THE GERMAN GENEALOGY GROUP CONTINUES TO ADD TO THEIR FREE DATABASES : NEW YORK - NEW YORK CITY - CONNECTICUT

It's been over a decade since I posted on the GERMAN GENEALOGY GROUP!  They are still adding to their databases.  So, here's the thing : These are Americans who are posting useful archival data focusing on NEW YORK - NEW  YORK CITY - and CONNECTICUT - and this is what they say:

GERMAN GENEALOGY GROUP - FREE DATABASES

"As a group we are focused on German genealogy; however, our databases encompass ALL nationalities and are always free to search."

A Sampling of the latest additions:

 
SEE WHAT'S NEW/UPDATED:

02/18/2026 Added 22,040 records to the Births database (Manhattan 1872) that were missing from the original index.

01/31/2026 Added 4,965 records to the Baptism database (St Vincent de Paul RC Church, Williamsburg).

01/13/2026 Added 14,588 records to the Births database (Manhattan 1870) that were missing from the original index.

11/11/2025 Gravesend database modified to display the record page numbers for each name searched.

11/11/2025 Added 110 bride and 19 groom records, Kings County, various years

11/11/2025 Added 1,180 bride and 427 groom records, 1869 Kings County

09/15/2025 Added 3,331 records to the Births database (Manhattan 1868 "A" certificates) that were missing from the original index.

09/06/2025 Added 103 brides and 16 grooms; corrected 912 bride & groom records, 1866-1937 Kings County.
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THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO BEING HUNGARIAN : AN INTELLIGENT BOOK THAT IS ALSO FUN

 Sixteen notable writers.

These writers tackle subjects beyond stereotypes (like the cover of the book - peppers and mustaches) about what Hungary and Hungarians are about, looking at the past as well as the present situation as a result of the past. Pride in a unique heritage is one thing, people not picking up dog poo in Budapest is another.  From places to go and things to do, to relatives who got stranded in what is now another country before the country was significantly chopped. From heritage horses, pigs, and sheep, to the fact that the Hortobagy Plain was once forested and the vacant salty expanse of it now is due to overgrazing of animals.

Folk customs... likely begun in the 17th century or so not brought from Eurasia. Regional dress that used to identify village, class, and so on, now mainly worn by textile sellers and people on their way to dance class but yet there are places in Hungary where there exists people who can 'read' or identify the dress. The

difference between folk tale and folk legend and more than one origin story.  These short essays seem more reckoning than opinion,  I thoroughly enjoyed this intelligent book, which also, I am so happy to say, is not mired or overly sober.

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HUNGARIAN GENES GIVE US EXTREME SCIENTIFIC GENIUS! : HUNGARIAN / HUNGARIAN-AMERICAN STEREOTYPE

 

AMERICAN HUNGARIAN FEDERATION LIST OF FAMOUS HUNGARIANS 

Well, if you take a look at this list, you will find out that this stereotype seems  to rely on lots of evidence that it's true.!

Here's an excerpt: ...the developers of the atomic bomb and nuclear engineering; the holography; the moon and mars rovers; the Model T Ford' Microsoft Office' the fathers of the seat belt and passive safety; binary code, BASIC and computer programming; supersonic flight and the U.S. aerospace industry; the California wine industry' the U.S. light cavalry; matches' color television; full-length motions picture' jet propulsion, the carburetor and the automatic gearbox; the Zeppelin; and the founder of Intel Corporation are all Hungarian Americans...

I just thought you might need a little ego boost today!

C 2022 Magyar-American BlogSpot

ARE YOU A HUNGARIAN-AMERICAN WHO HAS BEEN DEALING WITH STEREOTYPES?

 

I would like to hear from you?  What have you dealt with?  Was it funny? Were you offended?

Send me a message in COMMENTS!

THANK YOU!

HUNGARIANESS IS WHAT?

 

What is HUNGARIANESS?

