then, you probably needed more space for the festivities as well, and somewhere for guests who traveled to stay for a few days. Also, you might have a private chapel or church on your own property and having services there would protect you and your guests from the villagers intent on witnessing the goings-on and invading your privacy. However, this also means that they kept private records of their births and marriages if those names are also not coming up as recorded in any of the dozens of church books now transcribed for the Geneteka databases. Today I would think that such records would make their way to the diocese archive but back in the day? Common people were keeping records of births and marriages and deaths handwritten in their Bible...

In January 2022 I did a series called  Pro Genealogy Tips - Galicia which you can reference.

GENETEKA English

You  might want to run some Hungarian surnames in the databases of other European countries as well.

Some of the noble families donated their private records to The National Archives in Hungary.

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THE AUSTRIAN-HUNGARIAN EMPIRE : GALICIA : CADASTRAL MAPS : HOUSE NUMBERS : GENEALOGY GEN-TIPS SERIES #4

 MORE MAP RESOURCES     Austrian-Hungarian Empire - Gen Tip # 4

When AUSTRIA ruled Hungary and the southern part of now-Poland, called Galicia, the two countries were subject to modernization notions coming out of Vienna.  Because of Austrian rule, census took place, maps were made, educational standards were raised (though that was easier said than done), and military service as well as taxes were demanded.  

As previously mentioned, today's house numbers and the numbers on old maps from a hundred or more years ago - and mentioned on church records - are unlikely to coordinate. What's key is to find a map that shows properties on or about the time the ancestors lived in the town. We previously looked at an excellent resource called HUNGARICANA. 

But there are other resources for maps.

One of the best is ARCANUM which used to be called MAPIRE. These are historical maps of Europe. The site has four categories. Maps of Europe.  City maps. Country maps.  And Cadastral maps.

Under Cadastral we link to ARCANUM MAPS : HAPSBURG EMPIRE

As I mentioned in my first post, which was a bit of a history lesson,  Galicia - Southern Poland, parts of what is now Ukraine, and what is now Slovakia - as well as some other geographical possessions of the Austrian-Hungarian Empire (aka Hapsburg Empire) fall into one category.  So maps at this site include from the HUNGARIAN, CROATION, BUDAPEST, AUSTRIAN, and UKRAINIAN archives. (To find them we may research possible German names for the same settlement.)

But, you may be surprised to learn that our very own LIBRARY OF CONGRESS HAS A WONDERFUL ADVISEMENT AND COLLECTION.  You can go right there at this link:

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS : AUSTRIA HUNGARY CARTOGRAPHIC RESOURCES EASTERN EUROPE

Excerpt: As Empires go, that of Austria Hungary was among the briefest, having lasted only form 1867 to 1918, nevertheless, its constituent nations served as major sources of emigration to the Unite States in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

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THE TAROGATO : A HUNGARIAN WIND INSTRUMENT

   

The film was made with the support of the 

Hungarikum Committee and the Ministry of Agriculture.

MAGYAR POSTAGE STAMPS = FESZTY ARPAD

THE AUSTRIAN-HUNGARIAN EMPIRE : GALICIA : CADASTRAL MAPS : HOUSE NUMBERS : GENEALOGY GEN-TIPS SERIES #3

Austrian-Hungarian Empire - Gen Tip # 3

Térkép is the Hungarian word for map. Térképek is the Hungarian word for maps. Vármegye is the Hungarian word for county. Some of the maps will use LATIN and some will use GERMAN.

A real find is when the register of a Cadastral Map that was made with the map still exists. The  register equates the numbers on the map, the numbers on the map, with the names of the property owners!  

This is especially helpful because basically the current day numbering system for buildings cannot be counted on to reflect the place a person lived or the land they owned back in the day. (I know you wanted to use Google maps to see where they lived using that information but...)

