What's Been Going On Lately

I've been doing a lot more Hungarian research lately, in several new towns.  And i've been doing some new nobility research in Zemplén megye as well.  I'm finding that our great-great-grandmother Eszter (Tóth) Gombash's family is much more complex and diverse than I originally thought.

Only a week or two ago, I found the death record for her 2nd great-grandmother, Zsuzsánna (Fekete) Szük.  She died in 1791 at the young age of 38.  What I found in her death record was what I had been hoping for, the mention of 'nemes'.. which of course means 'noble' in Hungarian.  There was another noble Fekete family in the same village, and I have a feeling it might be her nephew's family.  I'm going to have to track this noble Fekete family down.  Just a fun fact; 'Fekete' means 'Black' when translated into English.

As of right now for Eszter (Tóth) Gombash, I have her descending from 6 distinct noble families: Tóth (in 1580), Bódogh (in 1611), Porkoláb (in 1635), Szük (in 1690, possibly previously in 1638), Fekete (unknown date) and Miskolczy (unknown date).

The Miskolczy family comes through Erzsébet Miskolczy.  She was  Eszter (Tóth) Gombash's 3rd great-grandmother.  Erzsébet was born about 1710 and married to András Szük.. they lived in Taktaszada.  There was a very well-to-do land owning Miskolczy family in the neighboring town Mád.  A Péter Miskolczy held possessions in Mád from at least 1670 to 1689.  I believe him to be Erzsébet's grandfather.  This Miskolczy family that resided in Mád was the korponai Miskolczy family, or otherwise known as Miskolczy de Korpona.  This family was a branch of the pávai Miskolczy family (Miskolczy de Páva).  This was a Transylvanian family.  Their coat of arms was recorded in Count Teleki's family archives in Marosvásárhely, Transylvania.  I have ordered the receords for this coat of arms; they should be arriving at my local FHC any day now.  Hopefully there will be some kind of nobility information along with the coat of arms.

I'll have more to write in the next few days.

The Tóth Family: Their Nobility and Coat of Arms!; December 08, 2008

Only two weeks ago, I finally came across our Tóth family's nobility information, along with a coat of arms. In the very reliable source called 'Magyarország Vármegyéi és Városai' by Sámuel Borovszky, I found this information about our Tiszadob Tóth's:

Rudolf királyt

ól kapott armálist. Kihirdettetett Külsõ-Szolnok vármegyében.

T. Mihály 1725-ben Dobon lakott.

Which basically means: Mihály Tóth, living in Tiszadob in 1725,

whose family from Külsõ-Szolnok county was granted nobility by King Rudolf.

Here is the Nobility and Coat of Arms information for the Tóth:

On 26 Feb 1580 in Prague, King Rudolf granted nobility and a coat of arms to four brothers: Imre, Benedek, Jakob a

nd Ambruzs Tóth. It was later recorded in Eger, Heves megye, Hungary in 1583.

It's Been A While; December 08, 2008

I haven't written a blog in quite a while, so I decided it was time to do so.

I'm nearly complete with my Tiszadob transcription project. I have all baptism, marriage and death complete, except for 20 years worth of deaths. I'm hoping it'll be done before the year ends. I'm also contemplating on whether I should begin the same project on a neighboring town to Tiszadob, Taktaszada.

Another addition to the census page for the Tiszadob records soon will be the 1720 census. The Hungarian archives is currently digitizing and transcribing this census.

Soon, I'll also begin undertaking a project for Langlade County, Wisconsin. I ordered the Indexes to the Naturalization records for the county, and I plan on transcribing them and placing an index online. I'll then offer my services to retrieve copies of these records, for a small fee. That small fee will be used to cover my travel, copying and microfilm costs. Don't worry, it'll be a VERY small fee.

FamilySearch Record Search: Update On Progress!; April 15, 2008

I corresponded today with the "FamilySearch Support" team that answers questions and comments about the new projects that FamilySearch has been developing.  Now keep in mind this information is in no way accurate, it may change.. it is only an estimate:

The main objective of RecordSearch and the mass digitization project of the microfilm archives, is to eliminate the need to circulate the actual microfilm to your local FHC's.  I was told that there are 2.5 millions rolls of microfilm held in the vaults waiting to be digitized.  Now with the equipment they have, they can scan and digitize 1,000 rolls of microfilm a day.. so it can take nearly 10 years, as I was told (again only an estimate, and the numbers could change).

