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

Email Bounces - Newsletter Notification (Redux): As of the December 2023 newsletter, we switched to using sender.net as our bulk email mailer. As I noted last month, one feature it has is that it provides a list of bounced emails, that is, emails we sent but did not get to the intended recipients and, in most cases, why the email bounced. In total, 216 messages bounced for the December newsletter notice, with most of them (140) because the destination email server considered the message to be spam. Another 53 bounced because the destination account was disabled and 4 because the destination mailbox was full (over quota). An additional 19 messages bounced but no explanation was provided as to why.

This past month, we were down to 72 total bounces, with most of them (60) because the destination email server considered the message to be spam. Another 3 bounced because the destination account was disabled and 4 because the destination mailbox was full (over quota). Three more messages bounced but no explanation was provided as to why. Of the final two bounced messages, one had a transient delivery problem that should have resolved itself and then delivered our message... but we were warned that our message was delayed. The other had a "mail loop detected" and exceeded its "hop count," but that was nothing to do with our particular mailing.

Of these, I chose to remove the 3 disabled mail accounts from our mailing list and also the one with the mail loop (it had the same problem the previous month). Of the four over quota mail addresses, three were also over quota last month. If these remain over quota next month, I will remove them from our list. The good news is that one over quota account from last month was OK this month... the bad news is we added a new over quota account, but it was one that was blocked for spam last month.

Given my deletions, you members are only able to do something about the four bounces where the mailbox was over quota (you should delete messages, especially those in any junk, trash, or deleted items folders) and possibly the three accounts where no explanation was given... that is, unless you operate like Rat in this cartoon: 

As a reminder, deleting emails in most email programs does not permanently delete the email, rather they are moved to a special folder (like deleted items or trash). You must empty these folders to permanently delete their contents. Until you do so, their contents count against the space quota your mail system provides for you. I'll list the seven actionable accounts and the four accounts removed from our list, again providing only the part of the email address before the @ symbol:

The 60 spam bounces is something we at the BB must continue to address. We did get a functional DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail) record in place, but I did this too close to the time I sent out the newsletter notice. These can require 24-48 hours to propagate across the web and become completely effective, and I did it less than 10 hours before my mailing. I suspect some of the remaining spam rejections were because our DKIM was not in the database a particular mail server checked. We now have functional SPF and DMARC records in place too, which help assure a message is valid... but these are not used as often as the DKIM to validate messages.

Given all this, we should see a continuing reduction in bounced messages, as our DKIM and the other DNS (Domain Name System) records will be fully known next month. However, it won't go to zero as some receiving email systems are lazy and just look at how many messages from a specific server are coming in. If too many arrive in a short time frame, they tag the mail server as a spammer, even when it is not, and there is not much we can do about this. This is one of the problems with using a bulk mail sender. [I'll speak to another problem in the next tidbit.]

It is also possible that your local email client may toss our message in your Spam folder, even though it was delivered as a validated message. You can help avoid this by adding our sending "from" email address, t.steichen@the-burgenland-bunch.org, to your Safe Senders list. The way to do this depends on your specific email program, so I can't give you specific instructions, but often you can right-click on the message in your email list, select Junk (or something like that) and then the Never Block Sender option.



BB Reported As Unsafe? Not true... but it can appear that way!

Cary Parks of Coon Rapids, Minnesota, wrote to me saying, "I cannot open the latest Burgenland Bunch Newsletter on my PC. I get the attached (jpeg) warning notice."



Well, it took me a while to figure out what generated this warning... but I did. And that led to a lengthy reply to Cary (lengthy because I knew I would use it as the basis of this newsletter tidbit!).

I wrote: Hi Cary, the big email providers recently implemented new email “safety” procedures that are raising havoc with every group that sends bulk email, as we do with our monthly newsletter notice. We just switched to sender.net as our bulk email service and I’m still busy learning what I need to do to keep big brother from objecting to our notice.

One of the issues with a bulk email service is that many other organizations use it too, and if one of those is a bad actor that sends spam or dangerous links, that gets sender.net (and thus all users of it) tagged as a potential risk, even though we are not.