In villages and towns, even those with streets that were named and still have the same name today, the numbering system is not the same. For instance, today, if you want an address in a town in America, you will find that the even numbers are on one side of the street and the odd numbers on the other. Houses actually have house numbers on them and that's your official address for mail and packages and probably is the address on your driver's license or ID. Streets and roads are easy to identify with so much signage. That's not how house and buildings were numbered, if at all, in villages and small towns where everybody knew everybody and a stranger could easily get instructions on where to find someone. A local would show where to go by pointing, walking you there, or telling you to follow a curve in the road until you came to a big tree.

Houses in old Europe were often given numbers in the order they were built.  I've heard it said that the lower the number the older the building.  I've also heard it said that the numbers went up the further from the church. There are many churches that were built near an especially scenic or otherwise good location, such as near a running stream. Usually a settlement came first, and then, if there were enough people to attend a church, a church. (Find out when the church was built and if your ancestors lived in a village before it was build, their church records are likely at another village.) 

House numbers on births, marriages, and death records can help you identify family members - even generational members. The house (or farm or estate) number is where the event happened. (That means that if the birth was at the house of the midwife rather than at home the number might not be the family home,  but usually midwives came to the house of the birthing mother.) Most valuable are the numbers that appear on marriage records since they reflect where the bride and the groom were living at the time of the marriage, though the ritual happened in the church. You may be able to see if they started their married life in with parents and which household, and perhaps how long they lived there through the births of children, until they found a place of their own. Tradition in Hungarian culture was that the bride went to live with her husband's family.

One last thing.  The "house number" may actually not be the number of a HOUSE but of a PROPERTY that has many dwellings on it, such as a communal farmstead. This may account for a number of surnames at that number, including the boy and girl "nextdoor" who marry.  It may also represent the property being split among descendants.

So let's take a look at HUNGARICANA DATABASES LINK TO MAPS

HUNGARICANA MAPS LINKS  There are many maps of the capital, Budapest, but an array of towns.  Don't stop looking if the place you want is not on this list. Instead run a search for the name of the town (which will probably be included in the county.)

Here are cadastral maps of Livazeny - really terrific!  See the names of the land owners and then the land they owned. HUNGARICANA - LIVAZENY

Some maps are not of the "town" but of the agricultural land and may include plans for moving water or what crops or trees are planted.  Some of these maps include the names of the owners of that land.

Here is a map that is in LATIN and shows where the vineyards and orchards are:

MAPS HUNGARICANA MEGYE - GONC RUSKA

Delineatio praedii Klastrom I (nclito) Comit(tat) ui Abaujvari  (Latin) 

I ran a search for LIPTO County and all these came up! HUNGARICANA MAPS LIPTO  notice that when you click on the map it brings up the modern map/location.

In the next post we'll look at another MAP RESOURCE!

C 2023 Magyar-American Blog

All posts in this series have the tab Austrian-Hungarian Empire - Gen Tips

To bring up all posts in the series click on the label below!

BLUE and WHITE

 

THE AUSTRIAN-HUNGARIAN EMPIRE : CADASTRAL MAPS : HOUSE NUMBERS : GENEALOGY GEN-TIPS SERIES #2

Austrian-Hungarian Empire - Gen Tip # 2

The historical time we are focusing on and is valuable to Hungarian researchers is when Galicia was a territory that was once owned by the Austrian Crown, and then the Austrian-Hungarian Empire. As a territory under the rule of  the Austrian Crown and then the Austrian-Hungarian empire, Galicia came into being in 1772, in what was called the 'first partition' (of Poland).There are many opinions about the region during those times. I've listened to academics and rabbis who present their teachings about Galicia on YouTube videos, and well, everyone has their opinion but the man who says it never existed is wrong. It did and there are maps to prove it.

That said, for most of you who are tracing ancestors who were in Hungary, present day Hungarian, Slovakian, Austrian, perhaps Croation, archives will be most important.

SHEPHERDS and SHOEMAKERS on GALICIA - CADASTRAL MAPS 

Galicia is the focus of the website Shepherds and Shoemakers, a family history and genealogy site that I respect. It's informative and useful for genealogy.  The site came up again when I was searching for information on CADASTRAL MAPS. 