I recently went out to a coffee house and got to talking to strangers who were discussing ethnicity and race, and the recent issues that make it a too sensitive subject to discuss.  Several people excused what it was they were about to say by mentioning that they were NOT going to be "politically correct."  There was a Jewish American person and a Native American person there and then me, a representative of Hungarianess - or at least Hungarian-Americaness.  I thought about all the stereotypes I've presented here at MAGYAR AMERICAN BLOGSPOT.  Certainly some of these are silly and some are possibly trouble.  I mentioned how we Hungarians are supposed to be extra hairy people.

Perhaps what was most upsetting is that these people were NOT INTERESTED in the subject.  Perhaps being a Magyar-American is just too European for them.  The Native American person went on with a fractured history lesson of the Hungarians and a Irish-American blurted the whole story about us coming from Attila the Hun...  They drummed me out and went on discussing Black Lives Matter - which, by the way, they were all disgusted with.

Well, a coffee house may be the last bastion of free expression and they are allowed to think as they think.  What spawned this conversation was that the Jewish American walked outside a convenience store where he had purchased a cold soft drink when a Black man who he described as possibly a teenager bashed his face for no good reason with his fists.  He fractured this man's nose, split his lip, and gave him a concussion and a day spent in an emergency room.  Security cameras may have captured the assaults but the police were not interested and gave no home of finding or prosecuting the offender.  He wondered if it was an anti-Semetic attack or simply because he looks White.

What do most Americans who have no Hungarian heritage think of Hungary and Hungarians?

Not much.  That it's a conservative nation that hates gay people...?  That Hungarians are not tolerant about immigrants?

WHAT DO YOU THINK?

C 2021 Magyar-American BlogSpot

WE LOVE ICE CREAM : HUNGARIAN / HUNGARIAN-AMERICAN STEREOTYPE

 

Of all the silly stereotypes I've heard of, this one is the most harmless, unless it collides with the stereotype that Hungarian women are either skinny and hot or fat and not. You know how stereotypes are - absolutely everyone has to be a certain way. 

So, I presume most if this ice cream is eaten in the summer. 

By the way, it's so enjoyed one can't help but get it caught in one's mustache.

Smile.

What's your favorite flavor?

C 2021 Magyar-American BlogSpot

WE THINK COLD WET FEET WILL CAUSE SICKNESS : HUNGARIAN / HUNGARIAN-AMERICAN STEREOTYPES

 

I've been posting on stereotypes of Hungarians and Hungarian-Americans for some time. Some of these stereotypes are well known. Others have been told to me or I've read about them. Some stereotypes are harmless, others worrisome. 

A harmless stereotype is that Hungarians are excessively worried about their feet getting cold because they think this causes illness. Walking on wet pavement with bare feet? I do that.

Someone's going to tell you, you'll get sick? Well, a woman who is concerned about me walking outside in the cold of morning to walk my dog, barefoot, did give me a pair of slippers made of a new bamboo fiber.

I can't validate the truth of it. Have you heard of this one?

I wonder if my ancestor Hungarians knit thick wool socks to wear in their boots. There's a condition called Trench Foot that is caused by long term immersion of feet in water but I doubt Hungarians spend more time with their feet in water than other ethnicities?

I've been wearing hats for years because I believe most of our heat goes out our heads.

If anyone knows more about this please leave a comment!

DRACONIAN CAVES and REPTILE PEOPLE : HUNGARIAN HUNGARIAN/AMERICAN STEREOTYPES

 

Although VAMPIRES have captured our imaginations in pop-culture books and films, it concerns me that there are people on earth who think that Hungarians (from the days when Transylvania was not Romania) are not just related to Vlad Tepes the Impaler like Prince Charles is, but that present day people are, due to their DNA or bloodtypes, actually being born and bred in a place called "The Draconian Caves," a place you will NOT find on any map or on Google Earth.  These people may actually be part REPTILE, which of course links into conspiracy theories of ALIEN-HUMAN hybrids and thus linked to EVIL. The Reptilian theory has something to do with copper levels in the blood and is also linked to having RED HAIR.

Red hair is in my family. 

Now BLOOD TYPES and the differences in human biology because of BLOOD TYPES is of interest to me.  I've read all the Blood Type Diet books by D'Adamo and think there is something to the idea that populations evolved along with the food they were eating depending on if they were Hunter-Gatherers, Agriculturalists, or Nomads. It's possible that your body adapted or mutated to eat some animals and plants as your ancestors have been for thousands of years for benefit and that others are going to be perceived by your body as allergens. I've met people who swear that when they stuck to their blood-type diet they just naturally lost weight, their skin cleared up, their breathing improved, and most of all, their energy levels went way up.

