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

First, the digitization project is stopped

Ed: Frank is correct that Nickelsdorf, Burgenland, being the first train station over the border from Hungary, has been the primary access point for refugees entering Austria from Hungary. Temporary accommodation centers (see example to the right) have been created to feed and house the refugees as they wait for further transport into Europe. Similar facilities are in Parndorf (the village nearest the infamous abandoned truck) and other nearby areas. My understanding is that Burgenland has offered permanent asylum for about 3000 refugees but only a handful have chosen, so far, to seek asylum there.



DNA Cousins (follow-up): Last month I commented on Richard Potetz' reported autosomal DNA "ethnic makeup" included 3% "Asia Minor" (per FTDNA) or 0.4% "East Asian" (per 23&Me) and my own 10% "Asia Minor" component. I light-heartedly argued that, thus, our ancestral background possibly included a little "Ottoman Turk" DNA, compliments of the Ottoman armies that roamed Burgenland in the 15 and 16 hundreds.

This prompted Bob Schatz to write, saying (in part):

I thought to send a quick note re your mention of Asia Minor DNA in your and Richard Potetz' autosomal makeup. I hate to dispel any notions of 15th-16th century Ottoman Turks or Burgenland slaves, but this part of your DNA could reflect a much more distant Neolithic connection.

Like you, many people of Central and Southern European extraction have some percentage of Asia Minor or East Asian DNA (I myself have 25% through my father, with close matches to men currently living in Italy and distant matches to men currently living in Turkey and the Levant). Anthropologists believe that the presence of "Asia Minor/East Asia" genes in the European population represents a demic diffusion from that part of the world to the western Mediterranean, occurring at various times either in pre- or recorded history through trade, settlement, or military recruitment.

When discussing DNA, we need to take into account that "ethnic makeup" is often a cultural veneer over our deeper biology. In the case of current matches living in Turkey, it's good to keep in mind that although the culture of Asia Minor is now Turkish, the population of Turkey is not all "Turkic" biologically / genetically. History shows that while there was always movement of peoples, general populations tended to stay in place over long periods, and the cultures of those populations shifted as their ruling elites replaced each other through conquest or economic advantage (Central European Celts becoming Germans or Slavs, for example).

In their long history, the peoples of Asia Minor have lived through many cultures, Turkish, of course, being just the most recent. The ethnic designations used in autosomal testing usually refer to the place or the culture that was in existence when a particular genetic mutation occurred, so for example we shouldn't extrapolate forward that the presence of "Asia Minor" genes automatically = a "Turkish" ancestor.

In Richard's case, it would be best to determine how far back in time he shares a common genetic ancestor with his Turkish match (the age of the shared genetic mutation). If that ancestor, or rather the shared genetic mutation, falls within the Modern Era (1500-present), then indeed it could very well point to an Ottoman.

I thank Bob for reminding me to think a little deeper on the meaning of these "place" (rather than "ethnic") designations... with that in mind, I herewith quote the "Primary Population Cluster Description" that FTDNA provides for the "Asia Minor" designation:

The Asia Minor group is present from South Asia, Turkey, the Caucasus, and along the shores of the Mediterranean Sea. It was home to early hunter-gatherers and farmers. It has a deep history and connects to many lineages. It is the mark of those who moved east to west and back again, along what would become the Silk Road. The Asia Minor group is connected to the oldest groups of modern humans. As early humans left Africa, they settled in this area. The hunter-gatherers were eventually replaced by the first farmers.

Early recorded history confirms several cultures lived in this area and left their mark, such as the Phrygians, the Hurrians, the Hittites, the Hatti, and the Armenians. Later, the Turks swept down from Asia and brought people from the Asian Northeast group. Likewise, the Arab expansion brought members of the Eastern Middle East group to the southern borders of the Asia Minor. We find that it is the strongest in Turks from the Fertile Crescent and people from the Caucasus. Closed social groups, such as the Druze and Assyrians, also have clear signatures of the Asia Minor group, suggesting that their genes are native to the region.

Thus we see that, as Bob suggests, there are many "ethnic" groups that fall under the "Asia Minor" designation, with Ottoman Turk being one such group. The territory of the modern state of Turkey (and that of surrounding states) has been under the historical political rule of many empires, each of which changed the local culture and influenced the "ethnic" genetic makeup of the region. The Ottomans only arose in 1299 AD, establishing Constantinople as its capital in 1453. Prior to that, the region was sequential part of these empires: 330-1453 AD, Byzantine (Eastern Roman) Empire; 27 BC-330 AD, Roman Empire; 330-27 BC, Macedonian Empire; 550-330 BC, Achaemenid (First) Persian Empire; and only then do we get back to the aforementioned "Phrygians, the Hurrians, the Hittites, the Hatti, and the Armenians."

