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

This newsletter concerns:

1) THE PRESIDENT'S CORNER

2) YOUR FAMILY NAME WAS NOT CHANGED AT ELLIS ISLAND

3) A SUCCESS STORY: A BURGENLAND DESCENDANT’S EXPERIENCE WITH AUTOSOMAL DNA GENETIC GENEALOGY (by Richard Potetz)

4) INTERESTING BOOKS FROM 1838 AND 1845-1854

5) HISTORICAL BB NEWSLETTER ARTICLES:
    - OCCUPATION TERM "CURIALISTA" IS [NOT] OFFICIAL NOTE (by Gerry Berghold) [correction]

6) ETHNIC EVENTS

7) BURGENLAND EMIGRANT OBITUARIES (courtesy of Bob Strauch)

I'll repeat my standard comment: the FamilySearch database continues to grow so you should check back every so often to see if new records appropriate for your ancestors have been added.



The Man From God Knows Where: If you have never heard Tom Russell's 1999 song-cycle album, The Man From God Knows Where, about his family genealogy and history, you should! The album features singers Iris DeMent, Dolores Keane, the late Dave Van Ronk, Sondre Bratland and Kari Bremnes, who, along with Tom, portray and tell the stories of Russell's various ancestors. It draws on the music of Norway and Ireland but much of it is comes from traditional American musical genres and includes some real tear-jerker songs! Every time I come back to this album I can't help but think it would make a glorious musical play!

Tom sings as his lead character:
   So its rise up all you ancestors, and dance upon your graves
   I've come to hear your voices now so maybe I'll be saved
   Cursed are we who forget the past, but pray and don't despair
   My song might haunt your dreams tonight, I'm the man from God knows where

And he's right... his song(s) have haunted my dreams... perhaps they will haunt yours too, so here is a YouTube offering of one song from the album, Love Abides, sung by Tom and Iris; it is the bittersweet final song of the cycle.

The album is best listened in the song-cycle sequence that Tom devised, so do that if you can, but there are a few other songs from the album on YouTube that will pop up if you care to hear more (though most of my favorites are missing). As for this song, the only "video" is the album cover image, so just listen:

Mosquitoes in Burgenland: The Burgenland Government website recently posted a report on its ongoing Mosquito Monitoring Project. Since 2014, Burgenland has investigated its mosquito populations, with special attention given to invasive species such as the Asian Tiger Mosquito and the Japanese Bush Mosquito.

Some 44 types of mosquitoes (of 3500 worldwide) are present in Austria, with four being considered invasive. Invasive species are those that can migrate, settle and displace native species, thereby affecting the balance of domestic biological processes.

Burgenland's Environment Provincial Councilor, Astrid Eisenkopf (some of you met her when she was part of the Burgenland Delegation that visited North America in late May and early June), explained the project, saying, "The task of the mosquito monitoring Burgenland project is to continually update the species inventory of the mosquitoes in eastern Austria, and also to capture habitat parameters that influence the spread of native and invasive mosquitoes."

Norbert Darabos, National Councilor for Health, added: "A transparent presentation of the project plays an essential role in Burgenland's health policy. Clear guidelines must be set for disease prevention, especially given the essential importance of tourism and the Lake Neusiedl."

The good news is that there is no evidence of a health hazard from the invasive species present in Burgenland. Carina Zittra, a scientist from the Institute for Parasitology of the University of Veterinary Medicine in Vienna, reports that, "Since the beginning of the study, there has been no evidence of harm. The Japanese Bush Mosquito is found each year, (in contrast to the Asian Tiger mosquito, detected a single time in 2012). Only two pathogens, which can not be transferred to humans, were detected among 15,000 samples."

