FamilySearch Find of the Day: My Long-Lost Aunt

A few weeks ago, I was doing some indexing and arbitrating for the Hungarian civil registration records on FamilySearch Indexing. To my surprise, it was my great-grandfather's town of Büdszentmihály, in Szabolcs county! Within the first few batches, I came upon a birth record for a Gombás child. I immediately saw the father's name was Gombás Sándor (the name of my 2nd-great-grandfather), but kind of pushed it off the burner thinking I had all the children for my 2nd-great-grandparents. But then I saw the house number Sándor was living in; it was the house number MY Sándor had grew up and lived in! I went down and looked at the mother's name, and there she was.. my 2nd-great-grandmother, Tóth Eszter. I was blown away that I had found a sibling to my great-grandfather that I hadn't known about. I stopped indexing and analyzed the whole record, extracted the information and went and saved the actual image off FamilySearch. To my delight, the record gave mention of the child's date of death and the record number! The two records below are the child's birth record and death record, respectively.

Entry Number: 73
Place: Szentmihályon (in Szentmihály)
Date of Registration: 30 November 1895
Name of Informant: Schwart Fáni
Occupation: Midwife
Residence: Szentmihály
Father: Gombás Sándor
Religion: Evangelical Reformed
Occupation: Farmer
Residence: Szentmihály, House Number 1041
Place of Birth: Szentmihály
Age: 23
Mother: Tóth Eszter
Religion: Evangelical Reformed
Occupation: Homemaker
Residence: Szentmihály
Place of Birth: Tiszadob, Szabolcs county
Age: 21
Place of Birth: Szentmihály, House Number 1041
Date of Birth: 26 November 1895, 9am
Gender: Female
Religion: Evangelical Reformed
Name: Eszter
Notes (bottom):
Schwartz Fáni was the midwife.
Notes (top left):
The child died on 14 December 1895, entry number 47.


Entry Number: 47
Place: Szentmihályon (in Szentmihály)
Date of Registration: 15 December 1895
Name of Informant: S. Nagy Sándor (who is this man??)
Occupation: Farmer
Residence: Szentmihály, House Number 352
Name of Deceased: Gombás Eszter
Religion: Evangelical Reformed
Residence: Szentmihály, House Number 1041
Place of Birth: Szentmihály
Age: 19 days
Father: Gombás Sándor, farmer in Szentmihály
Mother: Tóth Eszter, homemaker in Szentmihály
Place of Death: Szentmihály, House Number 1041
Date of Death: 14 December 1895, 8pm
Cause of Death: Congenital disease
Notes: S. Nagy Sándor was the informant of the death.

Hungarian Parish Records Guide #2

In continuing with the Hungarian Reformed Church parish records, I decided on two marriage records for 1895. The first one will be from a village called Taktaszada and the second being from Tiszadob. I'm doing two villages because the style of the records are different.

Let's begin with the marriage from Taktaszada.


(Click the image for a larger view)

The title of the page says "Házassági életre öszveadattak anyakönyve." Keeping it simple, this means "Marriage Register", with "házsassági" meaning "marriage".

The first column states "Folyószám" and means "Current number".

The second column states "Éve és napja az öszvecsketésnek" and this means "Year and date of the marriage".

The third column states "A völegény" which means "The groom", and is followed by six subsequent columns. The first of which is "Neve és polgári állása". This means "Name and civil standing", as in the occupation. The second column is "Szüléinek neve" which means "Name of parents". The third column is "Származásának és lakásának helye, száma a háznak". This means "Place of origin and current location, and house number. The fourth column is religions, "Vallása". The fifth column is the age of the groom, "Életkora". The sixth column, "Állapota", is the groom's "Condition". His choices were either single, "Nötlen", or widowed "Özvegy".

The fourth column states "A menyasszony", which is simply "The bride". "Asszony" means "woman", as in a married woman. There are also six subsequent columns for the bride, just like for the groom. They all mean the exact same thing.

The fifth column states "Neveik és polgári állásuk a tanúknak". This means "Name and civil standing of the witnesses".

The sixth column states "Neve és hivatala az esketónek" which means "Name and office of the priest".