I suppose one should do as Bob suggests and work out when the common ancestor (or genetic mutation) occurred, and then tie it (gently) to a particular "ethnic" group, but for now I think it will be more fun to conjecture that Richard is, say, part Hittite or Druze... or even Ottoman (and he can conjecture about me... but I think I want my "ancestor" to be a wanderer on the Silk Road... who eventually ended up on the Amber Road quite near their crossing!).



HUNGARICANA 1767 Urbárium Database Follow-up #2: The 1767 Urbárium tutorial continues to draw comments... and I'm pleased to receive and share them.

Dr. Esther Tóth, an award-winning physics teacher at the George Boronkay Grammar School and College in Vac, Hungary, shared a copy of the Hungarian-language version of the Urbárial table headings. I had noted previously that there were German, Latin and Hungarian variations; further research reveals there were also Slovak and Croatian versions, but that same research failed to find an example of a form printed with Latin headings (I did find numerous handwritten Latin headings, but those forms did not match up exactly with the pre-printed forms). I'll insert examples of the Slovak and Croatian headers at the end of this note, but here are examples of the Hungarian form and of an annotated German form, as I have quite a bit to say about them:



These Hungarian headings translate, in spirit, to the same English meanings as the German version I had shown previously (but see my comments below):



First, I need to point out that I over-simplified one translation in the German version (and it is now fixed, both here and where previously published): per Meir Deutsch, "Schmalz is fat, all kinds, not just butter. I think the best one is from Geese." As you may recall, I had labeled the column "butter."

Now, if you look at the Hungarian version of the form, that column has text "Ki főzött Vay" ...which GoogleTranslate claims is "Who is Vay cooked" ...which makes no sense, of course. However, Esther Tóth tells me that "It is very interesting for me, that the Urbariums in Hungarian uses an old Hungarian. :) (I need time to understand it.)"

With that thought in mind, I played around and discovered that the modern Hungarian "kisütött zsir" = "rendered fats" might be a reasonable "modernization" of the Urbár's old Hungarian and a close match to the German wording. My prior experience with translating the Hungarian headings had shown me that spelling changes or combination of once-separate words is not uncommon... you must assume you have to play with the old words and phrases to make reasonable sense of them (and it is much easier to do so if you have reason to believe you already know the translation). In fact, "kisütött vaj" = "clarified butter" would also be a reasonable updating of the Urbár phrasing. Even GoogleTranslate comes closer if you change Vay in the original text to Vaj: "Out-cooked butter" is the new translation, and "out-cooked" is a reasonable synonym for "clarified" or "rendered."

However, Esther tells me that there actually was something called "cooked butter" in Hungary that was similar to the ghi of India or the brown butter of France. She explains that, without cooking, unrefrigerated butter became rancid and smelled (and there was no refrigeration in 1767!). Cooking butter at about 180 degrees Celsius (350° F) allows it to be preserved. She says it has a beautiful smell as well, one similar to the smell of peanuts and is a transparent yellow color. And it still exists under name "főzött vaj." So it may be that the Hungarian form actually called for this specific butter.

She also comments that other fats may not have been as valuable in 1767 Eastern Hungary, especially pork-based fat, since pigs, unlike other livestock, were plentiful since they were not confiscated by the Muslims during the Turkish era. However, Western Hungary was not under Muslim rule so pork may not have been so common and its fat of higher value. These type of arguments may explain the difference in wording for this "fat" column.

However, I'll also note here that the Slovak-language form headers are translated at this webpage: http://www.pitt.edu/~votruba/qsonhist/urbariummariatheresa.html and that source also translates the "fats" column as "clarified butter." (The other header column translations match well with what I provide for the German version.)



I also decided to add translations for the Neuntl column and for the last, far-right column (see below for a discussion of the Neuntl column). The last column in the German form is one which formally indicates that homestead land within the village proper, as well as certain fallow meadows, are free from tax. The column, if filled-in, indicates the acreage involved. Given this was not terribly important information, some versions of the German form did not include this column.

Interestingly, the Hungarian text for this column differs notably from the German text. According to Esther Tióth, it translates to: "Ruined homestead land within the village, as well as fallow meadows, are free from tax if they just recover them."

As she explains, the population density was quite low in Eastern Hungary in the 1700s (after the Ottoman were driven out) and there were relatively large villages with few or no inhabitants. This is why German families were invited by the Hapsburgs to resettle the land from 1711 until 1785. These families did not pay tax in the first five years at all, and they did not pay tax even later in the case when they recultivated land, especially for grapes.



Esther and I also tossed around the meaning of the "Neuntl" column, which is written "Kilenczed" on the Hungarian form.

Esther told me that the "Kilenczed" (the second tenth) was given to the land owner, whereas the first tenth was given to the church (from as far back as the first Hungarian King, Stephen). However, the 1767 Urbárium was based on a new law by Maria Theresia and spoke only about the taxes to the land owners, and nothing about the tax to the church, unless the church was the land owner.

In reply, I told her that her comments on the “Kilenczed” column interested me because, since the rest of the document is about labor and payments to the land owner, it seemed unreasonable that the Kilenczed should go to them too.