On a personal note, I grew up in Minnesota, where the mosquito is, semi-jokingly, called the "state bird." Worse yet, Minnesota mosquitoes loved me, whereas my wife could stand beside me and never get bit! One of the truly great benefits (to me) of our move to North Carolina (where I worked during my career) was that there were no mosquitoes, at least in 1978 when we arrived. Unfortunately, the Asian Tiger Mosquito (aedes albopictus) landed in the southern US in 1985 and soon worked its way up to North Carolina... where they quickly became an irritating pest. The only (minor) redeeming quality of the Asian Tiger was that it bit my wife too, so at least I didn't have to listen to her mocking me about being mosquito feed!

Sad to say, the Asian Tiger moved northward rapidly and was waiting for us in southern Pennsylvania when we moved here five years ago. And now the Yellow Fever Mosquito (aedes aegypti) is making its way into Pennsylvania, and it is a known carrier of lots of bad stuff: dengue fever, West Nile virus, Yellow Fever and Zika virus, among others. Although the Asian Tiger Mosquito can carry many of the same diseases, doing so is currently very rare in the US [and the most common of the many Minnesota mosquitoes, the Inland Floodwater Mosquito (aedes vexans ...love that name!), seldom carried anything dangerous, the worst being West Nile]. This changing mix of mosquitoes is why the US, Austria and many other countries are monitoring mosquitoes... and Burgenland's efforts are one small part of that worldwide campaign.



Burgenland Digital Images At FamilySearch.org: A few months ago I reported that most (95%+) of the Burgenland-related microfilms had been converted to digital format and that our BB LDS pages had been modified to add links to these pages. A check earlier this month revealed that no additional films have been digitized, so this is pretty much a non-report... things stand as they were in my first report. However, we will continue to monitor these unconverted microfilms, will add the digital collection numbers when they become available, and will let you know that it has happened ...whenever it happens!

I'll also note that BB members or staff have notified me about a couple of errors in our LDS listings; the errors have been corrected now, of course. However, that gives me the opportunity to remind you to send in corrections should you find errors... we'd rather have things right!



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 1183 copies, as interested people purchased 5 more books during this past month.

As always, the book remains available for online purchase at a list price of $7.41 (which is the production charge for the book, as we purposely choose not to make a profit so we can avoid dealing with the income tax consequences and 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 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: Vanessa Bammer Sandhu's grandparents are the source for this recipe. Her grandparents come from Inzenhof, Eisenberg an der Pinka, Woppendorf, and Kemesmál, Hungary (near Luising, Burgenland), and all settled in the West Coplay / Coplay / Northampton area of the Lehigh Valley in PA.

HUNGARIAN NUT TORTE (from Vanessa Sandhu)

7 eggs, separated          1 c. sugar
1 1/2 c. flour, sifted     2 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. salt              6 Tbsp. water
1/2 c. walnuts, ground     1 tsp. vanilla

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Beat egg yolks with sugar until they are thick and yellow in color. Sift the dry ingredients. Add water to the egg yolk mixture then slowly blend in the dry ingredients. Add ground nuts and vanilla. Fold in stiffly beaten egg whites. Pour into greased and floured cake pans. Bake for 30-35 minutes in a 350 degree oven. Cool for 10 minutes before removing from pans to wire racks to cool completely.

Filling [not part of original recipe]:

1 1/4 cups milk
1 package (3.4 ounces) cook-and-serve chocolate pudding mix

1/2 cup butter, softened       1/2 cup shortening
1 cup confectioners' sugar     1 teaspoon vanilla extract
White and dark chocolate curls, optional

In a small saucepan, whisk the milk and pudding mix. Bring to a boil, stirring constantly. Remove from the heat. Pour into a bowl; press a piece of waxed paper or plastic wrap over pudding. Refrigerate for 30 minutes.

In a bowl, cream the butter, shortening and confectioners' sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in vanilla and cooled pudding.

Split each well-cooled cake into two layers. Place one bottom layer on a serving plate; spread with about 3/4 cup filling. Repeat layers. Garnish with chocolate curls if desired.



Reminder: As mentioned a while back, I no longer have a "regular" source for Burgenland recipes. As above, a few readers have shared favorite family recipes so I'm good for a fair number of months now, but if contributions stop coming in, I'll be begging by year-end again! So, please consider sharing your favorite Burgenland recipes or recipe books with me so I can then share them with the readership... and so our ethnic dishes do not get washed away by the ever-flowing river of time and become lost to our future generations. Thanks!