I personally think this project is GREAT!  I would love to be in Salt Lake City helping out with digitizing, but I can help at home by going to FamilySearch Indexing and transcribe and index records that had already been digitized.  I have written about this Indexing project before, and so far it has already shown promising signs on the Record Search portion of the site, with the digitized images.  It's just amazing how fast things can be done!  I can't wait for things to get fully underway and to start seeing some major results!  I'm hoping to see a huge new interest into the genealogy world by newbies in the next few years.. I can't wait!

RadixLog: Hungarian genealogy news blog; March 31, 2008

I was mentioned on János Bogárdi's genealogy blog RadixLog today! RadixLog has been a great source for links to new records and archives available in Hungary, including news in the Hungarian genealogy world.

János's Radix website is an invaluable resource for the Hungarian genealogist.  With links to such a variety of records and archives, and records held on his site.. it's my first stop when searching for anything.

Thank you, János.. keep up the great work!

Tiszadob, Hungary: Marriage & Census Records; March 31, 2008

I recently decided to gather and put together records to aid in my genealogy research of Tiszadob.  I was contemplating a book, but I later decided a website would be much easier to do.  It'd be more easily available to others also researching in Tiszadob.

I so far have all the marriages of Tiszadob indexed.. that's years 1786 to 1895.  The records began in 1786, go to 1895 and then civil registration began in Hungary in 1896.

I have also added census records for the years 1714, 1715, 1744, 1746, 1828 and 1832.

Tiszadob, Hungary: Eszter Tóth's Ancestry & Family; March 08, 2008

It's been a while since I last wrote, so I decided to write a new entry.  I've done an extensive amount of research in the Tiszadob church parish registers.  In my first entry I mentioned how I had 1,255 individuals from Tiszadob in my database.  After just under a month's worth of research, I now have 1,602.. that's 347 new individuals!

I've also received an email from a wonderful woman named Linda (Toki) Walters, who is a distant relative of ours through the Bódogh family.  Her contacting me with information has added a whole new line of descendancy information to the family tree!

I've recently been thinking about adding a section to the website devoted to the nobility of Tiszadob, which involves our family.. and those that tie into our family.  Of the 1,602 individuals in my database, 699 of them are of noble birth.. so far.  I'm sure I've skipped a few that I need to find.  They're mostly from these families:

Balogh Dancs Péchy Tóth

Baráth Jánossy Porkoláb Zákány

Bódogh Lakatos Szük .

News - Good & Bad; February 20, 2008

Well I'll start off with the bad news first.  It's not necessarily bad news, but it's a pain.  I've decided to take down all my family tree data off my website today.  I've come across people stealing my hard-worked information from Germany and Hungary.  It has taken me too many hours, days, months and years to work for and search for all this information, for it to easily be taken by someone else and me not credited for any of my hard work.  It is because of this that I have taken down all my information, until further notice.

Now for the good news!  I received a call on Sunday from a cousin named Pat Armstrong.  Her mother was Elizabeth Gombash, daughter of Alex and Eszter (Tóth) Gombash.  She shared with me a few short stories about a few people in the family, and also told me that she has many many pictures!  She has all the pictures from three seperate Aunts.. Aunt Esther, Elizabeth (her mother) and Julia.. all daughter of Alex and Eszter.  She told me she had pictures going back to Hungary, that were so old she didn't even know who they were.  There are some with writing and dates in Hungarian also.

I called her again the next day, Monday, and asked her about something I've been searching for, for nearly 8 years now.  I asked her about the family legend of a King or a Prince in the family.  She said it was true.. and it was two Kings!  She also went on to tell me that she received from Aunt Esther, 5 pages worth of information brought over from Hungary.  These 5 pages contain descendancy information from the King to our ancestors that immigrated to the USA.  It has wives, siblings, children.. everything!  I asked her for copies of the information and she will hopefully be sending it out soon!  I will definitely be posting the information when I get it!

FamilySearch Labs - AMAZING!; February 13, 2008

The LDS & FamilySearch have really come a long way since I first began my research about 7 years ago.  They have created a new project called FamilySearch Labs.  The purpose of FamilySearch Labs is to create and showcase new technologies for the genealogy community.  So far they have seven projects available to the public: Family Tree, FamilySearch Indexing, Life Browser Prototype, Pedigree Viewer, Record Search, Research Wiki and Standard Finder.

Of these seven projects, I'm constantly using two: FamilySearch Indexing and Record Search.

FamilySearch Indexing is a great project that allows the genealogy community to help FamilySearch build up their wealth of information, and it aids the researchers too!  Here is the project's description from their website:

"Extract family history information from digital images of historical documents to create indexes that assist everyone in finding their ancestors."

After FamilySearch Indexing has compiled an index for records, it's then taken to the other project that I already use extensively: Record Search.  Here is the project's description from their website:

"Record Search helps you identify your ancestors by letting you search millions of indexed records and by letting you browse images of records that have not yet been indexed.  Quickly you can begin to uncover information about your ancestors that may have required days and or weeks of work."

