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

Austrian National Council Election Results:

As I've mentioned before, Austria uses the term "mandate" to represent a seat on the Council, presumably because the people mandate who will fill those seats. Of the 183 available mandates, the distribution will be as follows: FPÖ 57, ÖVP 51, SPÖ 41, NEOS 18, and GRÜNE 16. This means the FPÖ failed to attain a majority (92 or more seats) so will need to rule within a coalition government.

However, the ÖVP has already stated that it would not enter into a coalition with the FPÖ unless FPÖ leader, Herbert Kickl, was excluded from any ministerial position (which includes Chancellor, the head of government), and the FPÖ says that won't happen. Also, a potential coalition of the FPÖ with only NEOS and GRÜNE falls one seat short of a ruling majority, so it appears the SPÖ is the only possible coalition partner. At 98 seats combined, they could form a two-party government.

Nonetheless, all of the other seated parties, including the SPÖ, have expressed a strong distaste for forming a coalition with the FPÖ under any conditions, so the President of Austria (Alexander Van der Bellen) asked the parties to "sort things out on their own" for a while then report back to him on the 18th to clarify their positions. If they refused to budge, the FPÖ would be forced into the opposition and a centrist ÖVP/SPÖ-led coalition (they have the minimum 92 seats between them) would have to be asked by the President to lead the nation.

After the parties reported back to Van der Bellen, it was clear no coalition with the FPÖ was possible, so he charged the second-place ÖVP with forming a government (at this writing, a coalition has not been announced).

This situation, where the party with the plurality was unable to form a coalition has occurred only once before in Austria, in 1999. That time, it was the SPÖ (with a greater plurality than the FPÖ has this year) who was pushed into the opposition. An ÖVP/FPÖ coalition took power led by the third-place vote-winner, the ÖVP (though both earned the same number of seats). This makes me wonder if the SPÖ will exact payback and demand the Chancellorship, or more, in exchange for joining a coalition. We will see!

As for Burgenland's voters, the vote paralleled the national vote: FPÖ 28.78 percent, ÖVP 28.56 percent, SPÖ 27.02 percent, NEOS 6.47 percent and GRÜNE 4.70 percent. Voter turnout in Burgenland was 82.53 percent. In terms of mandates on the National Council, this means two seats for FPÖ Burgenland and one each for ÖVP Burgenland and SPÖ Burgenland, which is a one seat loss for Burgenland compared to the prior Council (ÖVP Burgenland came up 27 votes short of retaining a second mandate).

Speaking further of Burgenland, Governor Doskozil has come out strongly against Van der Bellen's order to the ÖVP to form a federal government. He says rejection of the FPÖ regarding forming a government is not only about FPÖ party leader Herbert Kickl, but "at the end of the day about a group of voters who are not taken on board." Correspondingly, he has again advised his own party against participating in the government, as, to his view, the voters had not given the Social Democrats a governing mandate.



Burgenland Parliament Election: I suppose since I reported on the Austrian federal election that I should speak a little about the upcoming Burgenland state parliament election too. It is scheduled for January 19th (with early voting beginning on the 10th) and, like the federal election, will determine (state) government leadership for the next five years.

Setting the actual election date in an election year is a prerogative of the incumbent government and, as is so often the case in politics, even the selected date (which was announced back in July) received negative reactions by opposition parties. The ÖVP said that Doskozil has been running "a permanent election campaign for months" (how something can be permanent and also only months long is not clear to me) and that he is somehow "also depriving other parties of the opportunity to conduct a proper election campaign in January." The Greens were more direct, saying "Once again, the governor has run roughshod over everyone... nobody wants to campaign at Christmas." Only the FPÖ welcomed the early election date, saying: "It is time for real change."

Since then, things had been fairly quiet, though I mentioned last month that the new Burgenland slogan initiative was criticized for starting before the state election. However, the state election cycle is now kicking into gear beginning with the various political party congresses (campaigning cannot legally begin before October 29th nor can spending exceed 300,000 euros).

The FPÖ announced on October 3rd that Norbert Hofer, the current third president of National Council, will be the FPÖ's top candidate in the Burgenland state election, taking over from current state party chairman, Alexander Petschnig, who was elected to the National Council. Hofer is viewed as "a real political heavyweight" that can counter "the all-powerful governor," as he referred to Doskozil.

The SPÖ party conference was on October 11th, where SPÖ state party chairman Hans Peter Doskozil was re-elected as leader with 99.63 percent of the vote (all but one of the 277 delegates voted for him, with apparently one abstention or invalid ballot, as there was no opposition candidate). The party conference was held in Eisenstadt and drew over 1,100 visitors, leading Doskozil to say in his acceptance speech that it was an "emotional and rousing moment." While he spoke of many things in that speech, I'll mention only that he alluded to the rise of the FPÖ in Austrian politics by describing the upcoming state election as a "difficult situation." Support for the SPÖ in Burgenland had risen for the first three years after the last election but has slowed in these last two. Still there is some expectation that the SPÖ will maintain its absolute majority in Burgenland.