Cartoon of the Month:

Names were not changed at Ellis Island. The proof is found when one considers that inspectors never wrote down the names of incoming immigrants. The only list of names came from the manifests of steamships, filled out by ship officials in Europe. In the era before visas, there was no official record of entering immigrants except those manifests. When immigrants reached the end of the line in the Great Hall, they stood before an immigration clerk with the huge manifest opened in front of him. The clerk then proceeded, usually through interpreters, to ask questions based on those found in the manifests. Their goal was to make sure that the answers matched. (p.402)

Thus Ellis Island inspectors did not create records of immigration; rather they checked the names of the people moving through Ellis Island against those recorded in the ship's passenger list, or manifest. The ship's manifest was created by employees of the steamship companies that brought the immigrants to the United States, before the voyage took place, when the passenger bought their ticket. The manifest was presented to the officials at Ellis Island when the ship arrived. If anything, Ellis Island officials were known to correct mistakes in passenger lists. The Encyclopedia of Ellis Island states that employees of the steamship companies:

…mostly ticket agents and pursers, required no special identification from passengers and simply accepted the names the immigrants gave them. Immigrant inspectors accepted these names as recorded in the ship's manifests and never altered them unless persuaded that a mistake had been made in the spelling or rendering of the name. Nonetheless the original name was never entirely scratched out and remained legible. (p.176)

Although it is always possible that the names of passengers were spelt wrong, perhaps by the clerk when the ticket was bought, or during transliteration, when names were translated from one alphabet to another, it is more likely that immigrants were their own agents of change. Cannato, for instance, suggests that people often changed their name in advance of migration. More commonly, immigrants would change their names themselves when they had arrived in the United States.

Someone might change their name in order to make it sound more American, to fit in with the local community, or simply because it was good for business. There is at least one instance of a small businessman arriving in the United States from Eastern Europe changing his public name to something that sounded Swedish, because he had settled in a Swedish neighborhood in New York City. Some immigrants would officially record their name change, when naturalizing for instance, but as there were few states requiring a record that such was done, no official record of most name changes was made. People would just start using a different name.

John Colletta, in his book, They Came in Ships, describes the immigration process at Ellis Island in more detail:

[The] Inspector had in his hands a written record of the immigrant he was inspecting and, asking the same questions over again, could compare the oral statements with it. The inspectors therefore, read the names already written down on the lists, and they had at their service a large staff of translators who worked along side them in the Great Hall of the Ellis Island facility. (p.12)

Contemporary descriptions of Ellis Island do not mention name changes at Ellis Island, and there are hundreds of stories about the immigration inspection station in the newspapers of the time. In a 1922 article, titled To Be or Not to Be American in the New York Times, journalist Elizabeth Heath describes a visit to Ellis Island and the Great Hall where immigrants were processed:

Upstairs, in the great main hall of the building, the straggling crowd is skillfully split into a dozen long lines, each leading to the desk of an inspector. Before him is spread the manifest of the steamship company, giving the required information about each steerage passenger - religion, relatives in America, amount of money, source of passage money, literacy, occupation, and the positive statement that the candidate for admission does not believe or practice polygamy or anarchy. It is a seeming miscellany of information, but each item has a direct bearing on the legality of admission. (p.41)

A letter to the Chicago Tribune advice column, The Legal Friend of the People, dated September 16, 1912, discusses name changes and an application for citizenship, and mentions Ellis Island. The letter said:

After having lived in the United States for five years I changed the spelling of my name. When I made my declaration to become a citizen of the United States, about a year and a half ago, I gave my name as I now spell it. Will this cause any hitch in my taking out final citizenship papers six months hence? [...] I understand that all declarations of intention to become a citizen are forwarded to New York and verified by the records at Ellis Island. When it is discovered that my name, as I spelled it when I took out my first papers, is not on the books [the ships manifests] there, will this interfere with my taking out my final naturalization papers?

