HUNGARIAN MUMMIES - COLON RECTAL CANCER MAY NOT BE CAUSED BY MODERN HABITS - GENE MUTATION

When I do my genealogy research, knowing that I may never even see a photo or  portrait or drawing of an ancestor, I ask myself, if, given the chance, I would care to see them as a mummy.  I think I'd be too squeamish...

The Hungarian Mummies that scientists have been studying to learn more about TB are now studying the same Mummies and are thinking that Colon-Rectal Cancer may not be caused by modern habits.

SCIENCE DAILY - COLON CANCER IN HUNGARIAN MUMMIES  sourced from American Friends of Tel Aviv University

EXCERPTS:

In 1995, more than 265 mummies were excavated from sealed crypts in the Dominican church in Vác, Hungary. These crypts were used continuously from 1731 to 1838 for the burial of middle-class families and clerics and provided ideal conditions for the natural mummification of corpses -- low temperatures, constant ventilation and low humidity. Some 70% of the bodies found had been completely or partially mummified.

The preservation of the tissue samples and abundant archival information about the individuals buried in the crypts attracted researchers from around the world, all of whom where interested in conducting their own morphological and genetic studies of the human remains.

"Colorectal cancer is among the most common health hazards of modern times," Dr. Rosin-Arbesfeld explains. "And it has a proven genetic background. We wanted to discover whether people in the past carried the APC mutation -- how common it was, and whether it was the same mutation known to us today. In other words: Is the increase in the incidence of cancer the result of man's manipulation of nature alone?

HUNGARY AND REFUGEES FROM THE MIDDLE EAST

REUTERS - EUROPE MIGRANTS HUNGARIAN REFERENDUM full article

EXCERPT:

Prime Minister Viktor Orban has taken an increasingly anti-immigrant stance since the migration crisis escalated last year and opposes a plan, agreed by a majority of EU governments in September, to redistribute 160,000 migrants around the bloc.

Along with Slovakia, Hungary has launched a court challenge against that plan, which will set quotas for each EU country to host a share of the migrants over two years.

DAILY MAIL - HUNGARIAN OUTRAGE AT EUROPEAN UNION REFUGEE PROBLEM


EXCERPT: 

States could refuse to take people for a year - but only if they paid another country 250,000 euros per person to accommodate them.

 

But at a meeting in Prague, ministers from Poland, Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic all repeated their opposition to the idea of relocation. 

'It's blackmail, it's unacceptable and a non-European type of proposal from the (European) Commission,' Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said after a meeting with his counterparts from the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Poland in Prague.

'The quota concept is a dead-end street and I would like to ask the Commission not to run into this dead-end street anymore.' 

 

Poland's Foreign Minister Witold Waszczykowski echoed Szijjarto, saying: 'I'm still wondering if it's a serious proposal, because it sounds like an idea announced on April Fool's Day.'

  

*****

 In earlier posts I used the example of being an individual who is giving to some friends who have less than me and feeling the difference between the ones who find a way to give back and those who may say Thank You but don't.

 

I will tell you the equivalent of what is happening here is the United States of America, especially in Southern California where we have 50,000 homeless (or more) and there is, first of all, no affordable housing.  Without a stable residence it is near impossible to hold a job. Yet we keep not addressing this problem of poverty among citizens and keep taking in new immigrants.  Granted some of these new immigrants have wealth they bring with them or can prove that their educations and employment history make them valuable to us, because there are not enough Americans available with equal offerings.  That means that there are many people from India coming in with advanced degrees in computer-related fields, scientists and doctors are always welcome.

Still, I would never think to show up in a foreign country and expect the people there to immediately accept me and support me.  THAT'S WHY LEGAL IMMIGRATION EXISTS, so that a country can access it's needs as well as how many people it can accommodate before people show up!

EDVIN MARTON - MALIBU SUNSET

ANCESTRY.COM HUNGARIAN RECORDS THAT ARE USELESS IF YOU'RE CHRISTIAN

I took the time to check ANCESTRY.COM for Hungarian records to see if some of the most common surnames in Hungary would come up... When they did not and I saw that Ancestry.com was crediting Jewishgen as the source, I realized what was happening here. 

I tried HUNGARY ALL CITIZEN CENSUS  1869.   WHAT AN TOTALLY MISLEADING TITLE!  Source JewishGen?!  It's clear that this TITLE SHOULD BE CHANGED TO "JEWS OUR JEWISH VOLUNTEERS DECIDED TO INDEX."

