LOVE THEM IN HUNGARIAN

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

THE AUSTRIAN-HUNGARIAN EMPIRE : GALICIA : CADASTRAL MAPS : HOUSE NUMBERS : GENEALOGY GEN-TIPS SERIES #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  (fixed link August 14 2025)

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!

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!

C 2024 Magyar-American BlogSpot

A THRIFT STORE FIND : A HUNGARIAN BEER MUG WITH THE IMAGE OF A CATHEDRAL ON IT?

I was in a thrift store and a man got into the line to pay who was just delighted because he found TWO items that were Hungarian.  One was a book.  The other was one of those ceramic beer mugs - a big one - that had the image of a Catholic cathedral in Hungary on it.  This was missing a top.  We laughed about this.  The idea that a tourist would visit a Catholic church and buy a beer mug there.

I tend to think of Hungary as a WINE COUNTRY but certainly there are beer drinkers there, just as there are in the United States. Is it the German influence?  

THE CHRISTMAS CAROLING PARTY LAST NIGHT WAS THE BEST

I was invited to the home of a couple who are instrumental in a local Christian church last night to attend a tradition of theirs - Christmas carol singing in the home.  I took my dog with me.  After we had both eaten plenty from the great variety of foods offered  - including a tasty Russian meat strudel and the home made Mexican enchiladas  a guest brought with onions not too raw - not too cooked - and a hunters stew, and had one glass of wine, we gathered in the living room.  My host played the piano.  Also there, a young man - a violinist, a guitar player,  and small percussion instruments such as bells, rattles, and tambourines were passed around. 

We must have sung fifteen songs, happy to have the lyric sheets in hand.  We got inventive.  One man made the sounds of cows, donkeys, and sheep, for the song Do You Hear What I Hear.  We sang one song that was a German carol I had never heard before, alternating between English and German phrases with violin solos between stanzas.  We finished with the Twelve Days of Christmas - those "five golden rings" brought out the operatic and dramatic.  My dog fell asleep under a table despite all the kids swirling around and the clamor. 

Oh I hated to go.

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Happy Holidays to all my readers, who I feel sure, will have their decorations up until January 6th.