Clearly, what you did was click the newsletter link that appears in our notice. That will get you to the newsletter, but it also sends a “click” notice back to sender.net so I can tell how many people have clicked the newsletter link. It is the click notice on the newsletter link, not the newsletter link itself, that generates the warning.

Here is the dumb part… sender.net also sends a “open” notice back so I know how many people have opened the email. But, since opening the email does not take you to a new page, it does not generate this red screen. Same exact response (send a “stats” item back to sender.net) but one generates the red screen warning while the other does not!

What you can do to get around this is click the “More information” text on that red screen (see image above) and then the “Continue to the unsafe site (not recommended)” text at the bottom of the screen. It will safely take you to the newsletter.



Alternatively (or in addition), you could click the “Report that this site doesn’t contain phishing threats” text to tell Microsoft that we are safe. I have done so, filling out the detailed “site owner" form to explain that we are safe… but I’m not sure that will help, as it is sender.net, rather than the BB, that the warning applies to.

If you don’t want to do either of the above, you can go directly to the BB site, the-burgenlandbunch.org, and then click the Newsletter button there. That will leave sender.net out of the transaction.

Hopefully, I can get all this fixed before the next newsletter notice… but I’m not betting on it. Email providers have taken the easy way out, blaming the middlemen (the bulk email services), because they cannot get at the actual spammers and phishers. Those of us who are sending safe bulk mail unfortunately get caught up in that. It may be that my only recourse is to remove the link from my notice and just tell you to go to the BB site for the newly-published newsletter (as I suggested above).

Thanks for pointing this out, as I had not seen this new message. Now at least I can start working toward a fix… and I understand what is happening! Yours, Tom

As I noted above, I filled out the "site owner" form and sent it to Microsoft, though I did so before I realized it was sender.net rather than the BB that was being warned about. They replied telling me they had received my (form) input and would act on it in 24 hours. However, having had more time to think about this situation, I wrote back to Microsoft to explain what is wrong with their approach (even though I agree that they should attempt to stymie spam and phishing emails). Here is the essence of my message:

I first pointed out that they are not warning about the actual destination site (the BB and its newsletter), but are warning about the stats collection link (stats.sender.net), a location never visited by the person clicking our link. I then argued that Microsoft needs to make the decision about flagging based on the true destination, rather than the bulk-mailer stats collector. And, I pointed out that if our link works, they should be able to detect the correct destination page. I then listed the full link they flagged (see below):

https://www.the-burgenland-bunch.org/Newsletter/Newsletter.htm
?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=
%5BBURGENLAND-NEWSLETTER%5D+BB+Newsletter+Notice&sender
_ctype=email&sender_campaign=bqrZvD&sender_customer=k88ykDr

...and noted our destination page is clearly identified at the front of the link. Clearly, stats.sender.net is not the "host site" for our newsletter.

I finished by saying that flagging a bulk mail vendor's stats collector is the wrong way to go, even if some of its clients are bad actors. All you do is cause problems for us legitimate users of the vendor. Hopefully, this will get Microsoft to rethink how they are approaching this problem.

Some things you should note: it is Microsoft Defender that is generating this red-screen warning. Thus, you need to be using a Microsoft operating system and have Defender running as your firewall and antivirus program to see this message. Those on Macs or phones will not see this bogus warning.



Burgenland Record Transcriptions: Last month, I announced BB member Edward Schraith's transcription of the Jennersdorf (Gyanafalva) Catholic parish birth and marriage records for 1828-1895, indicating that the birth records were available online in BB Records and that the marriages would follow. I'm now pleased to report that the marriages for 1828-1895 are also now online.

Edward had transcribed most of the Marriage records for this parish in the 1828-1886 era (I added in less than 150 from skipped pages), and then I transcribed the 243 records in the 1887-1895 era, bringing the completed total to 1,670 marriage records. As noted last month, the Jennersdorf parish was also the official recorder for Grieselstein (Kristyan), Ober-Henndorf (Felsö Ercsenye) and Rax-Bergen (Felsö Raks). Both the birth and available marriage records can be accessed here: JennersdorfRecords.htm (or through the BB homepage).