This prompted her to consult with a fellow history teacher at her school, who confirmed that the data of the Urbariums were only about the taxes to the land owners. The Kilenczed was paid only to the land owner and by the "not-so-poor" peasants, those who had more income. He also noted that, since 1767, the churches, completely separate from the state, collected a tax called the "Tized." At some point, that tax was renamed the "Egyházi adó" = "church tax."

So that seems to resolve the meaning of the Neuntl / Kilenczed column. You should interpret any text and numbers in that column as payments owed to (or deferred from) the land owner.

I'll also note that the website for the Slovak version (see link above) fully agrees with this interpretation... church taxes were not part of this Urbárium.



Lastly, Esther noted that "In natura" translated to Hungarian as "természetbeni juttatás" = "payments in kind". That is, you paid in eggs, milk, meat, etc. and not money.

She also noted (along with a smiley face) that, now-a-days, "if a boy helps a girl, the girl says "May I pay In natura?" And gives a kiss."



We conclude this note with the promised Slovak and Croatian header examples, starting with the Slovak version:



And here is the Croatian version (note the absence of the final column):



I have not attempted a translation of the Croatian form (but it seems to follow the column structure of the previous forms so the headings likely have the same meanings).

 

Greenback Dollars: Last month I ended article "History and 'History' Books" with a bit of personal history about my great-great-grandfather, Johann Steichen, and then some questions about "greenback" money. I had provide a sentence quoted in book "History of Stearns County Minnesota" (by William Bell Mitchell, 1915) that read as follows:

"June 8, 1865 -- A German named John Steichner, just arrived from the old country, bought this week from Nicholas Rausch, living near Rockville, twelve miles from St. Cloud, his farm of 160 acres, paying for it $1,200 in gold and $1,200 in greenbacks."

After noting that this really was about my ancestor (despite a few errors), I asked a couple of "bonus questions," which I'll repeat here:

Bonus Questions: What was a "greenback"? and how much was "$1,200 in greenbacks" worth in June 1865? and why do they speak of paying both "in gold" and "in greenbacks"?



Meir Deutsch was the only brave soul to offer answers to these questions... and his answers were only partially correct, as he based his answers on the wrong era. So, herewith I try to provide the full story:

Answers: Before I researched these questions some 15 years ago, about the only thing I knew about a "greenback dollar" was that they were mentioned in the early 1960's Kingston Trio hit song, "Greenback Dollar" (written by Hoyt Axton in 1961). Maybe you remember the chorus:

And I don't give a damn about a greenback, a dollar
Spend it fast as I can
For a wailin' song and a good guitar
The only things that I understand, poor boy
The only things that I understand

Unfortunately, that song came out about 100 years after the advent of "greenbacks" and the meaning (simply as an alternate name for a dollar bill) had changed substantially by then. The sentence about my great-great-grandfather was dated June of 1865, just a few months after fighting in the US Civil War had ended... which is relevant, because "greenbacks" have roots in the Civil War.

Prior to the Civil War, the US Government issued coins ("specie"—containing gold, or sometimes silver) as the only legal tender. There was paper money but it was issued by private or state banks with the promise that the bank would redeem the notes for specie on demand. However, if the bank failed, the paper money was worthless.

Back during the US Revolution, the Continental Congress had issued paper "Continental Dollars" but, since they were backed only with a promise to redeem them for specie at some time in the future, they soon became worthless. This soured people on trusting "money" that did not have some inherent value (such as the precious metal content of coins).

Thus, when it became apparent that the costs of the Civil War would run far beyond the government's ability to pay via its limited income from tariffs and excises, the Lincoln Administration first sought loans from major banks, who demanded very high interest rates. These rates were considered just too high so, in July 1861, Congress authorized $50,000,000 in what was called Demand Notes. They bore no interest, but could be redeemed for specie "on demand." Although they were not "legal tender," they could be used to pay customs duties. They also differed from private and state notes in that they were printed on both sides—and green ink was used for the back side.

In December 1861, the government reneged on its promise to redeem Demand Notes for specie and began to remove them from circulation; by mid-1863, over 95% were gone.

In February 1862, the government first issued what they called "United States Notes," making them legal tender for all transactions but not backing them by specie; they were backed only by the “good faith” of the US government. These also were printed with green ink on the back and quickly became known as "greenbacks" in everyday parlance.

The government used greenbacks to pay their soldiers and to buy goods and labor. Very quickly, however, the value of greenbacks fell below "par" and that value varied greatly based on how poorly the war was going. At their worst, in July of 1864, it took 258 greenbacks to buy $100 in specie.

When the war ended in April of 1865, their value rose to trade at 150 for $100 in specie. Thus “$1200 in greenbacks” was worth $800 in specie, meaning my great-great-grandfather really paid a total of $2000 “in gold” for the farm he bought for $1200 "in gold" (coins) and $1200 "in greenbacks" (paper).

