THE ENEMY AT THE GATE by ANDREW WHEATCROFT on THE SIEGE OF VIENNA IN 1683

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!

I have a confession to make. I didn't read this book cover to cover as I usually do before posting. But I can say that all the positive reviews are right. It really is riveting!  I just had one interruption after another as I tried to read it and I think this book takes some deep concentration to grasp the details of battles and all the various historical characters. But, just because this isn't the best time for me to read it, doesn't mean you can't. I think it's one for the shelf of anyone interested in the history of Hungary and thereabouts.

Author Wheatcroft assures us that both sides claimed victories and both war-craft and heroism are emphasized. It is rich with descriptions of the Ottoman's tent-cities, the taking of slaves - those from Royal Hungary were especially prized. This battle was a pivotal one because, after it, the Ottoman Turks were not able to further expand their empire into Europe. It was the first time that the Holy Roman Empire (Holy Roman Emperor Leopold I) and the Polish Lithuanian Commonweath, under the command of King John III Sobieski together went against the Ottoman Turks (Grand Vizier Merzifonlu Kara Mustafa Pasha)and their empire. To this day, when someone tells me that they consider the Poles and the Hungarians to be 'friends' I know that idea comes from their collaboration in war.

***

As you may have seen, some of the earliest heraldic crests that identify noble families have images of success against the Turks. The armies that went against the Turks were quite outnumbered. There was tremendous sacrifice of life.  It was a war for dominance, but not just for land, but also for religion. 

I am so weary of violence, destruction, war, on this planet. Maybe it's simply a fact of life on earth and will never end. Like plagues have, the loss of men who went to war dramatically allowed the marriage or remarriage between classes of people and inheritance.

C 2026 Magyar American BlogSpot  Book Recommendation  

All Rights Reserved including Internet and International Rights

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

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

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.

THE AUSTRIAN-HUNGARIAN EMPIRE : GALICIA : CADASTRAL MAPS : HOUSE NUMBERS

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

C 2024-2025  Magyar American BlogSpot - All Rights Reserved including Internet and International Rights

BUKOVINA SOCIETY OF AMERICA

BUKOVINA SOCIETY OF AMERICA 

Germans invited in to the land of the beech tress...

NOBILITY IN YOUR HUNGARIAN FAMILY? DOCUMENTS : GENEALOGY PRO TIP #4

NOBILITY IN YOUR HUNGARIAN FAMILY? DOCUMENTS : GENEALOGY PRO TIP #4

What are the first indications that your ancestors were considered to be noble, besides family rumors? 

A notation in a birth, marriage, or death record.

A story: This reminds me of someone I was related to through marriage. I offered to share my research on the line I shared with her spouse and children. I knew that they had been raised with no knowledge of that line because she and her family dominated, and they had been raised to think of themselves as all Italian. 

"Oh no!" she said, waving me off. "There's no need for you to do the research. My cousin did ours all the way back to Queen Antoinette!"

Did she mean Marie Antoinette of France? (Daughter of Marie Theresa?) The "Let them eat cake" Queen who had no children who lived long enough to mate?

Perhaps she meant a noble woman named Antoinette in Southern Italy? I sensed a genealogy confabulation and couldn't help myself. I had to start researching to find their link to any Queen even if she had no interest. 

I discovered their heritage was Sephardic Jewish in Salonika, Greece, and then into Italy with significant marriages between first cousins. The move wasn't recent, so they appeared in Catholic Church records. I never did find a Queen. There was an Italian noble woman whose estate was kind and accepting to Jewish people in the town that the ancestors left in Italy but that surname didn't show up in their lines. Perhaps a story of a kind noble woman who lived on a hill seeped into their family?

Moral of the story?

Don't fake your Genealogy. 

(It's said that 40 % of Italians have Jewish roots. Watching the genealogy series Finding Your Roots, the episode on fashion designer Diane Von Furstenberg's Jewish roots reminded me of this ex relative. DVF also has Salonika roots.)

So, Americans with Hungarian roots depend on the existing church records available for free at FamilySearch which are also part of the Slovak collection. Settlements appear under their Slovak names there. Although it says that Protestant and Jewish records are included, after many years I question that. The headings on columns tend to be in Latin and the handwriting language is in Latin and /or Hungarian. Or a mix - some German.