I also stated last month that I've decided to start adding "pending" notes in our BB Records section for every underway transcription project that I become aware of. Initially, there were 11 record collections so marked, as some of you members sent in new information about transcription projects, however, given the dataset mentioned above plus the now-published Sankt Michael dataset (see below), we are down to 9 pending transcriptions; see Records.htm for those pending sets.

Again, I'll ask that you continue to notify me about any Burgenland transcription project you have underway or are aware of... or any project you or someone else has completed but have not yet contributed to the BB.



Deutsch Tschantschendorf Mini Record Set: BB member Patrick Kovacs noticed that the images for the 1873 Catholic marriage records from Deutsch Tschantschendorf (Hungarian: Német-Csencs) were missing from the online FamilySearch "duplicates" image collection, so he obtained and transcribed the 14 "original" records to close this gap. The Deutsch Tschantschendorf parish also included Kroatisch Tschantschendorf (Horvat-Csencs), Tobaj (Tobaj), and Tudersdorf (Taród-Csencs). The transcribed records can be found here: DeutschTschantschendorfRecords.htm.



Sankt Michael Record Set: BB member Bernhard Antal has added yet another transcription of Sankt Michael Catholic records, this time the 2,326 death records from 1794 to 1827. Bernhard previously contributed early (pre-1828) Catholic birth and marriage records as well as Coroner death records for 1894-1925. Sankt Michael (Pustaszentmihály) appears to have been the official Catholic recording location during this time for Gamischdorf (Ganócs), Güttenbach (Pinkóc), Neuberg (Újhegy), Rauchwart (Rábot) and Schallendorf (Salafa). All of the transcribed records for Sankt Michael can be found here: DeutschTschantschendorfRecords.htm. SanktMichael\SanktMichaelRecords.htm



Burgenland Lutheran Records To Be On Matricula? BB Member Patrick Kovacs wrote this past month to tell me that fellow BB member Martin Wolf informed him that all Lutheran church books will be digitized and available on (the free site) Matricula by year's end. This is, of course, https://data.matricula-online.eu (and not Matriken.at, the for-pay site where the records for the Eisenstadt Catholic diocese are being made available). I attempted to confirm this planned availability but could find no announcement nor documentation of it (which only says it has not been publicized).

As you may know, the predominant Protestant church in Burgenland is the Evangelical Church A.B. (Augsburgischen Bekenntnis = Augsburg Confession / classical Lutheran). There is also the Evangelical Church H.B. (Helvetisches Bekenntnis = Helvetic [Swiss] Confession / classical Calvinist, generally known as Reformed). So, I suspect Martin Wolf was referring to the A.B. records, as he used the term Lutheran rather than Calvinist, Reformed, or (if both) Protestant.

There is also the problem of what time period Martin was referring to. The Burgenland A.B. Superintendency (equivalent to a Catholic diocese) was only established in 1924... but Lutherans (and Calvinists) kept records for much longer (generally starting in the same era as the Catholics). Will these older records be included? Unknown... but we can hope so. I have no idea which A.B. superintendency was in charge of Burgenland before 1924, nor do I know which H.B. superintendency is/was in charge of the few Reformed churches in Burgenland (but if you know, please inform me!).



Burgenländers Living In Chicago, Updated by Tim Hermesdorf: Tim has continued to add to his dataset of Chicago Burgenländers, and it now includes the I-K section of the alphabet. The current dataset of 2,402 emigrants is here: ChicagoAddresses: A-K. In addition, a new map has been generated that adds in these additional entries. It can be accessed here: google.com/maps/ChicagoFirstAddresses A-K. Tim continues to add to this dataset and the additional data will be published as it becomes available. The previous A-H section was documented in Newsletter344.htm.

While carefully auditing addresses in both the old and new data so they would map correctly, and creating the map, I discovered a number of things. First, many addresses in Fuller Park (and south from there) no longer exist because of a freeway (I mapped a nearest-existing address instead). That Burgenländer neighborhood, with the added data, has become very clear in the map, as has the Back of the Yards neighborhood near Sherman Park in the south-side. On the north-side, there is a clear ethnic concentration between Division and Fullerton, and several west-Chicago concentrations stand out: West Town, the west side of Whicker Park, and Hermosa, in particular. You can see these concentrations by adjusting the zoom in the map, so the markers are not one big blob.