And now you know!

A PS: The Confederate government also issued paper money during the Civil War. The Confederate dollar, often called a "greyback," was first issued in April 1861 and also was not backed by hard assets; rather, it was backed by a promise to pay face value plus interest to the bearer after the Southern victory and independence. Like greenbacks, their value varied depending on the South's success during the war. Late in the war, it took nearly 1700 greybacks to buy a single gold dollar coin; and all value was lost upon surrender.

A second PS: A question I did not ask, but that troubles me, is: Why would my ancestors emigrate to the United States while the Civil War was raging? Were conditions in Europe (Luxembourg in particular) so bad that moving to a country at war was better? Minnesota was far from the battle fronts, so that was a mitigating factor, but the North could have lost the war or the sons could have been forced into military service, and avoidance of military service likely was one reason they left Europe (I'm told that only citizens could be drafted into the US Army at the time they emigrated ...but that could easily have changed with the misfortunes of war). It may also be that my ancestors delayed emigration until the war ended, as it is possible that news of the April 9th end of the war could have reached Luxembourg prior to a departure that allowed them to be in Minnesota in very early June (fast ships could make the crossing in 8-9 days in 1865). I doubt I’ll ever know the answer to this question, but I remain curious.



Jewish Burgenland Web Resources: Margaret Kaiser recently had an email exchange with Carole Garbuny Vogel of Branchville, NJ, who is the lead author of a article titled: "Constructing a Town-Wide Genealogy: Jewish Mattersdorf, Hungary 1698-1939," which was first published in Avotaynu: The International Review of Jewish Genealogy, Vol. XXIII. No. 1, Spring 2007. An online version of the article can be found at http://www.recognitionscience.com/cgv/research%20mattersdorf.html.

Margaret shared her message exchange to make me aware of the article, however, I was aware of it and had previously used some of the surname connection data found in it in a reply to a BB member. Since I agree with Margaret that it is a quite useful article, we herewith share it with you, the BB readers.

In her message to Margaret, Carol characterized the publication as a "survey article showing many of the resources available with information on the Mattersdorf Jewish community."  She also said, "feel free to share the work and, if you would like, to post a link to it on the website; that will be great."

Then she pointed out these additional links as quite relevant to Jewish research in Burgenland:

http://kehilalinks.jewishgen.org/Lackenbach/, a website "dedicated to the study and commemoration of Jewish family history in the town of Lackenbach" and created by Yohanan Loeffler.

http://kehilalinks.jewishgen.org/mattersburg/, a comprehensive website about the Jewish community in Mattersdorf that was created by Carol Vogel.

http://www.ojm.at/blog/friedhoefe/, which is the part of the blog website of the Austrian Jewish Museum in Eisenstadt that documents Jewish cemeteries in Burgenland.

Our thanks to Carol for sharing her work and pointing out other resources.



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 923 copies, as interested people purchased 14 more books this month. Surprisingly, the book's rank improved slightly this month, to 410 from 412, likely implying that its competitors among the best-selling Lulu books have had slower than usual sales, as this was actually a slow month for our book!

As always, the book remains available for online purchase at a list price of $7.41 (which is the production charge for the book), plus tax & shipping. See the BB homepage for a link to the information / ordering page and for any current discounts (and there is at least one discount on price or shipping available most of the time... if not, wait a few days and there will be one!).



Burgenland Recipes: Another recipe from cookbook "Recipes for the New Millennium" (© 2000, Morris Press), subtitled "A Collection of Recipes from Former and Present Parishioners of Holy Ghost Church, Bethlehem, PA."

This one looks like a lot of work... but I'll bet it is worth it... plus you get two good sized rolls... should make everyone in the family happy, twice over!

POTECA (Nut Roll)
(from Mary Schneider)

1 c. sour cream           5 1/2 - 6 c. sifted flour
1/4 c. milk               4 egg yolks
3/4 c. sugar              1/2 c. unsalted butter or
1 tsp. salt                      margarine, softened
2 env. active dry yeast   1/4 c. honey, warmed
1 tsp. sugar              Walnut Filling (recipe follows)
1/2 c. very warm water

Combine sour cream, milk, 3/4 cup sugar and salt in a medium-size saucepan. Heat slowly, stirring constantly, just until mixture begins to bubble and sugar dissolves; cool in large bowl.

Sprinkle yeast and the 1 teaspoon sugar into very warm water in a 1-cup measure. (Very warm water should feel comfortably warm when dropped on wrist.) Stir to dissolve. Let stand until bubbly, about 10 minutes.

Stir yeast into cooled sour cream mixture; beat in 3 cups of the flour until very smooth. Cover bowl with clean towel; let rise in a warm place, away from drafts, 1 hour or until doubled in volume; beat mixture down.

Beat egg yolks until well blended in a medium-size bowl; beat in very soft butter until smooth. Beat egg/butter mixture and enough of the remaining flour into yeast mixture to make a soft dough.