In the United States these maps are called Plat Maps. There are sketches, charts, and sometimes plans for the future on these maps.  (For instance, I found one in the U.S. that showed the plans for streets, including the street names, that had not been yet paved - which go back to the late 1950's. A land owner and developer used these for many purposes, beyond designing his dream suburb with the names of his wife and children for street names. They were probably used to get the development past city planning officials and as part of a proposal for financing at the bank.)

Cadastral maps can be of value to your family history and genealogy project. Land surveys were done and the map illustrated the boundaries of properties, the real estate. The maps defined legal rights and responsibility regarding property ownership and use. This all tied in with the things one could not avoid.  To quote my mom, "death and taxes."  

You may be able to tie them in with census, wills, and other documents.

Undertaking the survey and making of the maps was an effort to better understand the towns and villages that it now controlled. The maps helped the government better understand the villages and towns, land ownership, and the value of each settlement that was mapped. 

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THE AUSTRIAN-HUNGARIAN EMPIRE : GALICIA : CADASTRAL MAPS : HOUSE NUMBERS : GENEALOGY GEN-TIPS SERIES #1

GENEALOGY PRO-TIPS SERIES  Hello Genealogy Friends.  This is the start of an expansive series on the Austrian-Hungarian Empire and the use of maps....  Stick with me!  There's a lot to learn together.  As with all my other Hungarian Genealogy Tips, the series name is put on each tab so you can pull it all up.

INTRODUCTION TO THIS SERIES Austrian-Hungarian Empire - Gen Tip #1

This icon, from Graphics Fairy, is being used to designate posts for this series.

A WORD ABOUT THE HISTORY OF GALICIA, CADASTRAL MAPS, and HUNGARY.

You say, "What? I thought Magyar-American BlogSpot was all about Hungarian and Hungarian-Americans! Why are we talking about Galicia? Wasn't that in Poland?  

Well... I always advise that a genealogist research the history of the locations that they find their ancestors and use historical records hand in hand with genealogy records. A good part of Poland was part of the Austrian-Hungarian Empire.

The historical time we are focusing on and that is valuable to Hungarian researchers is when Galicia was a territory that was once owned by the Austrian Crown, and then the Austrian-Hungarian Empire. 

Austrian-Hungarian Empire

Österreichisch-Ungarische Monarchie in GERMAN

Osztrák–Magyar Monarchia in HUNGARIAN means Austrian-Hungarian Monarchy

Here's some historical background:

As a territory under the rule of  the Austrian Crown and then the Austrian-Hungarian empire, Galicia came into being in 1772, in what was called the 'first partition' (of Poland). 

GALICIA was a vast expanse, which is now south-central and south - in what is now Podkarpakie (Subcarpathia) Poland, a tiny bit of what is now Slovakia but was Hungary, and a portion of what is now western Ukraine. (It's not to be confused with the Galicia of Spain though that comes up when you use databases.) The name Galicia is supposed to have come from the word Galizien which was Halychyna in Ukrainian and Halicz in Poland. 

Galicia was already an ethnically diverse area with a Polish and Carpatho-Rusyn (Ruthenian) Slavic settlers, who were mostly Roman Catholic or "Greek" Catholic. (The Greek Catholics were not ethnically Greek but were originally converted to Christianity by Christian missionaries from Greece.) However, though mostly Catholic, there were Protestants such as Lutheran Germans.

As time went on, Galicia was a good place to settle for Jews, and the Jews who came in included some Sephardic roots Jews, who had left after being exited from Spain and Portugal, as well as the Ashkenazi 'German' Jews and Russian Jews. Over time, there came to be a became significant Jewish population, mostly merchants. 

There were other immigrations of ethnic Germans into what was Hungary, but now this wave of immigration brought them in from Austria. We find the presence of Germanic surnames in Catholic records and Germans marrying Poles. These Austrian-Germans were often also nobles, administrators, and those in a higher status than the traditionally agricultural "peasants' or the men and women who earned their living through making shoes or other useful items that took skill, craft, and artistry. 