Back in May, the Burgenland Greens, who currently hold two seats in the state parliament, voted for the top two candidates on their list for the next state election. Party spokesperson Anja Haider-Wallner and current parliament member Wolfgang Spitzmüller were selected. On October 12th, they announced they had filled out the remainder of their list with four additional candidates.

On the 29th, the ÖVP announced their list of 36 candidates, headed by their state party chairman, Christian Sagartz.

As for the NEOS and the currently non-seated parties, I have not noted an announcement concerning their lineups for the parliamentary election.

One thing of note for this election is that Burgenland voted in 2021 to make preferential votes decisive over party list ranking in determining who gets seated in the state Parliament. However, this applies only to the district portion of the election. Burgenland is divided into 7 districts and each district determines a number of mandates that is proportional to its vote count relative to the total votes cast state-wide. In practice, though, this is quite complicated, so let me attempt to explain with a "simple" example.

Let's assume the votes were equally divided among the seven districts, meaning each district should determine 36/7 = ~5.14 seats in the 36-seat Burgenland Parliament (realistically, districts vary in both population and voter turnout so an equal division is unlikely). A partial seat is, of course, impossible, so each district will be given 5 seats to fill (35 = 5×7 seats total) and the remaining seat will be filled based on the state-wide vote. Clearly, a party will need to earn 20% of the district vote to earn a mandate (or multiples of this for more than one seat).

However, since many parties are in the election, it is possible that the within-district vote will not exactly determine which party fills those 5 seats... a simple example being a party gets 50% of the district vote, so 2.5 theoretical seats... but you can't seat a half-candidate from that party! So they fill two seats (based on earning 40% of the vote) and the excess vote for that party (10%) transfers to the state portion of the election (where it will be combined with its excess votes from other districts). Likewise, a seat will transfer to the state portion of the election and be filled based on the state-wide vote.

In the past, voters voted for a party and, based on the whole number of mandates won by that party, the corresponding number of candidates on the party list were seated in the order stated on the party list. Preferential votes (ranked votes for specific people on the party list) could potentially alter this ordering, but the list ordering carried more weight and usually still determined who from the party was seated. Now, list ordering has no meaning... only the preferential rank-votes matters. This also means voters are potentially not voting for a single party (as in the past). They can apparently rank-select their candidates from multiple parties. Exactly how this works in practice is not completely clear to me yet, but I'll try to delve into it and may write more about it sometime in the future.



Merge Analysis—A New Tool for FamilySearch's Family Tree: If you use FamilySearch's collaborative family tree to document your ancestors, you likely have run into the problem where one of your ancestors (or ancestral branches) appears more than once. This occurs because another contributor independently added their local branch and, as it expanded or yours expanded, they apparently crossed into each other. So, the question becomes, are these, in fact, connected branches and, if so, which entries (or data within entries) should survive?

FamilySearch, for quite some time, has offered the ability to merge such "duplicate" entries, but my experience with that is that it is both cumbersome and time-consuming, especially when multiple entries are eventually involved. The existing tool for merging is complex and confusing, so I often only merge a few related entries at a time... and I often have the thought that this is way too difficult!

FamilySearch must have thought so too, as this past month they announced a new tool that they hope will improve our experience with merges. The new merge analysis view is mostly intended to help us better understand the before and after of a merge.

When merging in the past, users could see only a summary of the surviving and deleted profiles in a merge, along with a little information about the resulting changes. With the new merge analysis view, apparently the vital details, sources, and relationships of each person involved in the merge will appear side by side, along with an After Merge section so you can see information for the surviving profile.

Apparently, this also lets you look at any merges that happened after July of 2016, allowing you to assess whether it was appropriate and, if not, to repair, reverse or delete bad merges. I know from my personal experience that people have added or merged incorrect data into my branches (often being unrelated individuals with the same surname or duplicates of an existing child but with incomplete or inaccurate data). These are a pain to fix and there is nothing to stop the person from re-adding such people (one of the negatives of collaborative trees). I try to provide clear yet neutral explanations when I delete such data.

As for this new tool, I've yet to try it, so I invite you to write about your experiences with it, as I will do once I try it out. Until then, however, I'm depending on you to inform our fellow members... let me hear from you!



AncestryDNA Updates Their "Origins" Calculations: Ancestry.com has announced changes in how they calculate DNA-based genetic origins. In my case, I am now predicted to have 8 ancestral regions (previously known as ethnicities): those being composed of 72% Germanic Europe, 11% Denmark, 6% England & Northwestern Europe, 3% France, 3% The Netherlands, 2% Russia, 2% Portugal, and 1% Basque. Given I characterize myself as "a Germanic mutt," these results seem reasonable, with perhaps only the small Russia, Portugal and Basque contributions feeling odd.

According to my records-based genealogical evidence, my "recent" ethnicity is 25% Germanic Luxembourgish (that's where the Steichen name comes from), 50% Germanic from various areas in current-day Germany, and 25% Germanic from the once Austro-Hungarian region now known as Burgenland. It is based on this data that I claim Germanic-mutt status. However, my deepest records-based evidence only takes me back 400-500 years in time, while AncestryDNA claims that their new analysis targets about 1,000 years ago.