Turn out onto lightly floured surface and knead 10 minutes or until dough is smooth and elastic. Place in a large buttered bowl; turn to bring buttered-side up. Cover; let rise in a warm place, away from drafts, 1 hour or until doubled in volume.

Punch dough down; knead a few times. Let rest 5 minutes. Divide dough in half; roll one-half on a lightly floured surface to a 26 x 10 inch rectangle. Spread half the walnut filling over dough, leaving 1/4 inch margins.

Roll up jelly roll fashion, starting with one of the short ends. Pinch to seal seam; turn ends under, pinching to enclose filling. Place, seam-side down, on a greased cookie sheet. Repeat with the remaining dough and filling to make a second cake. Cover; let rise in a warm place, away from drafts, 1 hour or until almost doubled in volume.

Bake in a moderate 350° oven for 35 minutes or until cakes are golden. Cool on wire racks. Brush cakes with warmed honey; sprinkle with reserved chopped walnuts, if you wish.

Walnut Filling for Poteca:
1 lb. shelled walnuts
3/4 c. sugar
4 egg whites, at room temperature

Finely chop or grind walnuts; make sure that the nuts are very fine, so that the cake will cut neatly. Reserve 1/4 cup for garnish, if you wish. Beat egg whites until frothy. Add sugar and nuts. Mix well.



Cartoon of the Month:

A different take on DNA research...

Is the “born 1871” an error for Mariska? I presume it is supposed to be 1891, yes?

If so, I think they arrived Jan 1, 1914 at Ellis Island on the SS Barbarossa from Bremen under transcribed surname Baumgarten and given names Gxula and Maria. He is listed as 26 and she as 23. Gyula is the Hungarian form of Julius and Maria/Mariska go together. They were listed as coming from village Vorosvar (Rotenturm) and born in villages Vorosvar and Schilding (now Alsó- and Felsö-Csatár, Hungary).

Based on the above birth villages, I found the marriage record in the Felsö-Csatár records (see attached). It gives parental names and exact birthdates.

Although I had not mentioned it in the above email note, Julius/Gyula/Gxula was listed as a mechanic on the Ellis Island passenger manifest, so that matched what Willemijn and Richard had put on their Member Information Form. However, as I confirm my facts for this article, I now see that the departure village and Julius' village of birth was spelled Vorovar (rather than the Vorosvar I put into my email note or the fully correct Vasvörösvár) and that the final destination was listed as New York (not Chicago!) ...however, the manifest indicated that Julius had been in Chicago in 1907 and 1913. In addition, the manifest listed mother Franciszka Baumgarten of Vorovar as nearest relative... and that motherly first name matches what was on the marriage record.

As for that marriage record, it listed Julius under the Hungarian form Gyula and Mariska as Mária Gangel. Mariska is a Hungarian diminutive of Mária, so that ties together, but the spelling of her last name added one more variation to the Gaugel and Gangl of the Information Form.

Having observed many Croatian surnames, my immediate reaction was that a Gaugel spelling would be very unlikely in West Hungary (the “u” in it almost certainly a misreading of a German Kurrent handscript “n” … in fact, the marriage record seemed to support this in that the handscript “u” in Baumgartner had the characteristic mark above it, ŭ, while the handscript n in Gangel was without the characteristic mark but otherwise similar to the handscript u). Further, both Gangel and Gangl were common surname spellings in West Hungary, arising out of a Croatian background, with the Gangl spelling the more common, so I felt a Gaugel spelling must be a simple misread of script writing... and I told Willemijn and Richard so.

As for other data in the Felsö-Csatár marriage record, the couple was married 3 Aug 1913 and Gyula/Julius was born a Roman Catholic on 14 Oct 1887 in Vasvörösvár with current occupation of lakatos (fitter/metal worker/mechanic) ...all consistent with Willemijn and Richard's data. Julius' parents were shown as the deceased (néhai) Ferenc Baumgartner and Franciska Tallián (so Franciska's name as nearest relative on the passenger manifest makes sense).

Mária/Mariska was reported as born a Catholic on 2 May 1890 in Felsöcsatár to parents Ferenc Gangel and Teréz Fiksel. Her birth date was not inconsistent with the provided 1891 date (as the year is often reported as one year more recent than correct when it is calculated from age in a given year). The Felsöcsatár birth location, however, denied the Rotenturm? location given on the Information Form, so Willemijn and Richard's questioning of her birth location was correct.



By now, I presume you are questioning why I titled this article "A Hungarian Wedding Invitation" as, so far, I had yet to mention it. We get to it now!

In response to my email message shown above, Willemijn responded, saying (in part):

You are absolutely right about the 1891 birth year for Mariska. Thank you so much for your response and the updated information on Richard's grandparents. We have a marriage invitation in Hungarian that we have managed to translate and found pictures of the church.