We also find Hungarian surnames in Galicia and Polish names in Hungary.

l find that the nobility was intermarrying with nobility of other ethnicities for some time - going the distance to make a good marriage - so today there is some confusion or controversy over who was a Slovak, Polish, Ruthenian, Lithuanian, or Hungarian noble. (And some nobles were also at least partly Italian, Czech, or another ethnicity.) 

One thing you should consider is that a surname might have been changed to be more Polish, more Hungarian, more German - especially note the endings: ski, sky, skyi, szke...

Through time, there were very many incursions, raids, battles and wars fought in Galicia and for it before the Nazi's. This included the Mongols and the Tatars - who took men, women, and children into slavery and marched them into the Ottoman Empire of Turkey. It also included the Swedes, and - contrary to the thought that Poland and Hungary were "always friends"  Ferenc Rakoczi II, Prince of Transylvania, and his army also came into the Podkarpakie area, devastating towns. There were also the Russians coming into Galicia, who are now in war to take Ukraine, as Russia thinks of Ukraine as a historical part of Russia.

On old maps of GALICIA you see the Carpathian mountain range is to the south, running through what is today SLOVAKIA, but was then HUNGARY. The main trade route is from southern "trade route" towns such as Dukla, Poland, through the Dukla Pass around Cergowa, Poland, and into Hungary. Once the whole region was especially significant in the wine business with travel through the Pass into the Hungarian grape growing and wine making region. Some of the Galician market towns had wine cellars for the storage of wine brought up from Hungarian wine country. There was significant trade between Hungary and Galicia of other items as well. This meant that people who identified as Hungarian and people who identified as Polish or another ethnicity were meeting up.

So valuable was this road  through the mountains called the Dukla Pass, because it was the pass with the lowest elevation, the easiest to travel, that many thousands died in World War II trying to control it. As the intention to murder the Jews in Poland became clear, many fled Galicia and came into Hungary. As well, the Carpatho-Rusyn (Ruthenians) were also forced to move by the occupying Germans to other areas than their traditional homeland, dispersing them throughout Poland. Since their homeland included places in Hungary (now Slovakia) some fled there - moving south - rather than be moved around Poland.

Regarding World War II, the Nazi's won. They used the Dukla Pass route to invade Hungary, as one of two major routes into the country. Stories were that one day the people were in the fields and markets and the next they were - gone.

It's a difficult history.

Continue on with this series ....  

All posts in this series have the tab Austrian-Hungarian Empire - Gen Tips

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HUNGARIAN STATE OPERA HOUSE in BUDAPEST

Hungarian State Opera House in Budapest, Hungary

Illustration by Dörre Tivadar

SAINT TERESA OF AVILA BODY STILL INCORRUPT : DEAD SINCE 1582

DAILY MAIL SCIENCE: SAINT THERESA OF AVILA BODY INCORRUPT by Niki Main Science Reporter  - Good photos but no you won't see the body in this article.

Science will be applied to determine how it is that the saint's body is so well preserved and also how to keep it that way...

Excerpt:

The Diocese has taken stringent measures to protect the saint's remains, including requiring a total of 10 keys to access her coffin.

Three of the keys are held by the Duke of Alba, another three are possessed by the city of Alba de Tormes and the Discalced Carmelite Father General in Rome has an additional three.

The 10th key - known as the King's key - is also needed to access St Teresa's remains, with three needed to open the outer gate, three to open the tomb and four to open the coffin.

GLORIA : SONATA FOR TRUMPET AND BASSO CONTINUO IN D MAJOR " ALLEGRO

THE AUSTRIAN-HUNGARIAN EMPIRE : GALICIA : CADASTRAL MAPS : HOUSE NUMBERS : GENEALOGY GEN-TIPS SERIES : NEW GENEALOGY SERIES STARTING SEPTEMBER 17th!