Further, the definitions of the named ancestral regions in this newest AncestryDNA analysis method are much broader than previously. For example, the definition of the Germanic Europe region is stated as "primarily located in Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Luxembourg, Switzerland, but also found in the Czech Republic, Hungary, Netherlands, and Slovenia" so it now encompasses both my Luxembourgers and Burgenländers, as well as my Germans. Likewise, that 11% Denmark region includes the part of northern Germany where one of my great-eight ancestors had roots. Lastly, my 6% England & Northwestern Europe, 3% France, and 3% The Netherlands regions all include Luxembourg too. In fact, the only regions assigned to me that fail to include a known ancestral location are the three smallest (percentage-wise): the 2% Russia, 2% Portugal and 1% Basque regions.

However, it is also important to remember that the percentage values that are supplied are estimates and that the specific numerical percentage for each ancestral region is only the best estimate in a range of likely contribution from it. You need to go to the detail page for each estimate to see its confidence interval (though this may be too strong a term as no statistical confidence is associated with these ranges). For me, my best estimates and their ranges are:

Thus, all but my top three regions include the possibility of no contribution from the region (i.e., the range includes zero). And, if we use only the lower bound of each range, the complete set may explain only 60% of my ethnicity. On the other hand, using only upper bounds gets me to 140%, an obviously unreasonable total. But, as I noted above, the mappings of my five largest regions overlap so it seems reasonable for the sum of my estimated ranges to exceed 100 also.

Regardless, over 95% of my predicted origins is consistent with what I know from records-based research, which is great. Still, because these latest regions have such broad reach, the results are somewhat less satisfying... more like saying I'm of European ancestry... that is certainly true, but it doesn't explain much! One thing I will note is that my new predicted regions do not include definitions that would imply Jewish, Roma, Magyar, Croatian or Ottoman-invader DNA for me, scenarios that seem a distinct possibility for us with roots in Burgenland (my previous estimates implied a slight possibility of the last of these).

If you haven't done so, you should check out your new results ...and maybe share your reaction to them with our readers.



Güssing Emigration Museum 30th Anniversary: The Güssing Emigration (Auswanderer) Museum celebrated 30 years of existence in October along with the Josef Reichl Museum, which opened together with it in the same building in 1994. They were joined by the Josef Reichl Association (Reichl-Bund), which celebrated 50 years of existence.

The anniversary celebrations were a festive event held at the Güssing town hall. Walter Dujmovits, the founder and initiator of the Auswanderer Museum, spoke and noted that the Museum's motto, "A strong faith and two hard-working hands," came from an emigrant from Gaas, whom he met in the USA in 1971.

As for the other two organizations, Josef Reichl was a local poet who kept the tradition of dialect poetry alive in the early years around the founding of Burgenland (he died in 1924), thus becoming a cultural identification figure for the then young province. The Reichl-Bund was founded in 1974 on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the writer's death. The author's legacy is also maintained by the Reichl Museum.

The celebration included music by the Güssinger Volkschor and a quintet from the Cantus Felix choir. Selections included songs with text based on Reichl's poems. Also in attendance were Karl Pratl, chairman of the Reichl-Bund, and Eduard Nicka, president of the Burgenländische Gemeinschaft, who said they were pleased about the full town hall.



Matriken.at Access on Sale: Ferenc Zotter wrote to me this past month to tell me that access to the Eisenstadt Diocese's online church record images is currently "on sale." From October 18th until December 16th, the fee is 10 euros for 1 year's access, 5 euros for 3 months and 2 euros for 15 days. These rates apply to either new access or an extension of existing access and the usual rules for number of image views and downloads apply.

You can find their online portal here: Diözese Eisenstadt (matriken.at)



Austrian National Day Celebrated on October 26: As I wrote in May's BB Newsletter 354, October 26th is the date Austria commemorates the 1955 Austrian State Treaty, which restored Austria's sovereignty and ended its occupation after World War II. However, it is not the date Austria officially regained its sovereignty, rather it is the day after the last of the occupation troops left Austria and the date the country declared permanent neutrality. As such, its 69th anniversary was celebrated in a number of ways in Austria and Burgenland this year.

ORF TV held a competition to honor their country called "9 Places - 9 Treasures" (one from each federal state) that has viewers vote for the most beautiful place in Austria. For Burgenland, the Podersdorf lighthouse was the nominee.

In Burgenland, the government held "Open Day" in the Landhaus in Eisenstadt to celebrate the "Day of Democracy." Visitors could tour the Landhaus and government offices and talk to state politicians, including Governor Hans Peter Doskozil and others such as the president of the state parliament, Robert Hergovich. Also, in front of the Landhaus there was an exhibition of "blue light organizations" including the police, fire brigade, military as well as water rescue and the rescue dog brigade. Further, there was a children's program in the Landhaus courtyard. As expected, the leaders of the various political parties issued statements on this occasion speaking of national and state solidarity and the good things in their country and states.