I also tried HUNGARY ASSORTED CENSUS RECORDS 1781-1850

AGAIN THE COMMON HUNGARIAN SURNAMES DID NOT COME UP.

I hate when a database is called "Assorted." THIS SHOULD BE RETITLED TO "JEWS ON THE CENSUS RECORDS THAT OUR JEWISH VOLUNTEERS DECIDED TO TRANSPOSE."

You may not think of it as I do, but basically these FALSE and MISLEADING TITLES are like BAIT and SWITCH.

Why does JewishGen think that if they are going to turn over all their records to Ancestry.com that they should continue to run their own web site and plead constantly for more volunteers and more donations?

You can always use FAMILYSEARCH on the INTERNET FOR FREE.

MY DOG IS AN HONORARY HUNGARIAN!

My dog is not a Puli or any other "Hungarian Breed."  Let's just say that a few days after I adopted her I took her to a vet and asked him, "Do you think she's a Maltese Poodle?"  He said, "Could Be!"  He also said that looking at her teeth she could be younger than her paperwork claimed.

Well, are Poodle's German and Maltese from Malta?  Malta as a tiny Mediterranean Island near the boot of Italy?

"Do many people get the DNA test to prove their dog is a pure breed?"  I asked.

He sort of chuckled.  "Yes!  And you would not believe how many dogs that are this big (he showed with his hands - a small Maltese-Poodle kind of dog) were this big (he showed with his hands the size of a wolf) just two generations ago!"

Well, I was looking for a POMERANIAN (you Hungarians may have heard of these dogs called "Poms," when I fell in love with my Maltese-Poodle, and I'm so happy with her.  I love her.  But once in a while when we're out walking someone will comment.  "Well, that tail is no poodle."  or "Her coloring is interesting...strange..." 

Then I say, "Well I suspect Mama was the Maltese and Daddy was an Apricot Mini Poodle!"
So she got adopted by me, a Magyar-American.

Here is why I consider her an HONORARY HUNGARIAN.

1) She loves to taste test.  I have to watch her constantly.  With the eyes in the back of her head she has managed to outsmart me several times.  We're walking down the street, I see nothing, and suddenly she has an ancient chicken leg with decayed meat covered in red ants in her mouth and I'm screaming "Spit it out!" (As if dogs understand long sentences.)  In my opinion Hungarians are "foodies."

2) She loves to eat steamed cabbage and other veggies.
She also loves to eat steamed cauliflower, broccoli, peas, green beans, zucchini, sometimes she will eat parsley, and has been known to munch on grass, marigolds, fennel, and other herbs.

3) She doesn't much like dog beds.  She loves a bed made of comforters, quilts, old blankets and towels which she like to turn around a few times in to make herself a nest.  She will look for an elevated place that's like a pillow for her head.

4) She likes to listen to symphony orchestras, pianos, solo guitars, and yes violins, especially high pitched tones. How do I know?  Well, because when I play these on the radio she will lounge, but with her eyes open.

5) She loves me!

C 2016 Magyar American BlogSpot

THEY ALL PLAY VIOLINS HUNGARIAN / HUNGARIAN-AMERICAN STEREOTYPE

 

 

Picture from GRAPHICS FAIRY Said to be from 1923 and Oscar March

Public Domain Vintage search

 

 

This stereotype is one of the least offensive, considering that so many of the inaccurate stereotypes of Hungarians and Hungarian-Americans can hurt.  

Sure, the violin is a well appreciated and valued instrument.

 

But the "they all play violins" idea is actually more based in the reality that violin playing GYPSIES (ROM) were and are often hired to play for weddings and other important occasions.

Clip art from ALL FREE DOWNLOADS

It's tied into the wrong ideas that ALL GYPSIES ARE HUNGARIAN and that all HUNGARIANS have at least some gypsy in them.

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LILACS NEED MATES

My father tried to get a lilac tree going in our yard, and this particular lilac tree never grew, never died, never had blooms.  How disappointing! We wanted this tree because we had seen and smelled the glorious blooms of other trees in other yards.  Then one day someone told us that the tree would not bloom because it did not have a mate nearby enough.  We came to understand that with lilacs there are "males" and "females" (which we had, I do not know) and that they needed to be close by each other for one of them to bloom.

