So here is where I'm going to complain about the indexing that appears on FamilySearch, which is the best database to use in the United States if you're doing Hungarian research. You really do have to go page by page looking for marriages and deaths. I can tell you that I rarely, if ever, can count on the indexing. If it brings something I was searching for up, easy, one - two - three, that's great. But I actually spend as much time as I used to spinning microfilm in viewing machines going page by page on the records on the computer. I think the microfilm spinning was easier on my eyes and my body.
For those of you who are beginning to research, you can use those church Baptismal records to build family groups, finding the children that were born of a couple until there seems to be no more. Then say the first child was born in 1820. You can use that date and look for marriages 1820 and back. Since people died younger, there were often quick remarriages and half siblings and step-siblings.
The advantage to the microfilm having been digitized is that the" viewer" gadget allows us to change the brightness and contrast to bring out the best of the page. Also I can sit at home or even go to the beach area with a modem and work remotely without traveling. I can also print out at a library terminal remotely and go in and get my copies, though, I don't always get the quality of the printing I would like. Yes, that can make it easier for me since I'm now a bit of a commute from my best Family History Library run by the Latter Day Saints, who own FamilySearch. An advantage is that I don't have to pay for a film and wait for it, nor hurry into the library to use it before it has to be returned. The fees were reasonable back in the day. However, you can't order ANY films in anymore, and that's not good. My understanding is that the cabinets are still full of microfilms that were planted there at some Family History Libraries, but it seems that when I check for a location it always says the Salt Lake location, which is a massive library, but one I'd have to travel to.
All those advantages given, there are just so many errors. Dropping endings of surnames creates a database full of abbreviated names. For instance there is a surname Hornyak. I'm finding Horyanszke and Horanszke's who are listed as Hornyaks...
The indexers were not knowledgeable of Hungarian names, as if they were, then some of the bad handwriting could have been transcribed closer to the spelling of the Hungarian names.
I know that surnames spelling through history was not as stable as it seems to be right now. I'm aware that some names have one t or two, and so on. Even if your search the surnames within the National Archives of Hungary site, Hungaricana, you may find these variations.
Sometimes you're going to see suffixes that vary as well, depending on how close to the Polish border or how Slovak the area. You could say these are Slavic variations of Hungarian names and I know that in Slovakia they say some of these people were Slovaks from the start and not Hungarian. Or the priest who wrote the church record was.records of a marriage, baptism, or death was not Hungarian and wrote names his way. You might see some words in Latin, some in Hungarian. Still, there are hundreds of Hungarian surnames that there is reference for, but the indexers did not know it or research it.
Perhaps your ancestor was indexed and the problem was that the indexer did not get it that the person was a twin or triplet and thinks that the two or three names belong to one person when two or three babies were baptized.
When I see two or more given names I look for the word gemelli, Latin for twins. Hungarian for twins is ikrek.
I also look to see how many godparents are listed for a person. If there are two names and two sets of godparents, you're probably looking at twins. (The godparents will almost always be one male person and one female person, though not always a married couple.
Marriages can have two to four men as witnesses, again these may or may not be relatives. In some places you might see the same men showing up as witnesses time and time again. There are three scenarios as to why. One is that they actually were asked or are related or know the people who married. The second is that there were some people who sort of hung out at the church who were always available to witness. This may sound ridiculous until you remember that people died young and children were left orphaned so it's possible that by the time they married they had no parents or siblings left to show up. The third is that the witnesses are important people, such as employers, often the landowner the groom works for, or the local nobility. The witnesses are there for more than religious reasons. (With marriage and birth come possible inheritance rights.)
If the baby was given four or more names at baptism, it's likely they are of a high noble family. Is it mentioned that they are noble or that their godparents are?
There may have been a custom of giving a baby a certain number of names at at baptism depending on their status. (King Charles III was baptized with twelve, I believe, and when he married Diana Spencer, she was to say four of them at her wedding to Charles but flubbed the order of his names.)
So...
Two names, one set of godparents, no mention that this is twins, a lower noble.