The Austrian National Day (Nationalfeiertag) is one of three Austrian secular-based public holidays (the other 10 are based on religious events). The other two secular holidays are Neujahr (New Year's Day, Jan 1) and Staatsfeiertag (also national day, but lower case), which is celebrated on May 1 and is equivalent to our Labor Day.



The Facebook Bunch (from Vanessa Sandhu):

Greetings, Burgenland Bunch!

How have you been? I hope that you are enjoying the nice weather and lovely fall festivities. As we prepare to “fall back” this weekend, I’m looking forward to the long, dark nights full of genealogy research! If you are looking to break down any brick walls in your family tree, come join us in our Facebook group. We have lots of helpers there and you might even meet some new cousins! We added nine members last month, bringing our membership count to 2249 strong. facebook.com/share/

Like many of us, the cooler weather had member Janet Kroboth-Weber craving some ancestral foods! She shared a link to member Roland Schuller’s YouTube channel, called “Polsen kocht pannonisch’s Beste.” He has many great recipes for you to try, and you can see them here: youtube.com/@polsenkocht.

Member Lisa Severin shared several great videos and photos from the Katrina Fest 2024 at the First Burgenländer Austria SC of New York.

Member Steve Huber shared some of his favorite songs with us:
   - “Mein Elternhaus” youtu.be/zeT_TWYAKVM
   - “Sag dankeschön mit roten rosen” youtu.be/-dBxq6eQX3I
   - “Burgenland, du bist so schön” youtu.be/wqdXrn76kFs

Member Ryan Strawn shared a nice video entitled “Volkstanz im Burgenland.” youtu.be/TCuU7XLljMk

Member Heidi Frank shared beautiful photos of her trip to Burgenland this fall. She took us all on a virtual trip, sharing lots of great information along the way. Photos showcased Rust, Klingenbach, Donnerskirchen, Eisenstadt, and Vienna. She shared that the Museum of Military History in Vienna (Heeresgeschichtliches Museum Wein) has a new World War 1 exhibit. She writes “For all you WW-I history buffs, the Museum of Military History in Vienna has just open a completely redone exhibit on WW-I (WW-II isn’t open yet). This is a really excellent exhibit with well-designed displays in chronological order discussing all fronts of the war. Art, photos, movies, weapons, uniforms, technology, & personal articles are all part of the displays.

"My grandfather was captured by the Russians at Przemyśl and remained a POW until 1921. This exhibit gave me a lot of new information about the siege, the aftermath, and the Eastern front of WW-I. The museum also has other wings dedicated to earlier periods of Austro-Hungary, but it’s a bit difficult to decipher some of these if you don’t already know the history. Perhaps these will be revised at some later date. At any rate, well worth the visit when in Vienna.” We’re sending a big thank you to Heidi for sharing her trip with us!

I shared lots of pictures and videos of the Reading Liederkranz’s Oktoberfest and the Coplay Sängerbund’s Weinlesefest (Grape Dance), featuring the Josef Kroboth band and the Emil Schanta band, respectively. Both clubs did a wonderful job hosting their events, and I encourage you to check them out if you are ever in town!

Member Fred Knarr shared some nice pictures from the Coplay Sängerbund last weekend. It was a reunion of sorts. Fred writes, “I met Fredi Fischl for the first time at a bar in Burgenland last summer. Then I met his mother-in-law Inge at a Coplay dance. Yesterday, Fredi and his wife Sandy Fis were at the Sängerbund visiting from Jabing! They had family and friends along. Mary and I had a great day with them. So glad to spend time with Bob Strauch as well! This was the last outdoor dance of the season.” It’s great to see our bonds with our Burgenland friends being strengthened in spite of the many miles between us!

Fred also shared a link to another Austrian genealogy source that you might not have used before. You can check it out here: en.geneanet.org/resources-for-austrian-genealogy.

Mark your calendars if you are local to the Lehigh Valley! The Coplay Sängerbund’s Heritage Committee is hosting its Schnitzel Dinner on Saturday, November 16th from 5-7 pm. TICKETS ARE REQUIRED. The cost is $20. The dinner includes chicken or pork schnitzel (with or without jäger mushroom sauce), spätzle or mashed potatoes, apple sauce or red cabbage, a green salad, a roll with butter, dessert, and coffee. To purchase tickets, please contact Emil or Cathy Schanta at (610) 262-8372.

CONNECTIONS:

Member Uschi Franger writes, “Hi to everyone, I've been quite successful in tracing the footprints from my great-grandfather Franz Franger (1888 - 1950) so far. I even received a reply from his former employer, The Altenheim, in Chicago. They say, that there is still a safe with all documents from former employees, but they don't have the capacity/staff to help. So my question: Is there someone living nearby (West Madison Street, Forest Park) who might help or has any idea what I could do to see these documents? Thank you so much! Greetings from Austria.” Can any of our Chicago Burgenländer community help Uschi? If you have any insight, please email me at HooftyRN@msn.com and I will pass the information on!
 
That’s all for now! 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 1796 copies, as interested people purchased 2 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... so get theirs now!



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!