Due to a recent search for the baptism of someone who just is not coming up in Roman Catholic records I found a new resource based in Hungary. The web site is oskereso.hu and it is birth/Christening, marriage and death records collected by the Hungarian Evangelical Church, (Lutheran). I found the translation interesting. Progenitor Research. Motherly birth certificate? Scan for villages and it appears that where there's an Evangelical Church, there are records. Hidasnemeti, for instance.

I have only found notations that someone marrying a Roman Catholic was Greek Catholic or Jewish a few times in Roman Catholic records and the name appears only due to the intermarriage. Further, as I have, in microfilm days, read Jewish records and Greek Catholic records, they were separate congregations and records/ films. So maybe it's just that my research using the online database hasn't lead to even Protestant records. (Family search has a Reform Baptism Index which doesn't seem to work for me.)

However, it is true that until there were civil records, church records were where birth/ baptism, marriage and death records were kept, and I imagine everyone had to be affiliated with a congregation to be in records. Likely if you lived in the forest or way up on the mountain you might not get to church too often. 

One of my friends deep into her pre–Colonial American research tells me her grandmother's sister was born at home and no birth certificate meant difficulty in getting a driver's license. 

A noble with a private estate and entourage might not go into the village or mix with the commoners to be baptized or married or have a funeral. Unless he or she had built the church maybe. They had private chapels and visits from priests and church dignitaries. Therefore, ecclesiastical records or private estate papers in archives are needed. It's time to seek information through an archive or try Hungaricana.

Considering that nobility privilege was abolished 1848, you'll find that priests were still writing in "nemes", or "nobilis" or notes suggesting a parent is of this status after that. It does not mean they have wealth. But why then would the priest bother to write it in?

Before government funded social welfare systems, there was a strong emphasis on marriage and being ready financially to be married. Women were born into their job descriptions and prepared for the role of woman; bearing children, raising them, and being closer to home to perform household work. A woman might plant and tend a home garden and feed chickens and milk cows. Like Colonial American women, they did what we'd think of as difficult hard labor. They might participate in harvest as well. (There were women who tended farmer's market stands and peddled in towns.)

Men were in charge of supporting wives and children - the traditional work outside the home. In the 19th century the definition of a orphan was a fatherless child. It was understood a child needed a daddy.

A commoner man usually prepared to be a master craftsman or to continue in agriculture or travel for trade. While individuals, families, or communities might lend some support, such as women sharing childcare or all looking after village children, or a just married couple living in the same cottage on a farm, there was no government program to depend on. The facts of life were all around them. 

Religion and culture demanded that first came marriage to a man who could support a family, then children. Young men grew up knowing what was expected of them. A woman was taking a major risk in pregnancy without marriage. I have seen it time and time again in church records, the deaths of babies born to single mothers within months of birth. Yes, children died more quickly in general and women died in childbirth more frequently too - infection, childhood diseases - but all those little handwritten crosses on the birth records are telling. 

This is why the priest wrote in notes about the groom's professional or "condition" / finances and why godparents (and marriage witnesses) were also called "testifiers." This was a reaffirmation of support. However illegitimate children and their mothers were at a distinct disadvantage because people took care of their own first and honestly, some of these babies starved to death.

It's sometimes possible for you to discover that a woman who had a child without marriage then does marry. I always hope the father of her first child was the man she married. That it's a love story.

Why with so much understanding of the need for a husband fit for marriage and pressure to conform were women still having illegitimate children?

We can rarely know the circumstances for certain but rape by soldiers, travelers, and employers - including noble employers - and affairs with married men wasn't unheard of. Poor or unmarried women without family turned to living in as servants and some became prostitutes. People had affairs though it must have been difficult in small settlements to keep it secret. I've also seen "father in America" in notations. 

Let's say you see an illegitimate birth on a church record, the woman is a servant, and the godparents are nobility. Very likely the woman lived in their household. A noble woman may have had higher status than her common neighbors, but she wasn't ruling the roost.

It would be wrong of me not to mention the plight of some of our female ancestors and relatives and the fact that a DNA test might link you to nobility rather than a trail of documents.