The seventh column states "Hirdettek-e vagy feloldeztattak a hirdetés alól, felsõségi rendelet utján vagy valamely akadály miatt." This may be confusing to some. It states whether the bride and groom have published their intent to marriage in their local area, as ordered by regulation. This was ordered incase a bride or a groom was not capable of being married, (ie. already married, an arranged marriage was proposed with one of the individual, or if someone objected to the marriage for some reason. Most usually it states their intent was published for three consecutive days prior to the marriage.

The last column is the "Comments" column, with "Comments" translating to be "Észrevételek".

Now let's begin on the marriage from Tiszadob.
(Check out my g-g-grandparents marriage at number 11!)

(Click the image for a larger view)

The heading is different in the Tiszadob marriage record. It states "Esketési Jegyzõkönyv", which means "Marriage Protocol".

As in the Taktaszada marriage record, the first two columns are the same. The second column bearing the dates is only worded slightly differently as "Év és napja az esketésnek".

The third column is "Võlegénynek és Menyasszonynak" which means "Grooms and Brides". This column have five subsequent columns. The first of which is the name and civil standing column, "Neve és állapota". The second column is "Születési és lakhelye a házszámával", which means "Place of birth and current location, and house number". The next three columns are the same as they appear in the Taktaszada document. They are the columns for Religion, Age and their Condition (whether single or widowed).

The fourth column, which begins on the second page, is "Tanuk neve, állapota". These are the "Witness names and status".

The fifth column is the same as the one in the Taktaszada document, as it pertains to the pastor who performed the ceremony.

The sixth column is again the same column, as it pertains to the dates of proclamating their marriage to any who may object.

The last column is the same as Taktaszada, being the "Comments" column.

As you can see, these two marriage records in the majority are similar. But you can see subtle differences that appear in the style and layout of the document. I think this is a great example of how records from the same point in time don't necessarily have to look exactly the same. Also as a side note, Taktaszada and Tiszadob are neighboring villages.

Hungarian Parish Records Guide #1

I thought it would be a great idea to create a few guides to help others with their research. These series of guides will be all about parish records and how to decipher them. I'll include image examples to help explain as well. I'll also do a range of records from different points in time. I'll do this because the records usually tended to change drastically from whenever they began to 1895.

The first few guides will pertain to the Hungarian Reformed Church (Magyarországi Református Egyház). It is the second-largest denomination in Hungary. The first is, of course, Roman Catholic. The Hungarian Reformed Church is in the Calvinist tradition, therefore it is sometimes refered to in English as the Calvinist Church.

Let's begin with a style of record you're most likely to encounter when you first begin your research. This is a baptism from 1895.

(Click the image for a larger view)


The top left and right of each page should give a page number, no matter which denomination church records you're viewing. Beginning on the left page are the typed words "Keresztségi anyakönyv a" , meaning "Baptism register the". This is followed by written words "taktaszadai ev. ref." This is simply the name of the town and which denomination church these records belong to. The following page begins with "egyházban 1895-ik esztendöben. This means "church in the year 1895". So the heading of the pages mean "Baptism registers of the Taktaszada Evangelical Reformed church in the year 1895".
The first column is "Sorszám" which means "Number".
The second column is "Napja a", meaning "Day of". This is followed by two subsequent columns below it: "születésnek" and "keresztelésnek". The first meaning birth and the second meaning baptism, so naturally "Day of birth" and "Day of baptism".
The third column is "A keresztelendõ", meaning "The christened's". Then this is followed by four subsequent columns. The first of which is "neve", which translates literally to mean "name". The next is "neme" which means "gender", and followed by two more subsequent columns. The first is "fi" meaning "male" and the second is "nõ" meaning "female". The last two subsequent columns are "törvényes" and "törvénytelen". They mean "legitimate" and "illegitimate".
The fourth column is "Nevük és polgári állásuk a szülléknek". This means "The names and occupations of the parents".
The fifth column, which begins on the second page, is "Lakhely, házszám". "Lakhely" means "location" and "házszám" means "house number".
The sixth column is "Nevük és polgári állásuk a keresztszülléknek". This means "The names and occupations of the baptismal parents". They are otherwise known as the god-parents or sponsors.
The seventh column is "Keresztelõ személy neve". This means "Name of the baptizer". This was usually the priest or pastor of the church.
The eigth and last column is "Észrevételek". This means "comments".