Cartoon of the Month: (this one also 'relates' to the article that immediately follows!)

A1 g1 ® Ag
A1 a2 ® Aa
G2 g1 ® Gg
G2 a2 ® Ga

We see that two possible pairings yield "matches" (Aa, Gg) and two do not (Ag, Ga).

By the authors' notation, this is somehow evidence of "identical on both of their maternal and paternal chromosomes," because it is possible to find pairings that match... but we designed the example to be a clear non-match, so this is an example of identical by chance.

Again, GEDmatch labels such an occurrence as "fully identical" but will not go so far as to say "fully identical by descent," which would require "identical on both of their maternal and paternal chromosomes," a claim that can't be supported given how the analysis is done.

This misinterpretation issue (identical by chance) is even more likely when considering half-identical (yellow) regions such as the "match" example they show. Thus a non-matching set like A1 T2 / C1 a2 would indicate a match with only one of the four possible pairings having matching letters (even though, again, this is a designed non-match example).

So, a valid argument for why 'a genetic match with a medieval person' means 'very little,' is that, given the way the analysis is done, it could well be only a chance relationship, implying no kinship at all.

However, they present other valid arguments as to why a genetic match to a medieval person may have little meaning. They write that...

The first thing to understand is how many ancestors you have in each past generation. One generation back, you have two ancestors. Two generations back, that doubles to four. Then eight, and 16. By 30 generations ago, around the 12th century, you have over one billion ancestors.

Clearly, at this point, your ancestors include most people from your population who lived back then, excluding a small fraction who left no long-term descendants. [Ed. note: By "your population" they mean the reasonable set of medieval people with whom you might be related. For example, if your ancestors all came from Europe, this likely excludes, say, almost all native Chinese, Japanese, Australian, New Zealander and other far-East people, as well as most medieval natives of Africa and the Americas.] This "population" includes, if you have European origins, notable people such as Charlemagne or Edward I, but equally also people of every medieval social class. Your family tree reaches each of these ancestors through numerous lines.

In the image to the right, the red dot at generation 0 (at the bottom) represents a present-day person in a simulated population of 100,000 people. Each tiny red dot represents one person, and the red lines connect people to their parents. Ancestors reached through multiple lines in the family tree are marked in black circles. The number of lines becomes so large so quickly that beyond 15 generations ago, most ancestors are reached by multiple lines.

Mathematical research demonstrates the following surprising fact. In any given population, the number of lines in your family tree that reach any specific medieval person is about the same between you and everyone else who belongs to the same population you do. In other words, everyone alive today is equally related, genealogically, to all medieval people from that population.

So, they argue that you are related in multiple ways to everyone in your medieval population... but no more so than anyone else who shares that medieval population, thus a match has very little meaning from a family genealogy perspective.

They go on to say that the next step is to understand how many ancestors you actually inherit DNA from... and state that it is surprisingly few:

Despite your millions or more medieval ancestors, you inherit DNA from only a tiny fraction of them. So, we’re sorry, you probably didn’t inherit any DNA from Charlemagne or Edward I. For example, you have only about 2,000 genetic ancestors from the 12th century.

Each fragment of your DNA descends from a random line up your family tree – father’s mother’s mother’s father and so on – at each generation in the past, selecting at random one of two parents. The more lines in your family tree that reach a certain medieval person, the more likely you are to inherit DNA from that person.



Each DNA fragment (colored bars) is inherited through a random, zig-zagging path up the family tree, meaning DNA is inherited only from a small fraction of one’s ancestors.

But remember, the number of family lines that reach a medieval person is about the same for all present-day individuals from a given population. Therefore, all individuals inherit DNA from any medieval person with very similar probabilities. So, sharing genetic material with one particular medieval person or another is just a matter of chance, and everyone is playing the same game.

Here’s an analogy. Going to a casino and rolling a roulette ball onto 24 does not mean 24 is your special number. Anyone else might have rolled 24 as well. Similarly, sharing a DNA fragment with any one out of your millions of medieval genealogical ancestors does not mean any special relationship – beyond sharing a DNA fragment.

And if you don’t have a shared segment, you just didn’t get lucky. It doesn’t mean you’re any less genealogically related to that medieval person than anyone else from your population who does have a shared segment.

So this argument says that despite being truly related to everyone in your medieval population (including all the historically famous people among them), in actuality your DNA includes segments from only about 2,000 medieval people (and that group may not include any of those historically famous ones).

So the question is how to interpret a historical DNA match?

The authors answer by referring back to the 33 medieval people buried in a Jewish cemetery in Germany that they opened their article with, saying some present-day Ashkenazi (European) Jews share DNA with a particular person in that group, some with another, and some with none, calling it a lottery draw. They state that most Ashkenazi Jews today are genealogically related in a very similar way to the medieval German Jews, so seeing a particular shared DNA fragment does not imply any unique genealogical relatedness and is not informative.

However, if you consider more recent ancestors, DNA matches can be informative. The same mathematical models show that the number of family lines reaching a particular historical person living around 200 or 300 years ago will be very different across present-day people. Therefore, a DNA match with an 18th-century person implies a more specific genealogical relationship, one that most other present-day individuals do not have, and can be informative.