SOME NEW ANCESTRY DATABASES MAY BE USEFUL TO HUNGARIAN and HUNGARIAN AMERICAN GENEOLOGY RESEARCHERS

HUNGARY CIVIL REGISTRATIONS 1895-1978  (Indexes)

ROMANIA VITAL RECORDS FOR SELECTED REGIONS  1595-1914  (In German)

These are two of the newer offerings by the popular ANCESTRY genealogy databases that may be helpful to some of you.  I tried both of them and didn't find anything for my own particular family history project/genealogy.  The trouble is that there is little to nothing for certain Hungarian Counties.

As a note, there are many JEWISH GEN contributions to the ANCESTRY DATABASES.  Sadly, I was witness years ago to some of the data collection going on by volunteers working for JEWISHGEN at one of the LDS Family History Centers.  They were scrolling microfilm and making judgments on who was or wasn't Jewish.   One of these volunteers admitted to me that he had not realized that Christians/Catholics also used some Biblical given names (first names) and had submitted these people as Jewish.  It goes to show you, that you MUST go to the original source material and decide for yourself.

Additionally, there may be USEFUL NOTATIONS that are not recorded by indexing projects, just ignored, or because there is no one to translate the notes properly.

You may want to also look for FUNERAL NOTICES, though these appeared where there were actual newspapers and may have only been for those who paid for the notice.

THE "HUNGARIAN FOLK" WEBSITE has FOLK MOTIFS by REGION

HUNGARIAN FOLK - HUNGARIAN FOLK MOTIFS

According to the authors of this web site, not only are some motifs regional, some villages have their own...

From the web site - go there to see more!

I MEET A HUNGARIAN- AMERICAN NEIGHBOR FOR THE FIRST TIME : HE CAN COMMUNICATE WITH FINNISH PEOPLE and HIS CHINESE GIRLFRIEND!

Oh the MYSTERIOUSNESS of being HUNGARIAN!  And Hungarians themselves are into the mystery of our origins and reading all around the human genome and DNA about now.

Last week, walking my dog, I happened to meet a neighbor I didn't know about who is a Hungarian-American of recent vintage.  What an interesting and enthusiastic young person!

Of course, he mentioned that his people were now calling themselves Germans and Slovaks as well, because of well - the way the countries borders changed.  But his first language is Hungarian, and I must stay his English is excellent, just enough accent to know that.  He lives with his CHINESE girlfriend.

We talked for quite a long time.  Enough that my dog lay down without being told to.  (She knows that "mom is going to have a long conversation!")

I told him at the start of the conversation that I do genealogy research, that I don't speak Hungarian, but that I translate with the help of dictionaries and by asking other people who do speak it when I get stuck.  I told him that I was convinced it was an Asian language, because by putting words in front or back or a root, you change the word - the imagery - that Hungarian is a poetical and humorous language. 

I told him that sometimes when I translate place names, for instance, I'm reminded of the translations one gets in certain Chinese restaurants.  For instance, one place, which is on a plateau with a lot of pine trees around seemed to be named "Black Hat."  (One Chinese soup that has something for everyone to pick out of it is called "Happy Family.")

"I can understand Finnish people!  I can understand things my girlfriend says and she's Chinese, because of that placement," he said.  "We're MONGOLIANS!"

To finesse this a bit, there is evidence that while the LANGUAGE, which is not from the Latin, and not from the Slavs, probably came from an ancient starter population that dominated life at some point, and there is evidence that the Mongolians DNA is in, not only some Hungarians, but in a swath of countries, including southern Poland, parts of Germany, and so on,  it may be a case of the DNA being diverse and the language being what prevailed even if the original native speakers' DNA became minority DNA.

I look into this every few months, because I know that DNA and the human genome science is getting more and more specific and interesting all the time.

I look forward to another conversation in the moment with Ferenz!

EASTER

THE DOG STOLE THE SAUSAGE FROM THE EASTER BASKET AFTER IT WAS BLESSED

We often got our Easter Baskets blessed on Easter Saturday, not at the parish we belonged to, which didn't offer this, but another parish a few miles away.  Inside each basket there were home baked breads and rolls, and other items that were intended for our Easter Day lunch, things like boiled eggs, celery, salt, butter, meats like ham, and - of course - for the children, Chocolate Easter bunnies, jelly beans, and marshmallow chicks.  We rarely got candy so these were really special. 