THE AUSTRIAN-HUNGARIAN EMPIRE : GALICIA : CADASTRAL MAPS : HOUSE NUMBERS : GENEALOGY GEN-TIPS SERIES

I hope those readers who come to MAGYAR AMERICAN BLOGSPOT for some help with their genealogy will find this series helpful!

Maps were made to define land boundaries and property ownership, often for purposes of taxation, but also inheritance, and to understand where responsibilities began and ended. This can include "zoning" and the proper use of land. Some maps that were made on paper include colored representations of farm land and crops, building, streets and roads, rivers and streams and lakes, mountains and flatlands...

In the previous centuries in which people lived in an agriculturally driven world, and sometimes "off the land," villages sometimes conspired to keep land in the hands of local families where everyone understand who was who and who owned - or rented - what.  Sometimes, in order to do this, marriages were arranged....

Bookmark this site and come back next week to follow the series!

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CANNED FRUIT COCKTAIL - OATMEAL SWEET BISCUITS : FOOD BANK RECIPES

 CANNED FRUIT COCKTAIL - OATMEAL SWEET BISCUITS

Slightly Sweet and Pretty Too

Cupcake pans best.  No need to use papers.

The difference between a cupcake and a biscuit is the ratio of wet ingredients, particularly water, to dry ingredients. 

Wet Ingredients:

1 can fruit cocktail (usually mixed fruit that includes peaches, pears, grapes) including liquid.

1 large egg or two small.

Water : about a quarter to half a cup but watch the batter, add water slowly while mixing only if needed. Depending on the brand of fruit cocktail, you may not need to add more water at all. ***

1/4 cup liquid vegetable oil such as soy. (If you do not have oil on hand, plain yogurt can work.)

1/4 teaspoon vanilla or vanilla substitute (Optional. If you use oatmeal cereal packets, the sugar and flavoring spices will change the flavor and you will not need vanilla or to add sugar.)

3 restaurant sugar packets (or about 1 level teaspoon of sugar). The fruit cocktail liquid in the can is likely all the sugar you will need to sweeten the biscuit so this sugar is optional.

Dry Ingredients:

3 cups white flour

2 cups oatmeal (quick cook the best)

1 full teaspoon baking powder

Optional:

Dry almonds. If your almonds seem too hard to easily chew, consider soaking them in clean warm water for ten minutes to soften them up. Walnuts are also good.

Instructions:

Use a few drops of vegetable oil to grease inside the cupcake tins.

Turn the oven on 425 degrees to preheat and plan to work quickly.

In separate bowls, hand mix the dry ingredients and then hand mix the wet ingredients, just enough for the wet to appear like a slurry.

Dump the dry ingredients into the wet and stir the mixture around just enough so it's blended; look at it and add water a little at a time only if it appears that there is excess dry ingredients in the bowl. ***

Stir in almonds.

Spoon mixture into the cupcake tins using a large spoon, careful to make each about the same size so they bake evenly. Makes about 12 to 18 biscuits.

Check the biscuits at about 15 minutes. Touch the top of a biscuit for firmness. It should give just a little and, after cooling, will be firm when done. Do not pierce with a fork like you would a cake. My old oven takes about 20 minutes.

Let the biscuits cool a bit in the cupcake tins before using a large spoon to scoop them out.

The fruit cocktail will allow a delicious and still wet fruit flavor to come through. Good for a desert or a take along breakfast or snack.

C 2024 Magyar American BlogSpot

Click the label Food Bank Recipes to get to other recipes posted.

READY TO PICK

 

HUNGARIAN CANADIAN CULTURAL ASSOCIATION : CALGARY - ALBERTA

Lots of Canadians with Hungarian ancestry.  This club is in Calgary. (There's also a club in Toronto, which I posted about before.  You can bring up posts by clicking on the tag Canada!) 

HUNGARIAN HERITAGE IN CANADA : CALGARY ALBERTA CLUB  Go to this site and you may use it to find a club in another province.

SAINT STEPHEN's DAY - HOLIDAY IN HUNGARY

 

DFW HUNGARIAN SOCIAL CLUB - FORT WORTH TEXAS : SEPTEMBER FESTIVAL UPCOMING!

