^{The News}
Dedicated to Austrian-Hungarian Burgenland Family History

1) THE PRESIDENT'S CORNER (by Tom Steichen)

My random bits and pieces (Article 1) starts with a report that 52 Ukrainian children who were evacuated to Burgenland three years ago were repatriated to Ukraine by Ukrainian authorities, much to the dismay of some in Burgenland. Our second bit reports that, with the passing of Frank Paukowits, BH&R will move from being an affiliate of the BB to an official part of the BB, under the leadership of Bob Strauch. In a related bit, Ed Traupmann wrote to express his sympathies on the passing of Frank, his second cousin, and to tell about his upcoming European trip. Our fourth bit talks about the US National DNA Day, something I was unaware of... perhaps this is news to you too. The fifth bit reports that FamilySearch is adding a full-text search capability, which is built on their AI transcription data. The sixth bit returns to the saga around the bankruptcy sale of 23andMe. It appears it may be a while before everything is resolved. Bit seven is yet another report of no action on the final six Lutheran parishes as far as their records being placed online... does anyone know what happened? Bit eight concerns a pleasant response to the Historical BB Newsletter Article I published last month. The eighth bit is about private gun ownership in Burgenland, a discussion sadly prompted by a mass school shooting in nearby Styria. My final bit concerns Lyme disease, an issue I had to deal with this past month. My personal experience made me wonder how common it is in Burgenland.

Our regular tidbits include the monthly BB Facebook report, book sales, and some Words for Thought.

We conclude with our standard sections: A Historical BB Newsletter article, Ethnic Events and Emigrant Obituaries.



Orphans Repatriated to Ukraine from Burgenland: Over three years ago at the beginning of the Ukraine/Russia war, 52 children, now aged between three and nine were evacuated from an orphanage in the Ukrainian city of Kropyvnytskyi and were housed in a vacant hostel in Neudauberg in the Güssing district. Early in the morning of June 1st they were brought back to Ukraine from Burgenland. Two weeks before that, Ukrainian authorities had announced the repatriation operation, a plan which was quickly met with criticism.

Johannes Wallner, the operator of the hostel in Neudauberg, tried to prevent the departure until the very end, saying "The children are now coming from a secure environment to a completely unsafe home and an uncertain future." For him, their departure was extremely difficult, as he had followed "the positive development of the children" for more than three years. The operation was also met with incomprehension by some residents in Neudauberg, who asked why the children had to go back to the war when they went safely to school and kindergarten in Burgenland. The mayor of the Neudauberg said it was irresponsible to evacuate the minors to a war zone.

The Burgenland government went so far as to send letters to the Ukrainian embassy, the Foreign Ministry and the Federal Chancellery arguing that Ukraine should reconsider the move in view of the current security situation and postpone the repatriation. However, this attempt was also unsuccessful.

It was agreed at the beginning of the war that the children would be brought back to Ukraine eventually, so only the timing was questionable. On the other side, the director of the orphanage in Ukraine, in coordination with the Ukrainian authorities, pushed the action forward. They justified the repatriation at this time by the fact that there were already adoptive or foster parents for ten of the children, further noting that, in Ukraine, "the children only have a chance of adoption or a family at their current age, after which only a boarding school remains."

Because of the heartfelt but sharp criticism, the departure of the orphans was planned for 3 am to attract as little attention as possible, but by 2 am the children were already sitting in the buses provided, so the repatriation operation was immediately carried out.



BH&R now an Official Part of the BB: As I mentioned last month, Burgenländers Honored and Remembered (BH&R) originally was an independent project created by Frank Paukowits and his father-in-law, Anton Traupmann. They developed a list of deceased relatives and friends who left Burgenland and settled and eventually died in the NYC area. Their list was begun in 2003 and quickly swelled to several hundred names. The growing size of it prompted the idea of a database on the web, which became a reality through the efforts of web-builder Frank Klepeis; BH&R was born.

BH&R continued to grow, adding modules for other areas and reaching over 4,000 names by early 2008, then disaster nearly struck. With just a two-week notice, AOL stated it was shutting down its user server farm, which was the host for the BH&R web pages. Our BB quickly offered space on our server and ported it over to our pages, beginning BH&R's direct affiliation with the BB, where it has continued to grow and is now approaching 30,000 listed honorees from Burgenländer enclaves across the US and Canada.