As for how far back in time, in the period between the 17th century and the late Middle Ages, DNA matches remain informative, they say they don’t know yet. It will require further research to clarify this question  as well as exploration of more complex models than one based on a single, freely mixing population.
 

The Historische Ortslexikon is a statistical documentation of the Austrian population and settlement history and includes information on population figures and houses. It is used to quantitatively support demographic, historical settlement and culturally-informative work, and offers a wide range of data on regional and local history. The main purpose of this documentation is the inclusion of data from the early statistical (late 18th to mid-19th century) and the "pre-statistical" periods in the quantitative description of the population and settlement history, with the classification of older data into time series ranging up to the most recent data.

The data collection is supplemented annually and is available to users by means of the website of the Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften (Institute of Demography of the Austrian Academy of Sciences) free of charge. Data cited are from the general source "Historisches Ortslexikon (Angabe des Bundeslandes)" [Historical Gazetteer (of the Federal State)], as well as specified sources for particular details.

Information on the population status derives from standard population censuses from 1869 to present, from earlier censuses (ecclesiastical soul censuses, military conscriptions, Census 1857) in the "early statistical" period from 1754 to 1857, and from tax, manorial, ecclesiastical or military sources in the "pre-statistical" period.

The Editor of the Historisches Ortslexikon is Dr. Kurt Klein, before retiring an employee (most recently, Vice President) of the Austrian Statistical Office (now Statistics Austria) and a lecturer at the Institute for Economic and Social History at the University of Vienna.

I'll now follow with an example dataset entry, picking Wallern as my example merely because it is a village where my ancestors added to their population counts!

Wallern im Burgenland
22 Urlehen (1510). – 1509: 28, 1510: 22(3 öde), 1526: 22(2 öde), 1569: 25, 1571: 26, 1589: 28 H, 1675: 63, 1696: *360 E, 1713: 303 E, 1715: 49(11 Sö), 1720: 74(21 Sö), 1734: 600 E, 1767: 73(35 Sö), 1787: 97-829, 1821: 131-887, 1828: 102-850, 1836: 888, 1843: 916, 1850: 959, 1863: 1063, 1869: 186-1243, 1880: 211-1359, 1890: 203-1239, 1900: 199-1347, 1910: 247-1613, 1923: 280-1612, 1934: 303-1812, 1939: 1878, 1951: 369-1895, 1961: 454-2001, 1971: 486-2061, 1981: 539-1995, 1991: 625-1978, 2001: 653-1978, 2006: 1912, 2011: 688-1803, 2012: 1762, 2013: 1749.
1767: 28 Ganz-, 40 Halblehen, 35 Söllner. - *1830: 26 Ganz-, 44 Halblehen, 24 Söllner, 37 Holden. – 1865: 26 Ganz-, 44 Halblehen, 24 Söllner, 36 Holden, 24 Kurialisten. - 1696: samt Pamhagen 1020 E. Geteilt im Verhältnis der Häuser 1675.- Q 1509: Loibersbeck Josef, Am Waasen, Volk und Heimat 19/1966. – 1526: Urbar Forchtenstein (Breu, Kroatensiedlung Burgenland). – 1569: HKA Urbar 1196. – 1589: Urbar Forchtenstein, HKA Urbar 1196. – 1767, *1830, 1865: Unger Konrad, Entwicklungsgeschichte von Wallern im Burgenland (private Homepage).

What you see above is a typical layout of the data. The village name is bolded then the standard population data follows in the same-sized but not bolded text.

Beneath that, in smaller text, are two separate sections (divided by a "Q", which appears in the third line in this example). The first section in smaller text are "notes" keyed to particular years; the second section (after the "Q") contains "local" references for particular years. These reference citations are abbreviated here but are given in full at the end of the document.

Before I explain this entry more fully, I'll show one more example, as it adds to the basic layout of the data (this time I use Halbturn as my example, as it is the other village to which my ancestors contributed population!).