FACEBOOK DFW MAGYARS 

September 28th festival in planning..... Say hello to your fellows in Texas!

If you're interested in locating a Hungarian /Hungarian-American club in your area click on the tap Hungarian American Clubs.

REST

 

FOLKWORKS : THIS ARTICLE TELLS US THAT ROMANI PLAY TWO KINDS OF MUSIC - FOR OTHERS and FOR THEMSLEVES : JEWISH MUSICIANS AND GYPSY MUSICIANS

FOLKWORKS - TWO VOICES ONE SOUL ONE BODY : ROMANI MUSIC and JEWISH MUSIC  - an excellent article by Donald Cohen who is a book author focused on music of the Balkans.

Excerpt:

There are, in fact, two different kinds of Romani music: that which they create for themselves and that created for their non-Roma audiences. This was true almost everywhere, but even more prevalent in Eastern Europe, and nowhere was this more true than in Hungary.

In mid-nineteenth century Hungary the music so endearing to the hearts of native Hungarians was the urban music created and performed by ‘Gypsy’ orchestras. This music, lauded and imitated by the non-Roma audiences and musicians alike, was referred to as style Hungrois. To be found everywhere, in bars and cafes, and at celebrations such as weddings, christenings and birthdays, this music, which included the popular songs and art compositions of both Roma and non-Roma musicians, was wildly popular not only with the poorer and middle classes but it often had the patronage of the local aristocracy.

In the late eighteenth century, when Hungary was part of the Hapsburg Empire, Roma ensembles were employed to create and perform a new dance music called verbunkos; both the dance and the music that accompanied it were specifically designed to stimulate the patriotism of Hungarian youth, thus luring them to enlist in the Emperor’s armies. The verbunkos began as a slow and rhythmic dance, gradually increasing in speed and intensity to quick, stirring, tempos. It is this musical form that developed in the mid-nineteenth century into the wildly popular czardas of Hungary’s bars and cafes.

HUNGARIANS IN THE 2024 OLYMPICS

I've been watching the Olympics in the evenings quite a bit, but with limited coverage on swimming and gymnastics and running. Although I'm proud of the athletes from the United States, I always feel as if we have an unfair advantage.  Why?  Because other countries fit in a state, such as Hungary (in it's present borders) fits in Indiana, Poland in Colorado, and Ukraine in Texas.

GROUND NEWS : KATRINKA DEMANDS RESIGNATION OF HUNGARIAN SWIMMING FEDERATION

DAILY NEWS HUNGARY KRISTOF MALIK WINS GOLD

INTERNATIONAL OLYMPICS COMMITTEE HUNGARY PAGE

Just a little of the news...

HUNGARIAN GENEALOGY - GENEALOGY TIPS : YES I'M WORKING ON A NEW SERIES OF RESEARCH ADVISEMENTS FOR HUNGARIAN ANCESTRY

I know that some of you look to my Google Blogger, MAGYAR-AMERICAN for Pro genealogy research tips and have been wondering if I will have more for you. The answer is yes and I will probably have the series ready for you in September - October 2024...

Genealogy is one of the ways I began to "own" my Hungarian ancestry. My Hungarian ancestors were part of the great immigration to America during the Industrial Revolution and so have been in the United States since 1892ish... in some branches five generations now. And yes, we have mixed with people from other European ethnic heritages as most Americans do. However, I do feel that in the American genealogy world the emphasis is so much on American roots back to what is now Great Britain and that Hungary is a small nation (which currently would fit into the state of Indiana) is a rather neglected.

I developed excellent research skills and have a working knowledge of what is available. I'll be happy to share with you again, so if you come to Magyar-American BlogSpot for the genealogy please check back with me!

To find what has already been posted, click on the tags for various Pro Tips (or search for the word genealogy or Hungarian Genealogy)

As well, my sidebar has a great number of resources for you!

UPDATE : THE SERIES BEGINS SEPTEMBER 17th.