The advice given in reply, simply said:

On making the application for final papers, you should spell your name as in the original application. You have the right to change the spelling without a court process. (p.6)

The idea that names were changed at Ellis Island raises lots of questions. For instance, if names were changed, what happened to the paperwork? And if inspectors were charged with changing names, why are there no records of this? Where are the lists of approved names? Where are the first-hand accounts of inspectors and immigrants? If immigrants had name changes forced upon them, why did they not simply change their name back when they entered the country? Or, if they could not, where is paperwork describing the roles of Federal officials charged with making sure that names were not changed back?

Yet the myth persists, almost exclusively in family lore. One explanation might be that, in our "more enlightened" times, we presume people would not have voluntarily changed their family name. Given that most people migrating to the United States now no longer feel that they have to change their name to fit in, it seems strange that people would have done so generations ago.

Marian L. Smith, in her essay, American Names: Declaring Independence, suggests that another interpretation of the Ellis Island myth might be:

That an immigrant is remembering his initial confrontation with American culture. "Ellis Island" was not only immigrant processing, it was finding one's way around the city, learning to speak English, getting one's first job or apartment, going to school, and adjusting one's name to a new spelling or pronunciation. All these experiences, for the first few years, were the "Ellis Island experience." When recalling their immigration decades before, many immigrants referred to the entire experience as "Ellis Island."

Are there exceptions to this myth? Yes... but rare.

One famous example was for a passenger on the SS New York in 1908. Passenger Frank Woodhull's name was crossed out at Ellis Island and replaced with Mary Johnson on the passenger manifest! However, the Record of Aliens Held for Special Inquiry passenger list addendum explains that Mary Johnson was being held for further inspection because she was traveling as "Frank Woodhull" and "in male attire."  After Ms. Johnson proved that she would not be a financial burden on the United States, she was allowed to continue "his" journey to New Orleans.



The incident generated headlines in newspapers all over the country but Ancestry Library Edition provides no clues as to Frank Woodhull's whereabouts after leaving Ellis Island. Perhaps, after the furor, Frank/Mary decided to change his/her name again to avoid further publicity.

This story illustrates one thing: once Mary Johnson left Ellis Island, she was no longer obliged to be known as either Frank Woodhull or Mary Johnson, but was free to resume life with the name and identity of her choosing. Ellis Island could not impose a name upon her.



Editor: So, those are Phillip Sutton's arguments... and I fully agree with his conclusion. I have seen lots of notations added by the Ellis Island inspectors on manifests: things such as grouping of family members, addition of the given name of a woman when she was originally recorded as "Mrs. Husband's-first-name Surname," more complete addresses for where the immigrants were going or clarifications about whom they were going to, even notes that the passenger was not on board, but I have never seen a full-blown name change.

Thus, if your family surname differed in America from what it was in Europe, it almost certainly was due to a personal choice your ancestor made. Wouldn't it be more rewarding to discover why your ancestor changed it than to simply claim "it happened at Ellis Island"? I think so!

"There is much variability in DNA tests. Each company tests slightly different things in different ways. DNA inheritance is highly variable. For all of these reasons, keep in mind that the cM match values and predicted relationships are VERY ROUGH ESTIMATES ONLY!

"This is especially true for more distant cousins. Additionally, if you are related to someone on multiple lines—or if you or your match are related to your common ancestor on multiple lines (e.g., your grandparents were cousins)—then the total cM will suggest a closer relationship than is actually the case."

Ed and I match nine DNA segments each larger than 7 cM, with the largest of those being 22.7cM. Taken together, these results are consistent with the multiple-path fourth-cousin connection Ed and I share.