If you're a member of the genealogy community, I greatly recommend using these great tools.  It'd be great to help with the FamilySearch Indexing project as well.. the quicker records are indexed, the quicker the records will become available to the public!

FamilySearch

FamilySearch Labs

FamilySearch Indexing

FamilySearch Record Search

My First Entry; February 13, 2008

This is the first entry in my new genealogy blog I've recently decided to write. In this blog I'll discuss things I come across during my research, like websites, databases, people connected to the family tree.. just things that I find useful in my daily scouring of the internet and of records.

In my first blog I wanted to discuss my family tree and the immense amount of information in my database. As of right now, writing this blog, I have 49,943 individuals in my database. I want to explain who all of these people are. In my database I of course have my direct lineage for all of my ancestors.. but I also like to research the families and descendants of the siblings of my ancestors. This is where a big portion of the individuals come from.

The major portion of my database comes from the extensive amount of information on noble and royal families. I am descended from nobility on my father's side (which you will read below) and royalty on my mother's side. I have a love and an obsession for all things to do with nobility (mostly Hungarian), royalty and monarchies in Europe, so I naturally have nearly every single King or Queen of every country of Europe in my database. As of my information right now, I currently descend from 234 Kings or Queens of Europe.. they're from Armenia, Bohemia, England, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Scotland, Serbia, Spain and Sweden. So naturally, this makes me related to every single European monarch or royal family.

My Father's side:

The ethnicities of my father's side is comprised of Hungarian and Polish.

From the oldest-known progenitor of the Gombash line, a György Gombás who was born in the 1690's, I have a total of 294 descendants. I also have 197 individuals from Büdszentmihály, the village Alex Gombash came from.

The other branch is Eszter Tóth, Alex Gombash's wife. The oldest-known progenitor of the Tóth line, a Mihály Tóth who was alive during the early to mid-1700's, currently has a total of 355 descendants. I also have 1,255 individuals from Tiszadob, the village Eszter Tóth came from.

I have lacked on the research in Büdszentmihály, but I have done extensive research in Tiszadob. This is because Eszter Tóth comes from an extremely noble background; each of her four grandparents were of noble birth. There were two Tóth families, the Bódogh family and the Szük family.

There is a family story or legend that says one of our families was descended from a King from around 1500, and the earlier surname of the family as 'Matis'. We have a distant cousin of ours who lives in Ohio; we're related to her through the Bódogh and Tóth families. Her family also has a family story or legend, and it says that a prince had married a gypsy and he therefore lost all inheritance rights (what a love story, ya?!). If you know anything about either of these stories, or know who might, please contact me.

Tóth is the single most common surname in Hungary, and it means 'Slovak' (the ethnicity).

The Bódogh's were granted a patent of nobility and a coat of arms in 1611 by King Matthias II. The Bódogh name means 'happy'. I currently have 1,370 descendants of the Bódogh family and 374 individuals that carry the surname. This family is the main focus of all my research.

The Szük's were granted a patent of nobility and a coat of arms in 1636 by King Ferdinand II. The Szük name means 'narrow' or 'thin'.

My Mother's side:
As proud as I am of my heritage on my father's side, I am by far more proud of my heritage on my mother's side. The ethnicities of my mother's side is comprised of Bohemian, English, German, Irish, Native American, Scottish and Welsh. Her family consists of individuals involved in the Civil War, Revolutionary War, War of 1812, WWI and WWII. It has deeply rooted Native American ancestry connected to the beginning of the United States and Jamestown, royalty from all over Europe, and vast land owners in Germany.

The Rodgers family has been in America since the early 1700's. The oldest-known progenitor is a James Rodgers, who died around 1760 in Virginia. I currently have 1,953 descendants for him in my database, and 552 of them bearing the Rodgers surname.

The Stuempges have an interesting quirk from their early beginning. The oldest-known Stuempges progenitor is a Vit Stümpges, who lived from 1545 to 1592. It is through his granddaughter Giertgen Stümpges (1617-after 1693) that the Stuempges carry their surname. She was married to a Thönis am Bleeckkamp and they had 9 children. Their children carried the Stümpges surname.. their mother's name.. not their father's.

The one last main portion of my research is the Summ/Blum family, from Gutach, Germany. I have many lines dating back to the early, mid or late 1500's. I currently have 928 individuals from Gutach. Our ancestor John George Summ who married Maria Blum, came from a family that owned a house called 'Vogtsbauernhof' in Gutach. This house is currently the main focus point of a large museum in Gutach.