Halbturn
Neuanlage 1672: 55 Höfe. - 1532: 5 aufr., 1696: 750 E, 1698: 66, 1700: 72, 1713: 556 E, 1715: 73(32 Sö), 1720: 76(33 Sö), 1763: 933, 1787: 140-1156, 1802: 1127, 1821: 136-1150, 1828: 146-1218, 1829: 1316, 1836: 1262, 1843: 1287, 1850: 170-1607, 1856: 189, 1857: 1763, 1863: 1961, 1869: 274-2093, 1880: 312-2473, 1890: 301-2263, 1900: 294-2429, 1910: 330-2460, 1923: 309-2170, 1934: 363-2201, 1939: 2142, 1951: 406-1995, 1961: 452-1917, 1971: 536-1913, 1981: 607-1896, 1991: 635-1856, 2001: 690-1880, 2006: 720-1888, 2011: 741-1898, 2012: 1904, 2013: 1892.
Wiederbesiedlung nach Verödung 1672. - Q 1532 (Urbar Ungarisch-Altenburg), 1698, 1700, 1802, 1829, 1850 (H), 1857, 1998: Brettl Herbert, Halbturn im Wandel der Zeiten, 1999. – Neuanlage 1672: Siedlungsnamen und Siedlungsformen als Quellen zur Besiedlungsgeschichte Niederösterreichs, Studien und Forschungen aus dem Niederösterreichischen Institut für Landeskunde 8, 1986, 118.
Albert-Casimir
Ab 1815: 48 H angelegt.- 1821: 40-250, 1828: 49-236, 1829: 259, 1869: 340, 1873: 334, 1934: 418.
Die Siedlung liegt auf ungarischem Staatsgebiet.
(Pfingsttagsmarkt)
1532: 6 aufr., 1821: 21 E.
Auf dem Hotter der verödeten Siedlung (ungarisches Staatsgebiet) wurden ab 1815 die Kolonistensiedlung Albert-Casimir und 1938 Varbalog angelegt.
Wittmannshof OB
*1785: 8 E, 1821: 35 E, 1828: 5-49, 1829: 52, 1857: 89, 1869: 125, 1872: 100, 1881: 313, 1894: 201, 1910: 248, 1923: 16-280, 1934: 265, 1951: 16-224, 1961: 16-132, 1971: 12-73, 1981: 11-19, 1991: 5-13, 1998: 7 E.
1824/29 Errichtung von Kolonistenhäusern (vorher Weichselhof).

What I want you to notice here are the three named entities appended, with no intervening blank line, to the Halbturn entry (Albert-Casimir, Pfingsttagsmarkt, and Wittmannshof OB).

These are what the documentation calls Ortschaftsbestandteile (i.e., village constituents or parts).  More fully, they call them "topographic units below the village level" and some include abbreviation/notation "OB" after their names when they are still associated with the main village. These Ortschaftsbestandteilen are included only when separate information from older sources were available about them.

You may rightly ask why Albert-Casimir and Pfingsttagsmarkt do not have the "OB" notation appended to their names. The answer is 1) that Albert-Casimir is now in Hungary and is no longer associated with Halbturn, though it was before 1921, as the note below its entry indicates; and 2) Pfingsttagsmarkt no longer exists, which is why it is also enclosed in parentheses.

[As an aside, I will note that this is the first time I was made aware of this place called Pfingsttagsmarkt (Pentecost Day Market). The note below its entry tells me that "From the Hotter (the land associated with a village) of this deserted settlement (in Hungarian territory), the colonial settlement Albert-Casimir was created in 1815 and Várbalog in 1938." I will also note that the references for the main Halbturn entry include a Chronik book entitled "Halbturn im Wandel der Zeiten," a book I was not aware of until seeing it listed here. Lastly, the first note under Halbturn, "Wiederbesiedlung nach Verödung 1672" (Resettlement after obliteration in 1672) makes it clear that this village was totally destroyed, presumably by the Ottomans. I'm not surprised at that fact, although it is yet another item first brought to my attention by reading this entry.]



I now want to take a moment to show one dataset in detail, so I will return to the Wallern entry. However, I will put the data in "linear" form, rather than the reported compact form, to better show and discuss it. So here is the Wallern data again:

Wallern im Burgenland
22 Urlehen (1510)
1509: 28
1510: 22(3 öde)
1526: 22(2 öde)
1569: 25
1571: 26
1589: 28 H
1675: 63
1696: *360 E
1713: 303 E
1715: 49(11 Sö)
1720: 74(21 Sö)
1734: 600 E
1767: 73(35 Sö)
1787: 97-829
1821: 131-887
1828: 102-850
1836: 888
1843: 916
1850: 959
1863: 1063
1869: 186-1243
1880: 211-1359
1890: 203-1239
1900: 199-1347
1910: 247-1613
1923: 280-1612
1934: 303-1812
1939: 1878
1951: 369-1895
1961: 454-2001
1971: 486-2061
1981: 539-1995
1991: 625-1978
2001: 653-1980
2006: (670)-1912
2007: 1865
2008: 1872
2009: 1853
2010: 1814

This entry starts out with cryptic line: "22 Urlehen (1510)."

Urlehen are the farms and lands as subdivided or assigned when the original settlement was created. Farms that were added later (e.g., by expanding the settlement, were not Urlehen). Terms Urhöfe and Urhuben can also be used. Urhöfe refers to a "full or whole" Urlehen, and is often used interchangeably with Urlehen; however, Urhuben refers only to a "half" Urlehen/Urhöfe. Thus the interpretation is that Wallern was established (founded) in 1510 with 22 original "whole" farms.

Interestingly, the next two lines seemingly confuse this:
    1509: 28
    1510: 22(3 öde)

The first line above indicates that Wallern had 28 houses (or household units) in 1509 while the second line claims only 22, but with "(3 öde)" appended, which means 3 were desolate / deserted / unoccupied. I can only presume that the settlement was "under development" in 1509, given it was not "officially established" until 1510.