But if you start reading around Draconian Caves and Reptilians then you also begin to realize that there are some scary people out there who may possibly use this fantastical belief of theirs to start isolating and killing other humans. And it get's tied into END TIMES and SATAN.

While I'm complaining here, I'm also concerned that the extremely popular (among born again Christians) series LEFT BEHIND, makes the ANTICHRIST an Eastern European - actually a RUSSIAN.

We are considered ALIENS - strange -  dangerous - possibly not 100% human - and thus targeted - due to ethnicity.  

It really makes me want to sharpen my talons. 


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THE HISTORIAN by ELIZABETH KOSTOVA : MAGYAR AMERICAN BOOK REVIEW

I read this book while dog-sitting in a room shaded from the sunny afternoons near the Pacific. 

Ah well, surrounded by dogs in bed with me, including my own beloved pooch, who did not hide her jealousy well, I was frequently disrupted from my concentration. I stuck with it, thinking that so many people I've met hear "Hungarian" and immediately think of vampires, of Transylvania, and well, there are actually descendants of Vlad Tepes - Drakyula - Dracula - Vlad the Impaler - who is honored for keeping the Turks out of his Principality - and whose tactics have actually been used in modern times by other bizarre, evil, mentally ill, personalities - alive today.  Prince Charles, who is not evil or mentally ill, is one of them and so might you be. 

I also thought that some of you might want to do some reading that gives you the creeps and though my copy was rife with high recommendations and this book came out over a decade ago, I decided to persist in reading it so I could yea or ney the critics.

"The Historian" is a very researched, very detailed, very intellectual, very long, book. Throughout the writing creates a tension in the reader that persists as the author, Elizabeth Kostova, drops subtle hints along the way. Some you'll figure out right away, others not. The dramatic parts sneak up on you, kind of like a vampire.

If you like diplomats, grad students, academic travel, university conferences, European travel, libraries, librarians, archives, and books, especially ancient books that mysteriously appear in study alcoves and on office desks bearing a dragon motif that makes one addicted to the pursuit of Vlad...  If you find tiny tattoos of the same dragon motif on the shoulders of maidens curious... If you like monasteries and monks, churches and priests, village women who sing folk songs and walk on burning coals without injury, graves under floors, graves guarded by monks,  dark stone cellars were the undead persist, cloves of garlic stuffed in pockets, silver bullets and silver daggers, as well as the love stories of innocents, this tome might be one for you.

Something about it, the language, the pacing, the mentalities, feels to be from past centuries. Despite the fact that some of it is played out in the 1950's during the Communist occupation of Hungary and the Balkans, as well as the 1970's, it just doesn't feel like it.  

Not once did the sun come out.

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HUNGARIAN WOMAN ARE BLUNT IN THEIR ASSESSMENT OF RELATIONSHIP : HUNGARIAN STEREOTYPES

 

Here goes another stereotype of Hungarian WOMEN...  If you're a Hungarian woman (and this may carry over to you Hungarian-Americans) you waste no words in telling your partner what you do or do not like about the relationship.

Despite this bluntness, you still expect a man to simply know or remember what it is you like or want!  When he does you are satisfied with him. Therefore, if he is not used to this bluntness, even if you are sure to list the good things first  - and more of them - he will fear what it is you have to tell him.  It's implied that once he knows what you don't like he will improve.

What you think of sex with him, for instance.

Hey, at least you spoke up.

This is very modern.

It has nothing to do with how your great-grandmom, grandmom, or mom dealt with men.

Does she also enjoy you being so blunt with her?

Are you kidding?

C 2019 Magyar-American BlogSpot

WHATS ALL THAT SMILING ABOUT? : HUNGARIAN STEREOTYPES

 

Are you a "smiley-smiley" person? Smiling at strangers you walk past?  (You don't even know them.  You're not even in a conversation with them!) Do you feel the need to act like a welcoming committee?  When you're around sour people, do you think cheering them up is important?  And you don't work in entertainment or tourism?