Also, if you hit the 3 dots in the red header, you can select "View map in Google Earth" and then, when you zoom in, the names of the mapped residents appear, which is kind of cool in the more concentrated areas! They didn't all reside there at the same time, but it is still impressive.

I also learned that these self-created Google maps are limited to 2000 entries in a layer, so I was forced to divide the data… but as you can have up to 10 layers in a map, that is no problem once you figure out why so many addresses were initially rejected! While the new data is in its own layer, the symbol marking addresses is the same, so it appears as one big map.



Burgenland Continues to Grow... Slowly: Statistics Austria recently published the 2023 population development for Austria. After breaking the nine million population mark in 2022, Austria added more than 50,000 people in 2023. Burgenland passed 300,000 in in 2022, but growth slowed in 2023.

Immigration from Ukraine drove the 2022 growth, pushing Burgenland's population to 301,250. While population continued to grow, only 716 Burgenländers were added in 2023, a modest population increase of 0.2 percent. Only Carinthia had a lower increase, while Vienna had the biggest increase.

As you can see from the figure to the right, the southern-most districts of Jennersdorf and Güssing each lost population. All other districts recorded an increase, with the largest in Oberwart, where 213 people were added to the population. While the district of Eisenstadt-Umgebung added just 14 people, that count does not include the 307 people added to the free cities of Rust and Eisenstadt within its borders (with most going to Eisenstadt). As a result, Eisenstadt had the second greatest percent increase for cities in Austria, trailing only St. Pölten, Lower Austria.

Strange as it may seem for a once border state, Burgenland is now home to the largest proportion of "native" Austrians, as the percentage of foreign nationals is the lowest at 11.4 percent, representing 34,000 people.



Find-A-Grave 2023 In Review: Find-a-Grave recently sent out to its community a news blurb to thank its volunteers (I'm one!) and review and reflect on all that was accomplished in 2023! As you likely know, Find-a-Grave documents burials around the world and does so via a community of volunteers who provide the data and images for each memorial. The Find-a-Grave review largely was number-based, so I'll echo those numbers for you:

13,704,945 memorials added in 2023. This was compared to the 3.9 million memorials existing on the site in January 2003. Interestingly, they did not provide a number for the total of memorials in the Find-a-Grave database (but it seems likely it is well over 100 million). Personally, I've only added a few memorials (usually close family members).

746,442 photo requests fulfilled. Find-a-Grave allows requestors to ask for an image of a gravestone... I think I've provided three images from local cemeteries via this system. I've also made one request... which unfortunately remained unfulfilled as the volunteer there is no longer mobile.

20,735,482 photos added. In addition to the photo-by-request system, each memorial can include photos. Some volunteers only walk cemeteries taking photos so they can later add them to existing memorials (or they generate a simple memorial to add the photo to). I only rarely add photos, and they often are supporting images rather than gravestone images.

43,332,973 edits processed. As you can imagine, a memorial based only on the inscription on the stone can be limited: often only a year for the dates and usually no location information; connections to other family-member memorials are usually not made. Also, duplicate memorials appear when people do not properly research the existence of a prior memorial. Further, reading engraved text on old stones can be error prone. The edit process allows information to be added or corrected, connections to be made, and duplicates to be merged. This is the area where I have done most of my volunteer work. The duplicates are hardest to facilitate but clearly need merging.

While not mentioned above, there is also a system to transfer "management" of a memorial to a volunteer who is a close relative of the deceased. There are people who will walk cemeteries, creating memorials for each stone. These people are usually happy to transfer management to a person who can add detail or who has a personal connection to a particular grave. More than half of the memorials for which I am the manager have been transferred to me, often at my request but also because I provided edit information to the existing manager and they suggested I take responsibility for the monument... which I usually do.

So, if you have ever thought about volunteering with Find-a-Grave, the above shows the numerous ways you can get involved. This is a "low-key" thing I do, but I find a lot of satisfaction in my limited contributions. Perhaps you will too.