My second successful identification of a shared ancestor with a previously unknown DNA relative came from the FamilyTreeDNA site. Flurina Zeier, who lives in Lucerne, Switzerland, appeared at the top of my Family Finder list on the FamilyTreeDNA site. Flurina’s grandmother was born in Neumarkt an der Raab, immigrating to Switzerland in the 1950s. Flurina knew her Neumarkt an der Raab ancestry, making the identification of our shared ancestors easy. My great-great-grandparents János Zotter (1817-1869) and his wife Theresia Holtzman (1818-1897) are Flurina’s great-great-great-grandparents so Flurina and I are third cousins once removed. In this case identifying our shared ancestors was easy, and now I had a second DNA verification of one of my eight sets of great-great-grandparents.

A second verification of the same set of great-great-grandparents allows DNA test results to double-check connections. János Zotter and Theresia Holtzman, who married in 1837 are:
• my great-great-grandparents, though their daughter Maria Zotter (1837-1918);
• George Lombardo’s great-great-grandparents, through their son Ferencz (1840-1901+);
• Flurina’s great-great-great-grandparents, though their daughter Rosina Zotter (1842-1912).

George was tested by AncestryDNA, Flurina was tested by FamilyTreeDNA, and I was tested by 23andMe. All of us copied our test results to GEDmatch, allowing a three-way comparison:

All three results are as expected. MRCA means Most Recent Common Ancestor. Because George and I are third cousins, we match a bit more DNA between us than we do with Flurina, our third cousin once-removed. Because of the random nature of autosomal DNA inheritance, the matching-segment amounts shared with DNA relatives are not often so clear to interpret. Each birth is a DNA randomizing event, widening the range of matching DNA between descendants in each generation. According to 23andMe, about 10% of the time an actual third cousin will not even appear on your DNA Relatives list.

How successful has my success with DNA testing been? DNA testing has verified my connection to 12 of the 58 direct ancestors named in my tree. DNA testing has not added any direct ancestors to my tree, but I have found lots of relatives. Oddly, all of my verifications have been connected to the little village of Neumarkt an der Raab. Clearly I’ve got a long way to go. I’m OK with that. A couple of years ago I had no verified direct ancestors at all.

Once the old Catholic Church records for Burgenland go online, I hope to grow my tree back far enough to identify shared ancestors with at least a few more of my DNA relatives, a number of whom are Burgenland Bunch members.

My mother was amazed, late in her life, when genealogy showed that she and my dad were third cousins. She had one grandparent born in Neumarkt an der Raab, the same village where three of my father’s grandparents were born, so she then came to believe there were lots of related people there. A few years ago when I found that a DNA relative, Ruth Brewer, had ancestors who had lived in Neumarkt an der Raab, I excitedly told my mother. She was not surprised, saying, "Everyone in Neumarkt is related." I don’t know about that, but those of you who have Burgenland ancestry from both of your parents may find, like I did, that your parents are related. Your parents are not likely to be as closely related as mine, but perhaps related enough to show as distant cousins by that GEDmatch "Are your parents related?" tool.

For only two of my unknown DNA relatives were we able to identify our shared ancestors. To put that into perspective, on 23andMe I have 1433 DNA relatives, on FamilyTreeDNA I have another 249, and on GEDmatch another 2000. Eliminating overlap, and discounting 10% as false positives, there are about 2600 people shown by testing to share at least one ancestor with me within the last few centuries. Two out of 2600 does not seem like success, but in terms of tree verification, just a small number of finds can verify the correctness of your family tree.

My advice to those of you who have been tested is to concentrate on the few people who share the most DNA with you, and to keep building your family tree back as far as the available records allow. The only successes I’ve found came from people who shared lots of DNA with me and who either knew their own family tree or were willing to work on it.

The people on your DNA Relatives list who match just a small segment with you could be “false positives” that you could not possibly identify a shared ancestor with. Or they could be as close as third or fourth cousins. The testing companies have good reasons to include those small-segment matches in DNA Relative lists. For example, Ed is shown by conventional genealogy to be a fourth cousin to me and my first cousin Rosalie. They share just a single segment of 8.35 cM with 744 SNPs. That barely qualifies as a large-enough segment for them to appear on their respective DNA Relatives lists. That small match on a list would not be enough to initiate a search, but it is enough to verify their fourth-cousin connection. In fact, according to 23andMe, just 46% of fourth cousins share enough DNA for them to appear on their respective DNA Relatives lists. If you have a fourth or more distant cousin you have located using conventional genealogy and you wish to confirm their connection using DNA, you need to compare your results against theirs at a low threshold.