Well, then, you are NOT a stereotypical Hungarian.

Hungarians do not understand all that smiling, all that showing of teeth.  YOU'RE ONLY SUPPOSED TO SMILE WHEN YOU ARE HAPPY. Smiling when you are not happy is gratuitous.  It's phoney.  It's being someone you are not.  A people pleaser.

Save your smiles for when you really feel them.

(And that goes for your emoji's too!)


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SMOKE SMOKE SMOKE THAT CIGARETTE: HUNGARIAN STEREOTYPES and THE CURRENT RULES ABOUT SMOKING

 

DAILY NEWS HUNGARY by Gergely Lajtai-Szabo  -  the rules and regulations on buying tobacco, selling tobacco, advertising tobacco products, and so on prove that Hungary has gone anti-smoking!

EXCERPT: Forbidden areas: A couple of years ago, Hungary joined those countries that have made the regulations concerning smoking stricter, so smoking is forbidden in public institutions and catering units.  It means that schools, state offices and other state institutions (like theaters) are off limits for smoking... 

Perhaps instead of the stereotype of Hungarians (especially  if they are women spies) smoking everywhere they go - cigarettes - pipes - cigars - we must now consider that Hungarians who smoke are probably only doing so in their private homes or apartments?!

C 2019 Magyar-American BlogSpot

MAGYAR AMERICAN BLOGSPOT - MY GENEALOGY - RELIGION - HISTORY and CULTURE of HUNGARY

This Easter Week has been and is exceptional for me because I'm volunteering at an small, informal, ecumenical and inclusive Christian church that has events all Holy Week, including the Washing of the Feet, The Solemn Good Friday, and culminating in an uplifting Easter celebration that includes a community meal and Easter Egg hunt for the children. This is the first time in years that I've been involved, and to be honest, I'm not too religious, but essentially I believe in the message of Jesus Christ, though not necessarily that being Christian is the only way to eternal life.

A question of the religion of my ancestors is also part of my genealogy research.

For a long time I've been searching for the marriage of my great great grandfather and great great grandmother, whose location, age, and religion at marriage is unknown.  

During the upheaval period of 1847-1849 (approx) my great grandfather was born in "Geres," and I've wondered if perhaps the family was moving about or effected or involved in this crisis. I learned that though the location probably was the Kis and Nagy Geres of Zemplen County, there was also a place called Geres in Szatmar County.  Could it be that they were just passing through?

I revisited the ongoing and wonderful work of Nick Gombas over at HUNGARY EXCHANGE (He needs volunteers!) the other day and am very excited about the searchable databases.

Recently I found there has been a connection between Nagy and Kis Geres and the other town where his son married twice and worked with a particular noble family and so I wonder if perhaps there has been a link between families into other counties such as Szatmar.

Years ago I talked to a man from the town my grandfather left. He expressed to me that though his family were devout Catholics (and it was the Church records from there, available at LDS, that I discovered so much), but overall he felt Hungarians had been through so many changes with religion that they were not especially devout overall.  I've wondered if this is part of my inability to be devout and my dislike of the Catholic versus Protestant divides.

I want to mention that I've been reviewing my genealogy oriented posts and links and want my readers to understand the focus of MAGYAR-AMERICAN BLOGSPOT.  Very basically, I know many of you Hungarian-Americans are doing genealogy research into your Hungarian (and often Slovak, German, Romanian, or other ethnicities originating in Hungary (with all those border changes).  At the same time, I believe that understanding Hungarian history, culture - in the past and present - is important to your understanding, your quest.

For me it's exciting to find the evidence for another ancestor - be it direct blood-line or families related - but these people are not just names on databases (or the more juicy original documents) but people who lived in a different time in history, who were more influenced by what we might call "folk culture."  I want to understand their work, how they dressed, and what they might have eaten, what influenced their choices when it came to marriage, and just how much if any freedom they had. This research leads me into town and county and country histories, collections of clothing and needlework, and so much else.

