Some ANCESTRY.COM DATABASES NEW and UPDATED FOR HUNGARIAN and GERMAN-ROMANIAN GENEALOGY

ANCESTRY.COM has SIBIU, ROMANIA MILITARY CONSCRIPTION 1689-1807 as well as SIBIU, TAX LISTS for periods beginning in 1701-1724  and 1787-1878  now, and has updated HUNGARIAN CIVIL REGISTRATION 1895-1978 as well as HAMBURG GERMANY PASSENGER LISTS.

I ran all the surnames in my own genealogy family, as well as some that I've researched for others into these databases to see what, if anything new would come up.

SIBIU is also known as SEBES.  There were at least a dozen German villages in what is now Romania (or Rumania) and in these villages people kept to their German customs, such as cooking, home building, clothing, and language.  Some of them came in the 1600's from German - in wagon trains (Yes, really!).  However, as there were also Hungarians and other ethnicities in the country, many of them were multilingual and eventually, as they identified themselves as Hungarians, there were marriages between ethnicities.  This is one of the ways that so many Hungarians married with Germans, before they ever came to the United States, but also the basis for the mythology that all Hungarians ARE Germans.   I noted that individuals  on the SIBIU DATABASES were coming up from Brasov, Muhlbach, Lebang, and Kerz (Cirta), so keep checking as I believe that the database intends to cover more than one settlement.

One of my ancestors had a Hungarianized German surname and is marked as coming from Sebes into Abauj on other documents.  However I did check the surnames and variations in the databases as is and nothing came up.  (Remember with Ancestry you can use the first three letters and an * to bring up names with various endings.)

For those of you who have an ancestor who came to the United States on a ship from the German Port of Hamburg, you may be aware that there is a passenger list upon docking (in New York, Castle Garden, or Ellis Island, but there were many other ports of entry.)  You may also be aware that lists were made before the ship left port.  Thus, if you have them on the passenger list when they got to the United States (or Canada, or wherever) and it says they left from Hamburg, you may want that document also.  Now you might think, What's the point?  Well, if the handwriting is much better on the German documents than the others you have tried to make out with magnifiers, you'll be rewarded.  

Also, for those of you who had ancestors leaving the German ports, be aware that some people got off the ship in Southhampton, England and decided to be tourists for a few days or weeks, and then boarded another ship to New York or other American ports.  It was about 2-3 days from the German port to the ports of Great Britain, and then about another week to the U.S.  If your ancestor felt they needed some time on land before they crossed the Atlantic, then it's possible they will ALSO APPEAR on manifests originating in that country.

As for the Hungarian Civil Registration, this database seems to me to be very minimal, as I've tried to find how many counties it includes and so far I'd say there are many missing.  But you never know until you try...


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ANCESTRY.COM HUNGARIAN RECORDS THAT ARE USELESS IF YOU'RE CHRISTIAN

I took the time to check ANCESTRY.COM for Hungarian records to see if some of the most common surnames in Hungary would come up... When they did not and I saw that Ancestry.com was crediting Jewishgen as the source, I realized what was happening here. 

I tried HUNGARY ALL CITIZEN CENSUS  1869.   WHAT AN TOTALLY MISLEADING TITLE!  Source JewishGen?!  It's clear that this TITLE SHOULD BE CHANGED TO "JEWS OUR JEWISH VOLUNTEERS DECIDED TO INDEX."

I also tried HUNGARY ASSORTED CENSUS RECORDS 1781-1850

AGAIN THE COMMON HUNGARIAN SURNAMES DID NOT COME UP.

I hate when a database is called "Assorted." THIS SHOULD BE RETITLED TO "JEWS ON THE CENSUS RECORDS THAT OUR JEWISH VOLUNTEERS DECIDED TO TRANSPOSE."

You may not think of it as I do, but basically these FALSE and MISLEADING TITLES are like BAIT and SWITCH.

Why does JewishGen think that if they are going to turn over all their records to Ancestry.com that they should continue to run their own web site and plead constantly for more volunteers and more donations?

You can always use FAMILYSEARCH on the INTERNET FOR FREE.

SOME NEW ANCESTRY DATABASES MAY BE USEFUL TO HUNGARIAN and HUNGARIAN AMERICAN GENEOLOGY RESEARCHERS

HUNGARY CIVIL REGISTRATIONS 1895-1978  (Indexes)

ROMANIA VITAL RECORDS FOR SELECTED REGIONS  1595-1914  (In German)

These are two of the newer offerings by the popular ANCESTRY genealogy databases that may be helpful to some of you.  I tried both of them and didn't find anything for my own particular family history project/genealogy.  The trouble is that there is little to nothing for certain Hungarian Counties.

As a note, there are many JEWISH GEN contributions to the ANCESTRY DATABASES.  Sadly, I was witness years ago to some of the data collection going on by volunteers working for JEWISHGEN at one of the LDS Family History Centers.  They were scrolling microfilm and making judgments on who was or wasn't Jewish.   One of these volunteers admitted to me that he had not realized that Christians/Catholics also used some Biblical given names (first names) and had submitted these people as Jewish.  It goes to show you, that you MUST go to the original source material and decide for yourself.

Additionally, there may be USEFUL NOTATIONS that are not recorded by indexing projects, just ignored, or because there is no one to translate the notes properly.

You may want to also look for FUNERAL NOTICES, though these appeared where there were actual newspapers and may have only been for those who paid for the notice.