If you wish to learn more about the meaning of autosomal DNA test results, the International Society of Genetic Genealogy Wiki website listed in the DNA Background tab on the Burgenland Bunch site has lots of information. Suggested articles include:

https://isogg.org/wiki/Cousin_statistics

https://isogg.org/wiki/Autosomal_DNA_statistics

https://isogg.org/wiki/Identical_by_descent#False_positive_matches

It is theoretically possible that some of my ancestor verifications using DNA could be in error. For me, shared ancestors identified with DNA relatives have always come in pairs. For example, Michael Holtzmann and Theresia Taucher were shown by records to be the great-great-great-grandparents of me and my DNA relative Ed Toenyes. Thus, based on the conventional-genealogy connection I have with Ed Toenyes, I’ve taken credit for having verified, with DNA, my conventional-genealogy connection to both Michael Holtzmann and Theresia Taucher. But it is possible that our matching DNA came from just one of that couple. Although you cannot claim with certainty which half of a couple provided the DNA segments you share with your DNA relative, the female identified is fairly certain. History tells us the maternal half of the couple is more likely to be a true ancestor. English archeologists have found that when using DNA to verify the identity of royal bones, it’s best to follow the mitochondrial DNA that passes intact from mother to child. As you might guess, the science of DNA has shown that false maternity happens far less than false paternity, as this newspaper account of the verification of King Richard III points out: richard-iii-dna-tests-uncover-evidence-of-further-royal-scandal.

Halbturn. It is a beautiful German village of 146 houses, 1250 dwellers, property of Archduke Charles. The castle consists of a raised ground floor, an upper floor, and has considerable side buildings. It was built by Karl VI in a grand style, contains a significant library, and offers a beautiful view over the lake to Rust. It lies on a moderate hill in a beautiful garden, forest and field area. Charles VI often stayed here. In 1740 he fell ill during the hunt and died eight days later in Vienna.

At Halbturn lies the Estate Wittmannshof, of 3000 yoke. In 1813 still a barren sheep-pasture, it was transformed into a productive exchange economy by purposeful cultivation and protective tree walls, and now feeds 100 oxen and 3,400 sheep. For the workers in the territories, a separate colony, Kasimir, of 49 houses was laid out. This separates Wittmannshof from the Estate Farkasbrunn.

From Halbturn to Altenburg, 3 hours, one can not only get to the considerable village of Zanegg, which is inhabited by wealthy peasants, but could also go to Marienau in two hours' time via Straß-Somarein.

Way over Esterhaz. Esterhaz, see p. 533. A quarter of an hour from the castle begins the embankment which Prince Nikolaus Esterházy had made to Pamhagen in 1778 through the Hanság. The marsh is here the narrowest point, and the dam is a great advantage for the whole region, since it is the only connection of Wieselburg and Ödenburg counties on this side. The dam is 4,000 fathoms long, and has 22 vaults to let the sea water pass. The middle has a memorial stone on which the year of the construction has been cut. From Esterhaz to Pamhagen one has a strong hour to give. Pamhagen (Pomaggen, Pomogy) is a German village of 1,500 inhabitants. From here you are on a beautiful newly-built street to Wallern, Tadten, Wüstsommerein, then St. Johann to St. Peter or to St. Andrä (Andras) just there. All these places are of considerable size, and were otherwise surrounded by larger and smaller marshlands. The reed, which has been piled up all over the place in large heaps, must now be fetched from the more remote marshes. Even those who are ignorant of the area are still aware of the proximity of an important swampland, which is indicated by the heavy, damp air.