BB staffers Bob Strauch and Margaret Kaiser were key members of Frank's project, spending many hours visiting cemeteries, researching databases and culling through other resource materials to identify deceased Burgenländers and their grave locations for the various Remembrance List modules. I took over "webmaster" duties after BH&R affiliated with the BB, making sure everything worked on the computer side. Over time, both Frank and Margaret "aged out" of active participation and Bob became the sole person providing additions to the database, while I took over all the auxiliary aspects of the site. Nonetheless, BH&R remained only "affiliated" to the BB, officially operating independent of us; we merely provided server space and management services.

Now with Frank gone, Bob and I have agreed that the BB should officially "annex" BH&R and make it fully a part of the BB. Without objection, we will do that. In addition, Bob will move from the "contributing" side to the "managing" side of the BB staff (those of us who routinely edit BB web pages), becoming the official BH&R Editor on the staff.



Ed Traupmann Comments on Frank Paukowits and A European Trip: Ed Traupmann wrote to me (in part) to express his "...deepest sympathies with the passing of Frank Paukowits, Frank was my dad's cousin, on dad's mom's side. My 2nd cousin and my confirmation godfather. Sorry to say, that with the passage of time, our families are getting smaller... very sad."

Ed also wrote (in part) to report that he had booked the initial stages of his family "annual trip to Europe this summer." The outline of the trip has him "landing in Frankfurt July 17, over to Rothenburg, Nordlingen, up to Berlin, Dresden, Potsdam, Prague, Vienna, then Tobaj, Burgenland... possible side trip to Pulla, Croatia... then home on August 15 from Vienna... 30 days." He says picture will be posted on the Facebook page of his wife, Agraphany Traupmann, so if you want to follow along vicariously, check it out.



National DNA Day: Were you aware that the US has a National DNA Day (and also a Human Genome month)? I was not, at least until a few weeks ago.

Apparently, the first National DNA Day was held on April 25, 2003, and was authorized by Congressional resolution and announced via proclamation by then-president George W Bush. Francis S Collins, then-director of the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) and one of the Human Genome Project leaders, had pushed Congress to honor the completion of the project on April 14, 2003. April 25th was chosen for the celebration as it was the publication date of Watson and Crick’s 1953 double helix research, a foundational discovery and a pivotal moment in DNA research.

In the 1970s, scientists began the arduous task of sequencing, or reading, the order of the 3.2 billion nucleotide pairs in human DNA. Thus began the Human Genome Project—a collaborative effort by researchers from 20 institutions around the world. Over the course of the first 13 years, they managed to sequence 92% of the human genome. It would take many more years to finalize the full genome.

Although the Congressional resolution only applied to 2003, the NHGRI has kept the holiday alive every year since. DNA Day is an opportunity for the public to learn about the latest genomic developments, discover how the research impacts human life, and learn other interesting facts about DNA. So, if you haven't checked your DNA matches recently, maybe you should honor the day too and log into your account!



FamilySearch Adding "Full-Text" Search: I'm sure you are aware that FamilySearch lets you search for ancestral names via indexed records. Likewise, I'm sure you know that the index does not include all the data that is in the underlying record; if available, you must pull up an image of the record to see what else is there. However, only a relatively small (but growing) portion of FamilySearch's billions of digitized historical records are indexed and searchable. If a record set has not been indexed, your only recourse has been to browse (i.e., manually page one-by-one) through the images to find records of interest.

With the advent of AI-powered handwriting recognition technology a few years ago, FamilySearch began developing a full-text search capability and announced at RootsTech 2024 that they were ready to offer it to beta-testers. While it still remains in development, this new search experience is now stable enough to be offered to everyone as an option for some record collections.

The technology apparently relies on the AI-created transcripts of records that were already being generated through AI-powered indexing efforts. This means you can now use keywords, names, places, and/or dates to search within all text of over 1 billion genealogically significant records that might have been available only as images before.

Currently, full-text search is available in the all-collections search on the signed-in FamilySearch home page and in the FamilySearch Catalog. When you sign in to FamilySearch.org, on the right side of your signed-in home page is a search feature with the heading “Search for an Ancestor.”

FamilySearch claims that "when looking at results from the all-collections search, you can choose “Full-Text Search” as one of the filter options in the left side bar. Find the option in the list, and click Full-Text Search. A new window or tab will open, showing results for your search that have become available through AI-generated transcripts."