The review also included a few lighthearted stats:
    Most Visited Memorial: Jimmy Buffett
    Most Flowered Memorial: Lisa Marie Presley
    Most Photos Added: Kirkdale Cemetery (Liverpool, England)



FamilyTreeDNA To Partner With Othram, Inc: Because I am a Group Project Administrator for the BB DNA Project, I received advance notice from Gene by Gene, FamilyTreeDNA's parent company, of a new partnership with Othram, Inc. to develop forensic investigative genetic genealogy (FIGG) tools and a corresponding autosomal database, as well as a self-service web portal for law enforcement agencies and FIGG researchers. What follows is an edited version of their announcement.

The notice said that this partnership will combine FamilyTreeDNA's autosomal database of just those individuals who have opted into Investigative Genetic Genealogy Matching (IGGM), with Othram's advanced analytical tools. Y-DNA and mtDNA product data are explicitly excluded. The goal is to enhance the effectiveness of forensic investigations that leverage genetic genealogy while establishing a distinct separation between forensic search activities and FamilyTreeDNA's genetic genealogy operations.

Gene by Gene says they will maintain sole control and ownership of the consented law enforcement database (the “FIGG database”), including the identification of matches between the DNA of customers and the DNA data submitted by Othram. Othram will not have access to data for individuals who have not opted in (or who later opted out) of IGGM. Further, no external parties will have access to the core FamilyTreeDNA database, and all data, without exception, will be securely retained within the Gene by Gene environment behind firewalls.

Gene by Gene will also maintain oversight of the customer consent process, ensuring that customers can only be matched in a law enforcement search (FIGG search) in strict accordance with their existing policies and guidelines. Thus, Othram will not have access to any information about individuals who are not in IGGM.

Law enforcement matching requests by Othram will continue to be limited to those relating to identifying the remains of a deceased individual or a perpetrator of a violent crime as governed by the Gene by Gene Law Enforcement Guide.

Lastly, they state that they soon reach out via email to customers who have opted in to IGGM to inform them of this development.

It should be noted that FamilyTreeDNA has had a FIGG-type database for a number of years, to which individuals had to opt in for their data to be included. You can opt in or out at any time and you do so via the Privacy and Sharing section of the Account Settings. Therein, in the Investigative Genetic Genealogy Matching (IGGM) sub-section, they state:

On a case-by-case basis, FamilyTreeDNA grants law enforcement and, in some cases, third parties working with law enforcement permission to upload a genetic file in an effort to help identify the remains of a deceased individual or a perpetrator of a homicide, abduction, or sexual assault. Permission is only granted after the required documentation is submitted, reviewed, and approved.

So, this is not a large change. If anything, the new system should be better isolated and controlled than the prior, ad hoc system. Even with the old system, I had not heard of any issues with this database.



10% Of Burgenländers Commute To Vienna: According to a recent study, 28,577 people commute from Burgenland to Vienna every day. By far, most of them, around 13,000, come from the nearby district of Neusiedl am See. Very few, just over 100, come from comparatively distant Jennersdorf district. Overall, around ten percent of the population of Burgenland make their way to work in Vienna.

Despite the increasing use of public transport, the car is and remains the most popular means of transport for commuters. According to a study by the University of Graz, around three-quarters of the 28,000 people from Burgenland commute to Vienna by car.

Vienna is basically a "hotspot" for commuters. On a typical weekday, an average of 617,000 people come to Vienna. The vast majority of them come from the neighboring district of Lower Austria, with 77 percent of them traveling by car and the rest by public transport. However, bus and train services have increased sharply in recent years.

A detailed analysis of a October 2022 survey shows that bus and train services have increased by 28.5 percent since a survey in 2010. In comparison, car traffic increased by only around 5 percent, despite a strong population growth of 14.3 percent within Vienna and 11.1 percent in the region. Further, the number of people commuting into the city increased by only 9.8 percent in these twelve years.

The transportation situation within the city limits is opposite to that of commuters: the Viennese use a car for only 26 percent of their journeys within the city; the remaining trips are on foot, by bike or by public transport (30 percent). This mobility behavior occurs because many things are within walking distance and there is a well developed public transport network within the urban areas. Also, the lack of available parking spaces at many destinations plays a role.



The Facebook Bunch (from Vanessa Sandhu):

Greetings, Burgenland Bunch!