Beginning with the Hungarian language (which everyone I've ever met has mentioned as "most difficult")  and Hollywood and other stereotypes of Hungarian people (and people of Central and Eastern Europe), I believe there is much to learn and UNlearn about Hungarian people as individuals and as in groups.

By researching and writing this blog, I've learned so much about my unknown or forgotten heritage and have "owned" my own Hungarianess. When I was growing up, it was only the difficulty of my surname that informed me that I was perceived as different, and I was an adult before I learned the meaning of my surname.  (Now as people stumble over it, I explain it is Hungarian and what it translates to.)  

And so here you will find some of my own musings, my own life as a citizen of the United States of America, as well as that heritage.


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All Rights Reserved including Internet and International Rights

HUNGARIANS ARE MYSTERIOUS : HUNGARIAN / HUNGARIAN-AMERICAN STEREOTYPES

 

Once they have started pronouncing your Hungarian surname correctly - or close - it's time to tell your friends that it's TRUE  - You ARE Mysterious!

How can you not be mysterious?

Every Hungarian has a mystery to them.  Their origins, their language, their DNA, their sensibility.  

You have strong political beliefs - but who knows what you're really thinking?

You like all women/men - but who knows who you really love?

You play chess well - but did you let the other person win - for future strategy? 

Who knows what really goes on in your mind?  Not even your mother is sure!


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TEMETNI TUDUNK : HOW TO BURY PEOPLE THAT'S ONE THING WE KNOW : HUNGARIAN STEREOTYPES

 

THE MAN WHO LOVED ONLY NUMBERS by PAUL HOFFMAN : BOOK EXCERPT

pages 62-63

"Death and tragedy have long been part of the Hungarian character.  According to the historian John Lukacs, on All Soul's Day in Erdos's youth, "thousands of people steamed toward the cemeteries of Budapest, with flowers in their hands, on that holy day which is perhaps taken more seriously in Hungary than anywhere else because of the national temperament.  Temetni tudunk - a terse Magyar phrase whose translation requires as many as ten English words to give its proper (and even then, not wholly exact) sense: 'How to bury people - that is one thing we know.'" The phrase was coined long before Hungary had experienced the devastation of the two world wars, whose carnage would come disproportionately from within its borders.

Few countries have had as violent a history as Hungary.  In the ninth century, nomadic Magyar warriors from the steppes of Easter Europe crossed the Carpathian mountains, and renouncing their peripatetic way of life, settled in the middle Danube basin at the heart of what is now Hungary.  The Magyars, also known as the On-Ogurs ("people of the ten arrows"), were skilled archers and javelin throwers who raided their neighbors, plundering Germany from Bavaria to Saxony.  Recent converts to Christianity, the Magyars had to defend their own new territory against a series of invaders.  They held their own until 1241, when several hundred thousand Mongol horseman from Genghis Khan's empire slaughtered half the Magyar population and enslaved much of the rest, a bloodbath from which the country barely recovered "

The problem with Hungary," Erdos once joked, reflecting on his country's history, "is that in every war we choose the wrong side."

ESTAMPIE by ARANY ZOLTAN

OVERLOOKING THE MOUNTAINS

HUNGARIAN/ HUNGARIAN-AMERICAN MEN STEREOTYPES! (FOR THOSE WHO ARE CONSIDERING LOVE AND ROMANCE WITH SUCH A PERSON!)

 

Just in time for VALENTINE'S DAY, I present to you the stereotypes of HUNGARIAN and HUNGARIAN-AMERICAN MEN. This is just in case you are considering love and romance with such a person!  (Those of you already in the love and romance already know!)

 1) THEY ALL WEAR MUSTACHES, and even spend a lot of time grooming their mustaches.  You should be prepared to be tickled or abraded with the mustache when you kiss him. So you can never lie to anyone and claim you were not making out. Prepare to be abraded - unless he is one to groom the ends into points using wax, in which case, you may find that one of the ends of the mustache goes up into your nose when you make out!

2) THEY ALL READ OR WRITE POETRY as a way of seducing you. Beware the Hungarian or Hungarian-American who shows up at street poetry slams or tries to RAP in the Hungarian language!

You may need a translator, but ask yourself this.  What is the SUBJECT of the POEM?  IS IT ME?