All these would be laid upon a bed of artificial cellophane grass, most often green, but sometimes pink or yellow, and an old cloth doily would be placed over the top of the precious basket.  We would go into the church and arrange our baskets an the kneeler along the communion rail.  (As I write this I wonder if all my readers will know what I mean.  In our churches it was common to separate the altar area with a metal rail. These days in many churches people stand in line for Holy Communion and do not kneel.)  We would expose the contents of the basket to the upcoming rain of Holy Water by folding the doily aside.  Then go to sit in the pews to listen to a brief  but sincere Easter prayer lead by the priest and the blessing.

One year my mother's picnic sized hamper included a large sausage.
That year one of the priests at this parish had a pet - a large dog.

As the parishioners settled back into a moment of fervent prayer, the priest's dog came down the center isle of the church.  Before anyone could imagine what he might be up to, the dog snatched the large sausage and ran out of the church with it.  Smart dog!

The serious Easter prayer was punctuated by the wild suppression of laughter, as everyone attempted to avoid laughing out loud or running out of the church after the dog - who was long gone.  Their shoulders shook in glee.

My mom took it well.

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CROWNED RABBIT IMAGE FROM RUSSIA

EASTER EGGS - HUNGARIAN STYLE

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SPRING - PLANS FOR A GARDEN - YOU TOO CAN MAKE SEED BALLS and PROVIDE BUTTERFLY and BEE FRIENDLY FLOWERS

MY GARDEN is starting to spout,

 including some plants that made it through the winter

that were only doing so so last year, including

YELLOW CALENDULA, PALE PINK PERFUMED SNAPDRAGONS, RED GERANIUM,

a single SUNFLOWER, and, the secret of whatever seeds I put into a SEED BALLS.

Since I posted on the heat wave, we finally got hit by a few rain showers locally. We will still attempt to conserve water. 

I attended a SEED BALL MAKING WORKSHOPS for ADULTS at a local LIBRARY here in Southern California a couple weeks ago.  The idea is to make these seed studded clay balls, then drop these them here, there, and everywhere there is a need for plants that butterflies and bees love .  (Try not to waste them by planting them where gardeners wack down anything they don't recognize as a weed!  But consider old graveyards, along certain road sides or crossings, between buildings... places were there is some land where they can grow as nature allows.)

You need to buy water based modeling clay such as the Crayola Air Dry Clay brand, which is the dough kids use to make little sculptures and comes in quart sized plastic buckets.  It turns out that this clay, water based, can harden but also resoften in the rain, or when you water it and the ball provides a good seed sprouting environment. 

You will also need some peat moss and some seeds.  We used Calfornia poppy seeds as well as a package of bird and butterfly mix.

Take about a quarter cup of this clay, roll it around into a ball, then flatten it like a pancake.  Sprinkle a generous amount of peat moss on it, and then a few seeds.  Roll this again into a ball, and roll the ball in more peat moss.  Viola!  You have a seed ball.

One thing California and Hungary have in common is POPPIES.  Our native poppies, a brilliant gold color, are our state flower, and one of the reasons that California is called The Golden State.   (The other reason is that by summer much of the once-green landscape is covered with golden dried out vegetation.)  We had some rain, finally, and the desert, including various succulents and cactus,  should be blooming brilliantly very soon. 

I made eight balls in fifteen minutes.  You do not need to dig deep to plant these balls.  Just a little scoop out or simply place them on furrowed ground.  Four of them I planted along an old abandoned rail road track that has a path past it.  So far, I have not seen anything sprouting when I walk past this area, but you never know.  Because of the rains there are the native California mustard plant (short, unlike the Spanish mustard the Spanish explorers are responsible for, as they claimed the country for Spain by throwing their own mustard seeds), as well as native wild geranium (rarely do these survive long enough to bloom out due to all those wackers!), mint, and a number of small yellow flowered and purple flowered ground covers that seem to hibernate for years just waiting for enough rain to sprout.

The four balls I left in a bag to be planted later all sprouted in the bag and have been transferred into a large pot.  I cannot wait for one or all of them to grow into beautiful plants that I can try to identify!

I found this link that will explain more about seed balls PERMA CULTURE - ANCIENT METHOD OF NO TILL AGRICULTURE