Sometimes the only reason we can tell that there were two babies born and not one was the death record or notation on one of them.
(Though it is possible that some Hungarian people had started giving their babies more than one name, a more German custom, I'm not swayed.)
Then there are marriage records. Again, if the bride and/or groom was born to a Baronial family, they may have more than two testimonials otherwise thought of as witnesses or sponsors to their marriage, and the chances are good at least one if not all these people are also listed as nobles.
Remember that these records were just like legal records at the time. This is why illegitimacy was so remarked upon, because the child was born with no support, no rights to inheritance. Keeping a genealogy helped determine where titles and property were to go when someone died and our ancestors died way younger than us. (I recently found a death notation of a woman who was 113 years old, which is truly the oldest I've encountered and put her birth into the 1600's! That said, here we are calling 60, an age most our ancestors never lived to be, "The New 40.")
Barons usually owned castles though the term castle is often applied to not a fortress with a moat or defense features but a house or estate bigger than most of the families around had.
Spuria is an archaic term for illegitimate.
But you may notice that not in every case where the word Spuria appears is the Father Unknown. His name may be written right there and the word Spuria. So that means he came forward as the father for the baptism but the couple is not married. (A good sign. Perhaps he intends to marry the mother or has pledged his financial support.)
In Hungarian Father Unknown is written apja ismeretlen.
If the mother died in childbirth, it might say mother died - anya meghalt.
What happened when a woman gave birth to a baby too young to have lived? A miscarriage? If the child was baptized, often by a midwife, upon delivery, and named, it appears in the church record. You might see a notation of that, the midwife named. Baptism by someone who is not clergy is still done today and valid.
Why would a woman have an illegitimate child in a culture and religion that is very much against it? After all, there is no Welfare.
Well, women were raped then too. Women and men had affairs. Sometimes the couple loved each other and wanted to be together but there was no parental approval, because of class differences or because there was no money. Any story that could happen today could've happen then.
I ENCOURAGE YOU !
A way to check if a badly spelled name in an index can be coaxed forth into a Hungarian name that makes sense is to:
Keep reading the records until you find a more clearly written area and see if the name comes up again clearly written and spelled.
(Blessings to those who cared so much to be neat and beautiful in their writing that it almost appears to be calligraphy! Let them inspire us to also be neat and beautiful in our writing and printing as we keep our records.)
Run the name through the database spelled that way and see if there are more coming up like that.
Try running the spelling you think is right on the general internet which on Google has correction and suggestion features. Chances are some families alive today have the surname. If none comes up, something is wrong with the spelling.
Some websites mention the surnames that appeared in phone books back in the day, so you might see if the name appeared in a Hungarian phone book.
Remember that the letter that looks like a small f substitutes in for a small s.
Also the letter V and the letter W are interchangeable.
The letter that looks like a Capital Y, is probably a Capital T.
Andrassy may look like Andraffy.
Palffy, however is correct as Palffy.
Yovenko is likely Tovenko.
Ke may actually be Szke.
ai endings may eventually turn into ey: Szendrai - Szendray Szendrey.
It is true that many a noble Hungarian has a surname that links to the family stead, a location. However the House or Family Clan may have a variety of surnames within in as well, that do not sound like the name of a location. Over the decades the family probably fanned out. As a man of Hungarian noble heritage told me last year, his family went long distances for marriages, even to Italy.
Remember that we are not all looking to link to nobility for reasons of our own status. Nobility was abolished mid 1800s in Hungary and upon American citizenship Hungarians of noble heritage gave it all up. Hungarian-Americans seek noble status while researching their genealogy because we're genealogy fanatics who can't stop researching and the link to nobility sometimes leads to records that allow us go way back - even into the 12th century!
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To bring up all posts in this series click on the tag/label Gen Pro Tip : Missing ? Church Records
What did our ancestors know about the cause of death back in the 19th century and before that? When there were no vaccines, when a C-section was only done to try and save the baby since the mother had already died in childbirth, and when average people rarely lived as long as we are expected to? It seems that the more populated the place, and the more likely an educated doctor, the more details or understanding there might have been.