At St. Peter the scene suddenly changes. A poplar alley accompanies the street going to Alternburg and Wieselburg. Alleys and tree walls are to the right of the street where, in place of the desolate marshy and heathland, are the beautiful meadows and fields of the 1600 yoke great estate Kaiserwiesen and Hanság, which had already been won over from the flood-stricken country. From here you can reach Altenburg in an hour and a half.

I find it interesting that distances are measured in time to walk between places and that many of the villages are described as being of "considerable size."



In addition, I found a series of six volumes titled "Allgemeines geographisch-statistisches Lexikon aller österreichischen Staaten: nach amtlichen Quellen, den besten vaterländischen Hilfswerken und Original-Manuscripten, von einer Gesellschaft [von] Geographen, Postmännern und Staatsbeamten" [herausgegeben von Franz Raffelsperger; Wien: Typogeographische Kunstanstalt, 1845-1854], which is available for free in digital format at http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/.

The title translates to: "General geographic-statistical lexicon of all Austrian states: by official sources, the best patriotic relief works and original manuscripts, by a society of geographers, postmen and public officials" [edited by Franz Raffelsperger; Vienna: Typogeographical Art Institute, 1845-1854].

This one is not printed in the old German Fraktur font, which makes reading it somewhat easier, however, the scanned images are not quite as clear as in the first book. Further, the editor chooses to use many abbreviations, his spelling is questionable at times (or era specific), and he uses lots of sentence fragments, so a lot more work is needed to get sensible translations from GoogleTranslate. Again I'll insert two passages below (chosen again because they are about my ancestral emigrant villages of Wallern and Halbturn) as examples of what the text is like.

Halbturn, Hungary, Wieselburg. district, Féltorony, Hemypyrgum. Beautiful German village, 2 3/4 hours from Altenburg, Roman Catholic church parish, 146 house and 1218 Roman Catholic inhabitants. Good farmland and winegrowing, handsome sheep farm, forest, splendid pleasure castle, but only a ground floor, but in a pleasant area, between pheasant huts, lying on a hill and a very nice view over the water surface of Lake Neusiedler towards Rust. Emperor Charles VI had the pleasure castle decorated with splendid buildings, a remarkable pheasant farm, wild and stud horses, and very often gave it his presence. Here the monarch, when he once amused himself with hunting, fell ill on the 19th of October, 1740, and eight days later he died at Vienna. In 1768, this place was received by the Archduchess Maria Christina, wife of the Duke of Albert Saxe-Teschen, and now it is a possession of His Imperial Highness Archduke Carl.

Valla, Wallern, Hungary, beyond the Danube, Wieselburg district and county, a village lying on the Hanság Swamp, under Prince Eszterházy, with 102 houses and 850 German inhabitants, who profess the Roman Catholic religion, and have a special parish church and elementary school, between Pomogy, Szent-Andrä and Tétteny, 4 hours from Mosony (Wieselburg).

I do want to speak a bit about website http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/, the listing source for the second book above. This page is titled "The Online Books Page" and was founded and is edited by John Mark Ockerbloom, a digital library planner and researcher at the University of Pennsylvania. The site lists over 2 million "significant" free digital books that are available on the Web. The site is hosted by the University of Pennsylvania Libraries, which provide the server, disk space, and network bandwidth for the site. They also employ the editor, and support him in his various digital library activities (of which this is one).

The online books listed on this page have been authored, placed online, and hosted, by a wide variety of individuals and groups throughout the world. The index consists of two parts: a "curated collection" of books that the University of Pennsylvania staff has personally reviewed and cataloged, and "extended shelves" of books where cataloging data is automatically imported and adapted from outside organizations. Books on the "extended shelves" come primarily from HathiTrust, Project Gutenberg, and the University of Florida Baldwin Digital Collection of Historic Children's Literature, who supply the cataloging information used in those listings.

The index contains many historical books (as it is used to support research at this and other universities), so if you are looking for an old reference book for Austria-Hungary, it is worth giving the index a look.

The site also has a page (http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/archives.html) that documents sources of, and search tools for, online books. It is a huge page in itself.