That prompted me to write back saying (in part):

I’m quite curious about the Hungarian wedding invitation you have. Yours is the first one I have ever heard about coming from West Hungary! Is it possible for you to send a good scan of it to me? and possibly your translation? I might want to put a note in our newsletter about it (if that would be OK with you). If so, a copy of the picture of the church and the participants would be nice to include also.

My reason for asking about the wedding invitation (beyond just personal curiosity) was that, too often, much of what I write in the BB newsletter is about the harder side of the European life our emigrant ancestors left behind, forgetting that niceties like wedding invitations existed. I hoped that reporting on this wedding invitation might help round out the picture I try to paint for the readership.

Willemijn kindly wrote back with photos of both the invitation and the church, as well as a rough translation of the invitation's text. Here is the invitation:



Rather than present the rough translation as provided by Willemijn, I took some time to refine it, coming up with the following:

So, there you have it... sweet and to the point, but with no exact time specified. However, Réka Kieß tells me that the Hungarian word délelőtt literally translates as prior to noon, and that Hungarians differentiate between morning hours, which last until about 9 am, and the rest of the morning, which is specified as pre-noon. Thus she believes that the wedding likely took place right after completion of the 9 am morning mass and that the mass attendees remained as the two were given in marriage.

The invitation even kindly indicated which train station to use and how to send a telegram. The train station still exists north of Burg (Pinkaóvár) in Burgenland, though it appears to be long abandoned, with the tracks overgrown:



Interestingly, the bride’s last name on the invitation is clearly “Gaugel” rather than “Gangel” …this surprised me! I truly thought Gangel/Gangl derived from Croatian origins, so to see it recorded definitively as Gaugel was a shock. It may not be, in fact, a Croatian-based surname (but I still think it is a variation on Gangl, as the Gaugel spelling is extremely rare and points only to Austria, Hungary or, when more specific, to the West Hungary border area; further, Mariska Gaugel was known to speak Croatian, which would be unlikely if that were not her roots).

As for the Felsöcsatár church, it was (and is) Szent Miklós (St. Nicholas) by name. Below are pictures of it and its location nestled in the center of Felsöcsatár.

 



For curiosity, I decided to try to find the baptism records for the wedding couple. Despite some reservations based on spelling variations and inexactness of dates, I'm convinced these are the correct records: 

Name          Gyula Baumgartner
Event Type    Baptism
Event Date    16 Oct 1887
Event Place   Vörösvár, Vas, Hungary
Gender        Male
Father's Name Ferencz Baumgartner
Mother's Name Sani Talian
 
Name          Maria Gerugel
Event Type    Baptism
Event Date    04 May 1890
Event Place   Nagynarda, Vas, Hungary
Gender        Female
Father's Name Ferencz Gerugel
Mother's Name Theresa Jekszl

Nagynarda was the Catholic recording parish for Felsöcsatár at that time and Vörösvár is what is in the records for Vasvörösvár, so baptism locations are not an issue.

As for the dates, both baptism dates are two days after the birth dates reported in the marriage record. Coincidentally, both birth dates were Fridays and both recorded baptism dates were Sundays. Nonetheless, it was more common for baptisms to be performed on the day of the birth or the day after the birth, if the birth occurred late in an evening. Still, these baptism and birth dates are close enough not to warrant great concern. It may be that the priests did their "paperwork" on Sunday and inadvertently recorded that date rather than the baptism date, or were just not available for a baptism on Saturday (but, of course, were available on Sunday). Likewise, it may be that the parents chose to wait a day, knowing they were going to the church for the Sunday service anyway.

If you recall the marriage record that I described near the beginning of this article, it had generally clear writing so I think I know the correct parental names. Thus, given the difficulty in transcribing old records, I could see Frani (for Fransziska) being mis-transcribed as Sani in the transcription of the above birth record. Likewise, given the phonetic way of recording surnames in Hungary at that time, Talian for Tallián is no great stretch and, combined with transcription problems, Gerugel for Gaugel and Jekszl for Fiksel are in the realm of probable matches (however, which ones are the "correct" spellings can't be determined from this limited data!).

[Ed. note, 2017: With the digitization of the Burgenland microfilms, I was able to look at the records and confirm my suspicions about the names. Rather than Sani, Fani was recorded, and Talian for Tallián; further, it is Gaugel and Fikszl in the other birth record.]

Based on my experience, I find all of these differences to be consistent with typical transcription errors, spelling variations or possible phonetic variations. While I would advise obtaining the microfilms to verify what really had been written, I remain convinced these are the correct records.



I hope you've enjoyed this little trek into the past. I find it comforting to know that a couple that was obviously intending to leave West Hungary for America and a better life (they were ship board two months later and the husband had been in America earlier in the year) would bother with formal wedding invitations, complete with travel and contact instructions. I do, though, wonder if they ever went back to the Heimat...

First, however, I must give you the usual warning: you should not expect anything real useful to be presented in English! This is a Hungarian site and almost all descriptive or instructional text is in Hungarian. But do not be discouraged... it is actually quite easy to use the site (other than one design flaw... but that is not a language problem).