3) ONCE A YEAR IN SPRING THEY FEEL COMPELLED TO SPRINKLE YOU WITH CHEAP PERFUME.  Don't get this cheap perfume confused with the real, expensive perfume you actually want as a gift for Valentines Day or your Birthday, that subtle scent that you use only one drop of, in the crook of your elbow!

4) THE MEN ARE ONLY A COUPLE GENERATIONS FROM WEARING DRESSES.  Do not automatically think of him as a cross-dresser if he shows up in one.

5)  HE'S NOT BI-POLAR it's JUST THAT HIS MOOD GOES UP AND DOWN.  Particularly if you refuse to say you love him frequently. He will be disappointed if the card you give him for Valentine's Day isn't mushy. (This attitude apparently began after the nobility stopped arranging marriages and began to marry for love!)

6) IF HE IS THE ONE PURSUING YOU, HE REALLY MIGHT CONSIDER SUICIDE if your romance DOESN'T TURN INTO TRUE LOVE AND MARRIAGE!  (Buy him one of those sun lamps sold to combat seasonal depression. Remember the lost homeland of the Hungarians must have been a sunny place and now they are forced to live in the cold, damp, foggy, and dark.)  (You Vixens out there should know that a Hungarian man will rarely turn down a woman who is after him, but he may not ask her out!)

7) YOU GET TO DOMINATE HIM IN THE HOME, just make a show of rushing around to serve him beer when his friends show up to watch soccer or football!  Also, if he decides to sit under a tree with some Slovak men to watch the clouds in the sky and let the women do all the work, remember matriarchy!

8) LET HIS MOTHER SHOW YOU HOW TO COOK HIS FAVORITE RECIPE, but don't actually ever try to make that meal for him when the two of you are home alone, until she is dead.  (Never ever make a show of showing up his mother as a cook!  You will never ever get that stuffed cabbage in the slow cooker recipe right!)

9) HE MAY HAVE ADVENTURES BUT HE ALWAYS MARRIES THE HOME TOWN GIRL!
(Even if she becomes the town spinster while waiting.)  Seriously good news, it just takes going to the same school to be a home town girl!

10)  NOBODY ACTUALLY HAS SEX TO HAVE BABIES.  Where do you think STORKS come from?  Poland? WHY DO YOU THINK THERE ARE STORKS NESTING ON HUNGARIAN CHIMNEYS?   All that public passion is just for show, to fool people.

ARE YOU LAUGHING YET?


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HUNGARIAN / HUNGARIAN-AMERICAN STEREOTYPE : INSECURE and ALWAYS TRYING TO PROVE YOUR PEOPLE ARE INTELLIGENT!

I've known people like this, so I started thinking about their ethnicity.  This is my no means a poll, but most of the braggarts I've met were Jewish.  "So and So does This and That - Very Successful!"  I've heard that one a lot.  It makes me feel sorry for the Jewish person who is NOT successful in a worldly way.

A free weekly magazine called The Jewish Journal that is available for the taking in libraries and around town dedicates a space to all the Jewish people of accomplishment in history, to stroke ethnic- religious pride. It's paid-for advertising.

However, I've heard that Hungarians of every religious type bring up famous scientists and inventors in particular, to prove that they have their geniuses as a way of letting other people know they should not dismiss their own intelligence.  Defensiveness mixed with ethnic pride!

I do tend to think of braggarts as insecure, and maybe Hungary, being a country that is more like David than the Giant Goliath of the Old Testament of the Holy Bible, has more to prove.
So far I have not encountered Hungarian braggarts here in the United States!

C 2017 Magyar-American BlogSpot

AUGUST 20 is SAINT STEPHEN'S DAY IN HUNGARY

AUGUST 20th is SAINT STEPHEN'S DAY IN HUNGARY. There are state celebrations such as firework displays as Saint Stephen is credited with FOUNDING HUNGARY and making it a Christian nation in 1000 AD. It is his crown that it used as an icon for Hungary and the real crown still exists. But that's not all that exists. When Stephen was canonized as a saint on August 20 1083, it was found that he his hand was still "fresh" and so it was removed and is mummified and on display (It looks kind of gray!)