However, working on my desktop computer, I have not found any "filter options in the left side bar." Perhaps this is because my selected searches have not generated any results from available AI-generated transcripts, or the feature has not yet been implemented on PC platforms.

In contrast, the ability to see them when selecting record sets from the FamilySearch Catalog does work for me. They write: "On FamilySearch.org, you can find the catalog by clicking Search in the top menu and then clicking Catalog. When browsing the catalog, if you find a promising collection, scroll down the page, and check the Film/Digital Notes section for format information. An icon of a document with a plus sign indicates that the collection is full-text searchable. Clicking this icon will bring up a list of all transcripts in that catalog collection and a search form on the right. Entering names and other keywords in the form will allow you to use full-text search on that particular collection instead of having to browse through each record to find names and other information."

Beyond this, full-text search is available as an experiment in FamilySearch Labs. I tried that and it worked fine. To try full-text search in FamilySearch Labs, go to FamilySearch.org/labs, sign in with your FamilySearch account, then find the Expand Your Search with Full Text box, and click Try It.



23andMe -- Round 2: Just when I thought the 23andMe story had come to an end, news was published to deny it. 23andMe's cofounder and former chief executive officer, Anne Wojcicki, successfully challenged the outcome of the bidding round where Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, with a bid of $256 million for the majority of the assets, was declared the winner. Apparently, Wojcicki demanded that the sale be reopened, saying that the auction was unfairly biased toward Regeneron because the maximum bid by her non-profit organization, TTAM Research Institute, was wrongly capped at $250 million.  TTAM, apparently, is an acronym for the first letters of 23andMe when the numbers are spelled out.

Regeneron's attorney argued that it was unfair for 23andMe to seek a "do-over" after the first auction, saying "the auction was over, the rules were clear." Nonetheless, the parties reached a compromise that will see Wojcicki make an initial bid of $305 million that Regeneron can counter with an offer of at least $315 million, with each party able to make one additional competing bid before a winner is selected.

However, 27 states and the District of Columbia then filed suit to block the sale of personal genetic data by 23andMe without explicit customer consent. If successful, the lawsuit would very likely substantially decrease the value of 23andMe assets, so Regeneron passed on a counter bid, leaving TTAM the apparent winner. TTAM’s acquisition is still subject to approval by the US Bankruptcy Court, and it is unknown whether the suit over the personal genetic data will cause TTAM to withdraw their bid.

While no new information about the current status of this acquisition is available, it has been reported that about 15% of 23andMe's customers have requested that their accounts be closed... and 23andMe has processed those requests. However, it was also reported in a congressional hearing that the "small text" of the 23andMe customer agreement indicates that their genetic data may still be retained by the company along with some personal identifying information. Lastly, it is notable that before the 23andMe board decided to declare bankruptcy, Wojcicki, along with New Mountain Capital, had attempted to buy out shareholders at a price that valued the company at only $74.7 million. Somehow, she now thinks the company is worth over four times more... shows why the board went the bankruptcy route!



Burgenland Evangelisch Record Images: I have been reporting for a number of months that the images of the matrikal records of the Burgenland Evangelisch churches (both classical Lutheran [Augsburg / A.B.] and classical Calvinist / Reformed [Helvetic / H.B.] confessions) were being placed online at data.matricula-online.eu/de/oesterreich/burgenland-ab-hb/. However, progress seems to have halted.

Over the first months of the year, 23 of the 29 parishes were uploaded. But since then nothing has changed. We still await five A.B. parishes (Kobersdorf, Nickelsdorf, Oberwart, Rechnitz, Siget) and one H.B. parish (Oberwart).



Historical BB Newsletter Article: Last month in the Historical section where we "recycle interesting articles from the BB Newsletters of 10 years ago," I expanded upon a bit from my President's Corner about side notes in the civil records (vital events that took place elsewhere but involved legal residents in the place where the side note was entered). Being it was ten years ago when I first wrote that bit, we were unable to complete the full assistance process in the manner we can today, in particular, we could not find the original record in that "elsewhere" place. Now with Matricula-Online, we can, so that is what I did, expanding the original bit to document that process.