Now, another possible way to suspect wealth and / or nobility is when the couple getting married are younger than the usual craftsman apprentice. Nobles sometimes arranged marriage at a distance and sent along a 13- or 14-year-old bride to be raised in her mother in law's household. The groom could be as young, a couple years older, or a much older widowed noble. In 19th century records I've seen 15- and 16-year-old noble brides. Why besides allegiances, fertility, and presumed health?

Because there is money enough to support the family without having to become an apprentice or worker. (Don't be too shocked to see daughters of immigrants to America also marrying that young. There was no time for teenagerhood or extended immaturity. 

That said, you will find there are plenty of impoverished "landless gentry" who had to work. Many went to cities to take government jobs.

If you do find nobility of the higher estate owning type in your heritage, be open to the possibility of linking to a great many other nobles! And to evidence of more travel and movement. The girl next door or the next village is for people who don't get too far from home.

Cherish notes and translate them!

C 2021- 2025 Magyar-American BlogSpot  All Rights Reserved Including Internet and International Rights

This post is part of a series on Hungarian Nobility research.  To pull up the series click on the tag Gen Tips - Hungarian Nobility in the Family

NOBILITY IN YOUR HUNGARIAN FAMILY? THE NAGY BIBLE OF NOBILITY : GENEALOGY PRO TIP #2

NOBILITY IN YOUR HUNGARIAN FAMILY? THE NAGY BIBLE OF NOBILITY  : GENEALOGY PRO TIP #2

Some large American city libraries have the series of books published by Ivan Nagy that give some detail about many of the noble families of Hungary.

There are some generational charts and some Heraldry in the collection. However, connection from your American family to these nobles is still iffy and hobbyist genealogists should hold themselves to professional standards and not turn family rumors, guesswork or leaps of faith into charts - especially not posting to one or many databases or on-line website charts. I see so many without documentation all over (like a virus) and when I see that I think "well maybe but until I see the documents this is a time waster." (I've seen some with infuriating inaccuracies.)

Now I recently found Nagy's volume that contains letters T through Z in Google Books and found a couple families of interest but believe me until I had a breakthrough a couple years ago I had absolutely no idea there might be a connection to two noble families in what is now Slovakia. Like many of you, missing records are a frustrating for me.

It seems other volumes of Nagy's work are here and there and some are missing indexes in the end. Published in 1863 and titled "The Noble Families of Hungary, Their Coats Of Arms and Generation Tables" it's called a Bible. But believe me it is not. It can be helpful or encouraging but your documents must go back at least till 1869 or earlier to find this useful. That said, sometimes we can find the links we seek going forwards from the earlier dates on generational charts. Nobility cared to keep track of lineage and so there is a chance of such charts substituting for missing church records.

Here's the negatives:

First, while a well regarded collection, it does not contain each and every Noble Hungarian person or family.

Second, it's in Hungarian and you may need a translation. (I have yet to figure out how to cut and paste from the PDF into a translator.)

Third, many charts do not include the women or only have given names of women. 

I have no way of knowing if a person named as a child but not showing marriage or offspring died without issue or the chart is incomplete.

Fourth, it cannot possibly include anyone born after 1869. 

Recall 1848 is when the Hungarian Revolution ended nobility privledges though not social status. (The freeing of the serfs also meant that many with estate owners could no longer afford to hold onto their estates. An agricultural way of life was ending. 

However, you can check the 1828 census to see if a person or family, listed by the name of the head of the family, had any "slaves." You can see the diversity of holdings in the Marie Theresa census.*

For some Hungarian Americans missing Hungarian census and other records may make it impossible, but don't give up too soon. 

Keep reading.

C 2021- 2025 Magyar-American BlogSpot  All Rights Reserved Including Internet and International Rights

This post is part of a series on Hungarian Nobility research. Gen Tips - Hungarian Nobility in the Family 

*Search this blog for lots of information on the 1828 census (available on Familysearch) and the Marie Theresa census (available through Hungaricana).

See the post connected to this series that brings up a link to find the IVAN NAGY BOOKS DIGITALIZED AND ON LINE FREE WITH INTERNET ARCHIVE.