RELIGION IN THE OLD COUNTRY - YOU MAY BE SURPRISED BY YOUR ANCESTORS' BELIEFS

This may have happened to you, as you self identify as Hungarian or Hungarian- American.  As you go back you notice that today's map of Hungary doesn't cover the places that your ancestors lived.  They lived in what is now Slovakia, possibly Ukraine, or Poland (Galicia - Austrian Empire).  Maybe today's Romania. That's why trying to be sensitive to changes in borders and finding old maps that show the names of villages and towns in different languages is important. 

You may start reading around it and realize that borders were also not as solid as they became, that people traveled between countries, especially for business, and that you are seeing some of the same surnames in these various countries.

What spawned this post?  I was reading records for Galicia, Poland, and found a note that a priest had written that a certain person near Dukla, Poland, had gone to marry a Hungarian in Zemplen!

As well, you may find that ancestors in your family lines did not necessarily self identify as Hungarian, but German or Ruthenian.

I've noticed that intermarriage happened between people of different ethnicities more often if they were the same religion.  Discovering that some of my ancestors were not of the religion I was raised in felt freeing to me.

Years ago I talked on the phone with a man in Buffalo, New York, who I found in an interesting way. I was scanning the internet, playing around, and put in the name of my great great grandmother.  Up came an obituary for a woman who lived in Buffalo with the very same name.  Not only that, but she wanted any money sent to celebrate her death to the church that my great great grandmother had been baptized in!  What if we were related?

I realized that this woman who had just died in America was not my great great grandmother.  However, I was excited to learn the name of the church in that town because I'd been reading those records on microfilm off and on for months and there was no mention of the name of the church.  Also, when I did not find certain records I was looking for in those church records I read the history.  There had been a small chapel there that belonged to a different Christian denomination and Latter Day Saints had no records from that chapel.  At the time I wondered if a change in religion had something to do with not being able to find what I needed.

Well, this obituary I was reading also said that the woman had a son in California.  Believe it or not, I found his number in the phone book, called him on a land line, he answered, and when I told him the reason for my call, simply gave me his dad's number in Buffalo.  He too answered the phone without knowing who was calling.

I had done extensive genealogy on the people with this surname and after he explained that we were NOT related and why, I was able to tell give him information about his siblings and parents from my research.  He was so impressed with my knowledge of the town he invited me to go there and visit with him.  I wish I had.  Live goes on and I lost contact with him.

One of the things he told me is that the people from that town were not very religious.  He said that they had changed religions over and over again over the previous hundred or so years, depending on who owned the place.  I've heard this before, that when a certain big land owner or person who owned a town converted to be Protestant, it was expected that the people who lived there would to, and back again to Catholic. This person "owned" the place and in a sense the loyalty of the people, kind of like the way your boss owns you.

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UPDATE September 2022  You may be interested in my Genealogy Tips.  You can use the term Genealogy in the Search feature embedded in this blog to bring up a variety of topics of research interest. 

NEGLECTING THE HUNGARIAN LINEAGE ? CLAIMING TO BE GERMAN?

As someone who is actively interested in genealogy, I could not fail to research my Hungarian line.  But I've met some people who neglect their Hungarian lineage when they are researching because they are ashamed to admit to being even part Hungarian.  To be fair, this isn't limited to Hungarian-Americans. 

I've met people who dismiss their Polish line or their Slovak line.

One ex-friend of mine told me her children were "Germans," which is what she told her co-workers and employers, oh and all those people she met when she joined Young Republicans. But in fact, her children were mostly German from contributions from her side and her husband's side on their families.  She was actually from German, Hungarian, and French heritage.  Her husband was German and Swedish.

Now if you go back a ways, you are probably going to run into some Germans who went to other countries.  Germany LET PEOPLE OUT OF GERMANY without requiring that they give up being Germans.  Those who left did so because they were not in line to inherit the family farm, economic reasons, work.  They settled in other countries, such as Hungary, and over generations kept to German culture.  Some of them went back when Romania in recent history was not receptive to their stay.

The best reason I've ever heard for not doing your Hungarian line genealogy is that you fear it will be difficult because of the language.  I'm not going to say that it isn't challenging at times, but many documents are not in Hungarian but are in Latin, or German, or another language.  Avoiding genealogy because what you want isn't in English?  You can get research help from experts in the United States or in Hungary.  You can certainly use on-line translators...

I've met people who dismiss their Polish line or their Slovak line.

If you just want to monkey around before you commit to doing  your Hungarian-American research, check out the Hungarian National Archives on line!  Look through postcards, art, documents that were originally written hundreds of years ago!

POLISH, CZECH and SLOVAK GENEALOGY by LIZA A. ALZO

POLISH CZECH and SLOVAK GENEALOGY
 by  Lisa A. Alzo



Since so many Hungarians have united in marriage with people from Polish, Czech, and/or Slovak heritage, both in Europe and in the United States, I wanted to read this book, which is very informative and has loads of information, some of which even the very experienced genealogy researcher might find helpful.


For instance,  On pages 134-135  we learn that there was such a thing as PARISH CENSUS and POPULATION REGISTERS.  


A parish census is different than the usual birth, marriage, and death records because it is a census of all the people in the parish, even if maybe that year they had no sacramental going on. 


A population register is different because in some European countries a person was required to register their PLACE OF RESIDENCE, and these records can give you the person's name, birthdate, and birthplace, as well as family relationship, parents' name and marital status.


There are extensive website and publication lists in the back of the book.  There are also lists of commonly encountered words in Polish, Czech, or Slovak when you're trying to read typical genealogy records.  There's an example of a Polish CIVIL Marriage record which was brimming with detail (once translated) from 1863; It mentioned  the age and occupations of the witnesses as well as their marital status, that the marriage was religious, and that the newly-weds stated that there was NO PRENUPTUAL AGREEMENT BETWEEN THEM!


Although the author finds forums valuable, I never have.  I've wasted a lot of time on them reading pleas from people who expect to find relatives, not through genealogy, but because they are social networking, and these people rarely give the kind of details that would convince the researcher that there's a connection.  They think their surname, which may be difficult to spell or pronounce is so unusual or that there is a village in common is all someone needs to know.  I also wonder at the personal information being given to the world that is and should be private in this pursuit.  Finally, once or twice I read something on a forum that triggered some interest, but by the time I had my research to the point where I was more convinced of a connection, that person's contact link or e-mail was no longer good, or I never heard back from them anyway. Sometimes I think forums are just full of inexpert or lazy people.


All in all, this is book worthwhile your time!


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