The original bit was written about assistance to Harry Brunner, who was looking for the birth record for his grandmother, Hedwig Wukits. Back then, we were able to discover the correct village, Steinabrückl in Lower Austria, but the only recourse to see the actual record was to go there. Now with Matricula-Online, its records can be viewed from anywhere. Being pressed for time, I did not contact Harry with the added information, so I was pleasantly surprised to receive an email from Harry a few days after the newsletter was published. Harry wrote:

I was both surprised and delighted to see your response to my request for help from 10 years ago featured in this month’s BB Historical Newsletter Articles. I hadn’t realized that the Steinabrückl church records are now available on Matricula-Online. Thanks to that, I was able to find my grandmother’s baptism record as well as her parents’ marriage record.

Thank you again for your past assistance and for sharing valuable information about the original church records—it made my day!

I, of course, wrote back to Harry telling him that it also made my day to know he saw that update! In a further reply, he noted that he had found the desired birth record, plus the marriage record of the parents, the birth records of two siblings and the death record of one of those, and the stillbirth of yet another child. So Steinabrückl proved quite important to his family history. Nice!



Guns In Burgenland: After a shooting spree on June 10th in a high school in Graz (Styria) that killed eleven including the perpetrator and injured others, discussions about private gun ownership have flared in Burgenland and across Austria.

In what is the worst rampage in the history of modern Austria, a 21-year-old male dropout of the school killed seven students and three adults, with seven victims being female, then committed suicide in a toilet. Two firearms were seized at the scene, a long gun and a handgun, both weapons said to have been legally owned by the perpetrator, who had not been a known risk to authorities.

The Austrian Federal Chancellery announced a three-day national mourning and numerous events were cancelled in Burgenland. Burgenland Governor Hans Peter Doskozil expressed his condolences: "We mourn together in Burgenland and across all political borders for the lives that this terrible act has claimed - and we feel for all those who have suffered physical and mental injuries." Burgenland Bishop Ägidius Zsifkovics also was deeply shocked by the rampage and emphasized the need for human closeness and social cohesion.

Now questions are arising about private gun ownership in Burgenland. In Austria, single-shot shotguns or rifles (i.e., must be reloaded manually after each shot), known as category C weapons, are freely available to anyone aged 18 and over. Higher capability category B weapons, including pistols and revolvers, require a weapon possession card.

According to Burgenland Interior Minister Gerhard Karner, it is a high hurdle to obtain a weapon possession card. Still, there were more than 12,300 possession cards and over 75,000 registered firearms in Burgenland at the beginning of the year. Currently, the weapon possession card requires a minimum age of 21 years, a so-called "weapons driving license" demonstrating competence and gun safety, and a psychological assessment. For gun owners, category B firearms must be protected against unauthorized access, and at least every five years police check proper storage; in the event of misconduct, the weapon possession card is withdrawn.



Lyme Disease: I had the misfortune this past month to experience early-stage Lyme disease... and I can't say I recommend it for anyone! Still, it made me wonder about its prevalence in Europe and in Burgenland in particular.

In my case, I apparently picked up an infected deer tick in my own small-town backyard. I remember having a bug bite of some sort above my elbow and I scraped something dark off of it... but then I forgot all about it when I suddenly became very sick and greatly fatigued. I endured about two and a half days of recurring cycles of shivers and shakes, drenching sweats, then fatigue so bad I seldom was awake for more than 3-4 hours at a time before needing hours of sleep.

Initially, I thought it was a bad flu, but I lacked some typical symptoms of flu. However, both the length of my sleeves and my bleary-eyed vision caused me not to note the expanding blotch above my elbow during those first few days. It wasn't until my growing awareness that this didn't seem to be a flu, and my desperate need to take a shower, that I noted that my bug bite had take on the classic Lyme disease appearance.

So, off to the doctor, who quickly assessed it for what it was and put me on a 21-day regimen of an appropriate antibiotic (which I'm almost through at this writing). Within hours of my first dose I started to feel much better, but it would take about five days to regain my typical stamina. My doc felt we had treated it soon enough that I would not experience post-treatment Lyme disease syndrome (PTLDS), which can be pretty devastating as it includes severe headaches and neck stiffness, facial palsy, arthritis with severe joint pain and swelling, fatigue, and difficulty thinking.