Like the 1767 Urbárium that I described in BB Newsletter #257, the 1720 and 1715 Urbárs were listings of people who owed taxes and labor to the local nobility. I will not go into much detail about the content of those listings, rather, I will concentrate on helping you get to the ones you want. If you looked at the 1767 Urbár, it makes good sense that you might wish to extend your family research back to this somewhat earlier time.

For the tutorial, I will use the 1720 Urbár... however, the 1715 Urbár is set up similarly to the 1720 one so it should be easy to transfer these instructions to it (there is a minor difference that I'll explain at the appropriate point). I make this choice because Vas county was not included in the 1715 Urbár, thus making 1720 useful to more BB researchers. You can find the links to these Urbárs near the bottom of the BB home page... the section you would look for looks like this:

Clicking on the link for the 1720 Urbárium will take you to its main page. I'll repeat the link here so you can more easily access it: http://adatbazisokonline.hu/en/adatbazis/az-1720_-evi-orszagos-osszeiras.

The main page should look something like the image below:



The only thing on this page that you'll be interested in is the Hierarchikus kereso (hierarchical search) section on the left that has the scrolling list of megye (county) names with the green plus signs: .

For my example, I'll again use Ginger McGurk's village of interest Apetlon, where she has Klein ancestors. Apetlon's Hungarian name is Bánfalu, and it was in Moson megye. As I've mentioned before, all of Burgenland came from three pre-1921 Hungarian counties, Moson, Sopron and Vas. In the scrolling list, they appear toward the bottom, so the first thing to do is grab the grey scroll bar and pull it down to reveal the lower part of the list (you can also position your mouse cursor in the list and use your mouse wheel to move the list up or down.

This gets us to part of the design flaw I mentioned above... the scrolling list is actually an independent "window" that is tied to a particular spot on the underlying page... if the list is too long, it can stretch off the page and you won't be able to see the last lines. This occurs if you have "zoomed" your browser page to make everything bigger (which I tend to do). If you do too, you will need to reduce your zoom to make the whole scrolling list visible.

You should find "Moson megye (40. TÉKA)" near the bottom of the list (40. TÉKA just means "library 40"). Click on the green plus. Then click on the next green plus for the sub-list (titled Alap településcsoport = basic settlement group) that is indented. Having done so, you should have a display that looks something like the clip to the right, where the clicked plus signs are now minus signs.

Note that the village names are not arranged alphabetically, so you will need to do some scrolling and searching to find the village you want. Also note that the listed village names are a mix of German and Hungarian names (and sometimes I'm not sure what), often badly misspelled but just as often having some vague phonetic resemblance to a correct Hungarian or German village name. Moson County is actually pretty easy to decipher, as most listed names are close to a correct Hungarian village name.

As you might expect, clicking a minus sign will close any sub-lists under them and return to the unclicked view. However, the villages have a little "page" icon, which indicates that clicking them will take you to a data page rather than open another sub-list.

We wanted Apetlon = Bánfalu... If you check the Moson list, you will find Banfalva (remember, -falu and -falva are interchangeable). Let's click on that name and see what its content page shows.

To the right is a clip taken after I clicked on Banfalva. The first thing worth noting, is that the scrolling list remains overlaid on the Banfalva page. If you move your mouse pointer into or away from the area of the scroll list, the list will collapse to just the grey header bar or flicker back into view. This behavior can be a real nuisance, as you can't really see or access the text underneath it (I see this as a design flaw also). However, there is a built-in work-a-round... note the boxed "X" at the right end of the scroll list header bar? Clicking the X will remove the scroll window, including its header, from the page (if you want it back, you can click the black vertical box on the left edge of the page, the one with vertical text Hierarchia; alternatively, if you want the list to remain on the page and not flicker in and out, you can click the empty box next to the X). To make exploration of the Banfalva content page easier, I suggest you click the X.

Having closed the scroll window, the next thing you should do is examine the multicolored string of names that appears on the left below the indicator of where you are in the hierarchical list (see example below):

Moson megye (40. Téka) > Alap településcsoport >
Banfalva, Bánfalva, Mosonbánfalva, Moson, Apetlon, A

This list of names shows, from left to right: the name as it appears in the 1720 Urbár (shown in brown and underlined); the village name given in the 1808 Lipszky Repertorium (dark blue); the 1913 village name (in green) and the county (red) it was then located in; and the current village name (in bright blue), with a country indicator (A = Austria), if not in Hungary. Be sure to check this list to assure yourself that you have the right village.