I hope that you are all doing well! We continue to grow steadily as we move towards springtime! We welcomed 16 new members in February, bringing our membership total to 2158. Come join in the fun! facebook.com/TheBurgenlandBunchOFFICIAL.

I would like to thank all of my fellow admins for keeping our group running so smoothly. I had surgery and was unable to participate as much as I usually do. Keep up the great work, team!

Member Heidi Frank informed us that the Austrian Federal Office of Metrology and Surveying has released a new map called the Austrian HistMap. This map lets users enter an address and the view maps from 1880 to present time and also to compare different maps side by side for the same address. https://maps.bev.gv.at.

Member Fred Knarr shared some interesting documents that detailed the Soviet occupation of Burgenland in the years followed World War II. Fred also shared a YouTube link with lots of great information about the Vienna Opera Ball: youtube.com/watch, and another to Land Burgenland’s channel, which has lots of Burgenland-related videos for you to enjoy: youtube.com/@LandBurgenland.

Member Janet Kroboth-Weber shared a link to a magazine from Austria. She writes, “each province has its own publication, showing contemporary life and events. Here is one from Burgenland,” dieburgenlaenderin.at.

Member Phil Snow shared a helpful link to an online English to Hungarian dictionary. You can see it here: translationdirectory.com.

Member Adam Jakab writes, “On Matriken.at, the earliest church book of Kroatisch Geresdorf is available (starting in 1740 for baptisms, 1749 for wedding and 1748 for funerals). Ffor me it was quite important. I waited two years for this, and since it’s NOT listed on their PDF list of digitized church books, I wanted to share with you!”

Also regarding Matriken.at, member Angelika Richter writes “As of today, there is a new list with the next parishes that go to Györ for digitization. Amongst the villages is Mischendorf (my village). But, in a phone call with a lady from diocese Eisenstadt, she told me that the oldest birth book has to be renovated before it can be used for digitization. They will forward this book earliest possible. Furthermore there are around 20 packs and Mischendorf is in pack 18. The lady in Györ works package by package from pack 1 beginning.”

That’s all for now! Happy researching! 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 1768 copies, as interested people purchased 5 books during this past month.

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

The book is an excellent read for the Burgenländers in your family... and an excellent belated Valentine's gift... get theirs now!



Burgenland Recipes: Here is a recipe which Steve Lamberty and his mom have made one of their favorites; it's probably something the German side of the Vukits family would enjoy. It is an easy traditional German blueberry cake recipe with homemade blueberry pie filling and streusel topping.

The original recipe can be found on foodie Kiki Johnson's website Cinnamon & Coriander at this link, and includes step-by-step photos.

HEIDELBEERKUCHEN (GERMAN BLUEBERRY CAKE)
(suggested by Steve Lamberty)

Ingredients-filling:

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

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

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



Words For Thought:

2) HISTORICAL BB NEWSLETTER ARTICLES

Editor: This is part of our series designed to recycle interesting articles from the BB Newsletter of 10 years ago... and though that 2014 edition offered multiple worthwhile articles, I've chosen one by then new BB staff member Wilhelm Schmidt, who wrote about the Ancestry of the (southern) Burgenländer, using (independently) an argument structure that I had also used previously, but for northern Burgenländers. I think the topic remains of interest for our membership, so here it is again:



THE BURGENLAND BUNCH NEWS - No. 240
February 28, 2014

ANCESTRY OF THE BURGENLÄNDER (by Wilhelm Schmidt)

It is generally assumed that the ancestors of the present-day Burgenländer migrated to the area in the early to mid-1700s, at the same time the central and southern parts of Hungary were colonized by Donauschwaben. My research into the history of my home village, Pernau (Pornóapáti), has led me to believe that there was no sizable immigration to southern Burgenland.

I base my conclusion on two factors: one is that the area was not devastated by the Turks retreating from the failed siege of Vienna in 1683; the other is that the names of the inhabitants of the area, other than Croatian and Hungarian, continued to be Hianzisch.