But what about Burgenland? I found a 2006 study where the researchers obtained blood samples from 1,214 Burgenland men (median age 51 years, range 18 to 89 years) and 39 women (median age 44 years, range 21 to 69 years). Demographic data regarding age, sex, profession, residence, duration of hunting, hunting ground, animals in the environment, and history of tick bite was also obtained by questionnaire. The blood samples were assayed for antibodies against Borrelia burgdorferi (the bacteria involved) as an indicator of previous Lyme disease infection. They found that 54% of samples tested positive for antibodies to Borrelia burgdorferi, and positivity was clearly related to age and duration of hunting; it was 33% among persons younger than 29 years and 83% in those older than 70 years. Further, there was a clear difference between the districts of Burgenland, with the highest positivity found in hunters from the most southern district of Burgenland (Jennersdorf, 69%) and the lowest in the most northern district (Neusiedl, 39%). Positivity was also different between men (55%) men and women (26%), which, in my opinion, is likely driven by the lower rate of hunting by women. So, although infectious risk exists in all of Burgenland, prevalence of infection differs across its districts and peaks in the south.

As for Europe as a whole, another study called Lyme 'the most common tickborne disease in Europe." It found that prevalence was higher among persons with greater exposure to ticks, 40.6% vs. 3.9% in the general population, and that overall prevalence was higher in Western Europe (13.6%) and Eastern Europe (11.1%) than in Northern Europe (4.2%) or Southern Europe (3.9%).

Sounds like you can't escape Lyme disease by traveling in Europe!



The Facebook Bunch (from Vanessa Sandhu):

Greetings, Burgenland Bunch!

I hope that you are enjoying the summer! I have had a very busy month between my daughter’s high school graduation, medical stuff, and traveling with the family. I haven’t had too much free time for genealogy, unfortunately. I even missed the Coplay Sängerbund’s Stiftungsfest! I promise that I’ll try to be more present in the group. Things should calm down after August, as two of my children will be off to college. That said, we had a quiet month on Facebook. We welcomed 6 new members, bringing our membership count to 2,336. There should be lots of content next month, as some of our members are traveling to Burgenland! Please feel free to join us if you haven’t already! facebook.com/share

Here’s some music to start us off: Al and Alex Meixner performing the Burgenländer Polka! youtu.be/gpnqpKftA4g?si=SKNg1PafSYyAFc1Q

Member Fred Knarr shared a great map showing the Austro-Hungarian Empire around 1914. Burgenland was located right in the middle of the massive empire.

Member Heidi Frank shared a photo of her homemade Buchteln. They looked delicious! She shared a link to member Roland Schuller’s YouTube channel “Polsen kocht pannonisch’s Beste”: Buchteln mit Vanillesauce: youtube.com/watch?

Member Janet Kroboth-Weber shared a nice video of a stork and its babies in Rust: facebook.com/share/mibextid=wwXIfr

Member Martin Wolf shared a 3D animation of the 17th century Castrum Dobra, located in Neuhaus am Klausenbach. You can read more about the castle on the BB website: The Castle Ruin of Dobra

Member Glenn Kuh shared a nice photo of the Friedensburg Schlaining.

Have a great month! Stay safe and healthy!

Vanessa



Update for book "The Burgenländer Emigration to America": Here is this month's update on purchases of the English issue of the 3rd edition of Dr. Walter Dujmovits' book "Die Amerika-Wanderung Der Burgenländer."

Current total sales are 1843 copies, as interested people purchased 5 books during this past month.

As always, the book is available for online purchase at a list price of $8.89 (which is the current production charge for the book, as we purposely choose not to make any profit so you can obtain the book at as low a cost as possible!), plus tax & shipping. See the BB homepage for a link to the information / ordering page.

The book is an excellent read for the Burgenländers in your family!



Burgenland Recipes: (none this month... got one for us?)



Note: Our recipes sortable list has links directly to the recipes or food-related articles published in our past newsletters. You can access the list by clicking our recipe box (to the right). Thanks to the contributions of our members over the years, we have quite a collection of Burgenland recipes, some with several variations.

However, whenever we use up our unpublished recipes, this recipe section will become dormant. So, if you have a favorite family recipe, please consider sharing it with us. We will be happy to publish it. Our older relatives, sadly, aren't with us forever, so don't allow your favorite ethnic dish to be lost to future generations.

You can send your recipe to BB Recipes Editor, Alan Varga. Thanks!



Words for Thought:

The past is never dead. It’s not even past. All of us labor in webs spun long before we were born, webs of heredity and environment, of desire and consequence, of history and eternity.

   ― William Faulkner, in novel "Requiem for a Nun," 1951

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