[Another aside: Other sources indicate that Wallern (Bala in Hungarian) is mentioned in documents from as early as 1269. This seems to call into question this 1510 "founding" date. I have no explanation for this discrepancy! Do write to me if you can explain it.]

The next set of interesting lines are these:
    1589: 28 H
    1675: 63
    1696: *360 E
    1713: 303 E
    1715: 49(11 Sö)

The "H" in the 1589 line indicates that this is specifically a "house" count rather than a household or inhabitant count.

The line for 1696 has two notational items: First, the "E" indicates that this count is of "Einwohners" (residents/inhabitants) rather than farms/houses.

Second, the asterisk * says that this is "fuzzy" data, being estimated or calculated in some way. In this particular case, the note for 1696, "samt Pamhagen 1020 E. Geteilt im Verhältnis der Häuser" says "with Pamhagen 1020 residents, shares in proportion to the houses," implying that there must have been a total population count of 1020 people between Pamhagen and Wallern [Wallern was affiliated with Pamhagen at the time] and that 360 (35%) were calculated to belong to Wallern because Wallern had 35% of the total houses.

Skipping to 1715, we see that the house count of 49 has "(11 Sö)" appended to it. This indicates that 11 "houses" were Söllner or Söllhäuser families (a classification that includes Kleinhäusler, Keuschler, Bergler, Hofstettler, Untersässen, Inquilini or Kurialisten, all of which would, typically, have had 1/16 or less of the land area of a full farm).

The last set of lines I will point out are:
    1734: 600 E
    1767: 73(35 Sö)
    1787: 97-829

I'll start with year 1787, where we have two numbers separated by a dash. The 97-829 pair of this entry signify 97 houses/households with 829 total inhabitants. Now I'll jump back to the line for year 1734. In this line, because the "E" is the last to appear in this time sequence (see full list above), it takes on an additional meaning: all single (non-paired) entries below this also represent inhabitant counts, not house counts.



As I mentioned above, the time series data is followed by notes and then "local" references. Both contain valuable information and are well worth reading and translating. Again, I'll re-list the Wallern notes and references in a "linear" format, so they are easier to read:

1767: 28 Ganz-, 40 Halblehen, 35 Söllner.
– *1830: 26 Ganz-, 44 Halblehen, 24 Söllner, 37 Holden.
– 1865: 26 Ganz-, 44 Halblehen, 24 Söllner, 36 Holden, 24 Kurialisten.
– 1696: samt Pamhagen 1020 E. Geteilt im Verhältnis der Häuser 1675.

– Q 1509: Loibersbeck Josef, Am Waasen, Volk und Heimat 19/1966.
– 1526: Urbar Forchtenstein (Breu, Kroatensiedlung Burgenland).
– 1569: HKA Urbar 1196.
– 1589: Urbar Forchtenstein, HKA Urbar 1196.
– 1767, *1830, 1865: Unger Konrad, Entwicklungsgeschichte von Wallern im Burgenland (private Homepage).

First, note that the individual entries are keyed to years and divided from each other by an n-dash (–), with references further separated from notes by the "Q". From these entries, we see that the farms are broken out into Ganz-[lehen] (full fief), Halb-lehen (half fief), Söllner, Holden and Kurialisten for years 1767, 1830 and 1865. We also see the note I mentioned for how the "fuzzy" data for year 1696 was calculated.



At this point, I'll provide two lists that may help you understand these data, with the first being a list of commonly used abbreviations, complete with the German words they stand for and an English translation/explanation:

The second is a list of commonly used words and phrases, complete with a translation to English:

In closing, I'll again state that this Ortslexikon contains important and interesting information that can be a valuable addition to the understanding of your deep family history. I suggest you take the time to decipher the details for your ancestral villages and incorporate it into your thinking and any histories you write.

Please consult the club links for their events:

coplaysaengerbund.com
lancasterliederkranz.com
readingliederkranz.com
evergreenclub.org


ST. LOUIS, MO

Sunday, Nov 10, 2-6 pm: St. Louis Burgenländer Gathering at the Community Center Cafeteria of Holy Name of Jesus Catholic Church, 10235 Ashbrook Dr., St. Louis, MO. Contact: tmacwms@sbcglobal.net


NEW BRITAIN, CT

Friday-Sunday, 1-8 pm: Biergarten is open. Austrian Donau Club, 545 Arch Street.

NOTICE (Informal Terms and Conditions): The Burgenland Bunch (BB) was formed and exists to assist Burgenland descendants in their research into their heritage and, toward that end, reserves the right to use any communication you have with us (email, letter, phone conversation, data upload, etc.) as part of our information exchange and educational research efforts.
    ● If you do not want your communication to be used for this purpose, indicate that it is "confidential" and we will attempt to abide by that request.
    ● Correspondents who communicate with the BB without requesting confidentiality retain their copyright but give a non-exclusive license to the BB allowing us to forward to BB members, publish in our monthly newsletter or on our website, and/or subsequently and permanently archive all or parts of such communications.

The formal Burgenland Bunch Website Usage Agreement is here: Agreement

The Burgenland Bunch homepage (website) is at: the-burgenland-bunch.org