The Turks fled eastward from Vienna, Kara Mustafa directly to Buda [now Budapest, Hungary] and a large contingent of the army to Parkany [now Štúrovo, Slovakia], on the other (north) side of the Danube from Estergom. None of the chronologies of the villages in the Lower Pinka Valley—except Pernau—even have an entry for the year 1683. It alone was affected by the siege, and only indirectly. At that time, it was a grant to the Jesuits, to provide material support for the Gymnasium [high school] in Sopron. Imre Thököly's forces, which did not participate in the siege, secured the entire area south of Vienna for the Turks, and drove the (hated) Jesuits out of it. But they were reinstated immediately after the siege ended. There is no indication that any inhabitants of Pernau departed, nor that the village needed to be repopulated. The same can, in all probability, be said of all the other villages in the Lower Pinka Valley. The only known immigration occurred, in 1712, to a site a little more than a mile south of Köszeg. In that instance, an entirely new village was created for the newcomers. It was called Köszegfalva, “falva” meaning village; its German name—surprise!—is Schwabendorf.

Continuity of settlement can also be inferred from the names of the inhabitants. There was some turnover in population. Of the 36 tenants listed on the 1706 Urbarium of Pernau, 15 differ from those on the 1593 Urbarium. No Urbarium between these dates has come to my attention. Whether the new tenants came after 1683, or gradually over more than century, is therefore an open question. The majority of the new names disappear from later Urbaria, and are replaced in a few instances by other newcomers, and in other instances by progeny of the already established families. A core of the families remained the same from at least 1593 onward. The same can be said of other villages, due to the fact that certain names are prevalent in certain villages. It is often possible to guess the name of the village from which a person hails simply by hearing his or her name. These names are typical for the region. They differ from the names of the Swabians that came to Neudau in neighboring Styria in 1712 (see list in BB newsletter #34, April 30, 1998). They are identifiably Hianzisch, suggesting that they may date to the time when people first took family names in the Middle Ages.



Ed Note: In the January 2013 newsletter (No. 228), I made a similar surname argument when discussing the arrival of Connie Bernardy's Weinzetl ancestors into northern Burgenland.

Connie wrote (in part): I did learn that my Burgenländer ancestors were ethnically German. They emigrated from Germany to Burgenland but I don't know when.

I replied (in part): The 1856 house list for Apetlon and the 1828 census for Pamhagen shows the Weinzetl name, but the 1715 census (for any village in the area) does not. The earliest date I find where the Weinzetl name appears is in Pamhagen and Wallern in 1785 as part of a marriage. This likely places the emigration of the Weinzetls into the Apetlon area in this 1715-1785 window. This could be part of the post-Turkish resettlement of Hungary, with your people stopping in westernmost Hungary rather than continuing deeper into Hungary.

But I went on to say: It has been argued that "It is generally thought that the German population of the ‘Seewinkel’ (Pamhagen and neighboring villages) descends from immigrants from southern Germany (Bodensee area), who arrived sometime after the second Turkish siege of Vienna (1683), during which most of the Seewinkel villages had been destroyed." However, I have done a comparison of surnames for Wallern from before and after 1683 and find that more than half the Wallern surnames present in the 1715 census were also present before 1683. Most certainly there was some fill-in with new names in the area (and your people seem to be among them) but, for at least Wallern, there was not a wholesale replacement. I would assume neighboring villages (like Apetlon) fared similarly, though some less-protected village populations were largely erased and replaced.



My argument structure in the above paragraph (i.e., continuity of surnames) is identical to Willi's second argument: if the same names were present before and after the Turks then that human Burgenländer "stock" must have been introduced into Burgenland before, not after, the Turks. Although Willi notes that Pernau was only indirectly affected, Wallern was much nearer Vienna and was, in fact, devastated by the Turkish army and had to be rebuilt (or so the village chronicle says). But it seems evident that many of the citizens fled and then returned to carry on their lives.

The mere fact that there were some new surnames after the passage of a century does not, in itself, suggest immigrant in-fill. These could be previously present but non-landowning families that improved their situation over three or more generations.

Regardless, it is part of the historical record that there were some destroyed villages in Burgenland (or nearby) that were never rebuilt and that new peoples repopulated their land after the Turks retreated (the Heidebauern are an example of this). However, like Willi, my belief is that the majority of the German human "stock" in Burgenland arrived before the Turkish wars and remains as the basis of the current German Burgenländer.

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