However, do note I have seen one instance where I believe an Urbár listing was connected to the wrong village. Specifically, a list titled Szent Grótth was assigned to Deutsch Gerisdorf (Német-Gyirót) while I believe it should have been assigned to Gerersdorf bei Güssing (Német-Szent-Grót). I base this belief on 1) the relationship of the list name to the Hungarian name for Gerersdorf: Szent Grótth vs. Német-Szent-Grót, 2) the fact that there was a different list, Geresdorff, already assigned to Deutsch Gerisdorf, and 3) a comparison of surnames in these Urbár lists to surnames in our 1850s houselists for these villages, a comparison which clearly supports my belief. 

Likewise, Richard Potetz has noted that Alsó-Strása was assigned to Oberdrosen while he believes the proper connection is to Unterdrosen, which is now called St. Martin an der Raab. Arguments similar to what I gave for Szent Grótth exist to support Richard's belief about Alsó-Strása.

The above comments are not intended to say I think there are significant problems in connecting Urbár lists to current villages; rather, I think errors are rare exceptions. Nonetheless, if the surnames in the list seem unreasonable, do verify that you haven't accessed the wrong list and then use our Houselists to see if there is a reasonable match in surnames... if not, then there may be a connection problem. 

Let's return to the Banfalva page and see what else is there.  What I want to draw your attention to is the list of head-of-household people across the bottom of the page (I show a small part of the Banfalva list to the right).

Text alap településrész = basic settlement area while adózók = taxpayers and zsellérek = cottars / landless peasants. For the 1720 (and 1715) Urbár, you have a complete transcription of the names already done! This is an excellent feature that is not available for the 1767 Urbár. My perusal of the Urbár images for several villages indicates that the transcriptions are quite accurate, so you have no need to struggle with the old handwriting if you do not wish to do so.

This, of course, does not mean you should expect spellings of family names in the 1720 transcription to be the same as they are now. For example, Ginger McGurk's ancestral Klein surname appears to be spelled Klajn or Klejn in this Urbár (there are three in total but none showing in my clip).

Note: it is here that there is a slight difference between access methods for the 1720 and 1715 Urbárs. I will explain the 1720 method first then the 1715 method.

1720 Urbár method: If you want to verify the spelling for yourself or see the additional information on the Urbár pages, all you need to do is click on the name of interest and it will open an image viewer showing you the page on which this names appear. I'm going to do so for name Joachimus Klajn. A clip of the resulting page is shown below, after I've zoomed in a little:

 

As you can see, the scanned image is shown on the left in the viewer with a scrolling selection of pages on the right. The viewer, itself, has a bunch of clickable controls at the bottom [previous and next page; zoom out, in or 1:1; fit the page to the viewer, whole page or page width; copy to disk (seems disabled); rotate left or right; brightness decrease or increase; and return to defaults] and you can use your mouse to zoom (with the wheel) or drag the page about (press and hold the left button then move).

Listed on the page are the serf's names and three columns of numerical data (at first glance, the first two columns look like only one... but it is two separate pieces of data). The first "apparent" numerical column reports arable (plowable) land, given in holds, and another measure of what "size" farm that is (1/2 farm, 1/4 farm, etc.). The other column reports meadow (pasture) land, also given in holds.  Joachimus Klajn is listed seventh on the page and has 32 holds of arable land, which represents a 1/4 farm, and 4 holds of meadow. Right below him is Georgius Klajn, with the same amounts of land.

Note, however, that not all villages have two separate pieces of information in that first column. Other villages skip the "farm size" datum and only show holds of arable land. In addition, some villages have entries in the last column, which reports vineyards, I presume in holds also.

1715 Urbár method: The content pages for the 1715 Urbár differ from 1720 in that the names in the list of head-of-household people are not active links. Instead, there are a set of thumbnail images of the actual Urbár pages (Oldalak) shown below the list of transcribed names (see example to the right).

To access a particular person, you must estimate which page it is on and then click the thumbnail image. Doing so will take you to the same image viewer as for the 1720 Urbár. Everything on the viewer should work as previously described.

An addition, unimportant difference is that the indicator of where you are in the hierarchical list is not shown above the multicolored string of village names/locations, however, this list provides the same information as in the 1720 data string.

Likewise, the actual data in the 1715 tables is the same kind of numerical information as in 1720.



The above is all I'll say here about the actual Urbár pages... but do e-mail me if you have questions. Instead, I want to take a moment to give you some translations for sub-list headers that you will see in the hierarchical search scrolling lists:

járás = district
uradalom = estate
szabad királyi város = free royal city
pápóczi prépostság birtokai = church provost estates
pápóczi prépostság = church provost

I'll also warn you that some of these estates were huge, crossing far into areas other than Burgenland, including into areas that are now part of other countries, so you may need to search though long lists of village names to find the one you want.

Finally, I will note that the 1720 Urbár followed quickly behind the 1715 Urbár because the 1715 version was considered to be a disaster, being highly inconsistent in what and how it reported taxable assets. Further, there was a concerted effort by both the peasants and nobility to hide assets from taxation. In theory, the 1720 Urbár corrected the worst of the problems, providing more consistent reporting and better coverage of assets.



And that is the end of this tutorial (but do see the next article).