1) THE PRESIDENT'S CORNER (by Tom Steichen)
This
month's random bits and pieces (Article 1) starts with a report on the current water
level of the Neusiedlersee... good news there! The second bit reports the results of the important
Austrian National Council election AND the potential chaos that might result from it! The third bit is
about the pending Burgenland state election that will determine who rules locally for the coming years. We
follow that by noting there is a new merge analysis tool being introduced for the FamilySearch
collaborative family tree feature... I haven't tried it out yet but I've long felt something better was
needed to ease the pain of merging data! Likewise, AncestryDNA has updated their origins calculations
that predict the DNA-based roots of your ancestors... I'll tell you about mine! Our sixth bit is about a three-way
anniversary celebration for some important Burgenland cultural organizations, including the Auswanderer
Museum. And our seventh bit points out that access to Matriken.at is currently on-sale...
get yours now! Our last bit is about this year's celebration of the Austrian National Day.
Our regular tidbits include the monthly BB Facebook report, book sales, and a
Cartoon of the Month.
Our main article is about What An Ancient Genetic Match Really Means, so if your DNA says you
are part Neanderthal or related to Henry the 8th, check this out.
We conclude with our standard sections: A Historical BB Newsletter article, Ethnic Events and
Emigrant Obituaries.
Lake
Neusiedl Water Level Again Exceeds Long-term Average: For the first time since 2019, the water level of
Lake Neusiedl exceeded the long-term average for early October. The water level was reported as 115.40 meters
above the Adriatic Sea, which is one centimeter above the long-term average for that time of year. In the past two
years, such a level was far away. In 2022, 114.90 meters (~20 inches below average) was measured, which was the
lowest since 1965, and in 2023 only 115.01 meters (~15 inches low).
The lake in 2024 has been relatively well-filled, briefly reaching 115.52 meters on June 20 before the hot summer
caused the level to drop sharply, but water sports remained possible throughout the season. However, a heavy
rainfall in mid-September, which caused severe flood damage in many places, raised the water level of Lake
Neusiedl by more than ten centimeters. So, the lake appears to be in good shape leading into the typically more
rainy season.
Austrian
National Council Election Results: In late September, Austria held its election for the National
Council, which is the primary elective body in Austria and determines who leads the country. Approximately 78%
of eligible voters voted and they continued a trend I've seen occurring across Europe... that is, a right-wing
party garnered the most votes and should end up leading the government.
In Austria, that means the far right-wing FPÖ party (Freedom Party of Austria), which advocates national
conservatism and right-wing populism, will head the government. Based on percent of vote, they secured a close
victory over the incumbent center-right ÖVP (Austrian People's Party) and the previous second-place center-left
SPÖ (Social Democratic Party of Austria). Rounding out the National Council will be the NEOS (New Austria
and Liberal Forum) and GRÜNE (Green Alternative) parties (no, the BIER party did not secure the 4% of the vote
needed to be represented on the Council).
This National Council makeup echoes that of this summer's results for Austrian representation in the
European Union Parliament, with only NEOS and GRÜNE swapping places by a narrow margin. Further, it also
echoes the situation where the incumbent party takes the biggest percent reduction in votes (their
coalition partner, GRÜNE, took the second-worst hit). Here are the current and previous election results, where
the numbers reflect % of vote (with 4% needed to earn a mandate):
Party |
2024 |
2019 |
Change |
FPÖ |
28.85 |
16.17 |
+12.67 |
ÖVP |
26.27 |
37.46 |
-11.19 |
SPÖ |
21.14 |
21.18 |
-0.04 |
NEOS |
9.14 |
8.10 |
+1.04 |
GRÜNE |
8.24 |
13.91 |
-5.67 |
KPÖ |
2.39 |
0.68 |
+1.71 |
BIER |
2.02 |
0.11 |
+1.91 |
LMP |
0.58 |
0 |
+0.58 |
MFG |
0.41 |
0 |
+0.41 |
GAZA |
0.40 |
0 |
+0.40 |
BGE |
0.00 |
0 |
+0.00 |
none |
0.57 |
0.46 |
+0.11 |
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:
Ancestral
Region |
Best
Estimate |
Range |
Germanic Europe |
72% |
53 to 77 |
Denmark |
11% |
3 to 17 |
England & NW Europe |
6% |
4 to 20 |
France |
3% |
0 to 9 |
The Netherlands |
3% |
0 to 7 |
Russia |
2% |
0 to 5 |
Portugal |
2% |
0 to 4 |
Basque |
1% |
0 to 1 |
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!)
|
2) WHAT AN ANCIENT GENETIC MATCH REALLY MEANS
A March 29 article in The Conversation, by Shai Carmi and Harald Ringbauer, discussed "what a genetic
match really means" for these types of matches.
They noted that, in 2022, they had reported the DNA sequences of 33 medieval people buried in a Jewish cemetery in
Germany. Not long after, thousands of people had reported “matches” to these 14th century people. This led them to
ask, what type of a relationship with a medieval person does a shared DNA fragment imply?
Their answer: not too much that will help with family roots research.
You likely are familiar with the existence of historical genomes belonging to individuals such as Ludwig van
Beethoven, the family of the last Russian czar, the Lakota Sioux leader Sitting Bull and King Richard III of
England. Likewise, you may be aware that Neanderthal and other truly ancient genomes are out there to match to
your DNA.
In general, ancient DNA is a new and rapidly growing field, with a Nobel Prize awarded in 2022 to Svante
Pääbo for his foundational work. DNA researchers can sequence the DNA taken from skull bones or teeth of people
who lived as far back as 100,000 years ago, and more than 10,000 ancient DNA genomes are now available.
But how can you compare your own DNA with that of these historical people? The authors of the cited article, Carmi
and Ringbauer, report that 23andMe currently lets customers compare their genomes with historical people,
though other genetic testing companies do not. Still, the authors say that genealogists can upload their DNA data
and published DNA sequences of historical people to GEDmatch and compare, just as you do with other DNA
already uploaded to the service.
They give two example GEDmatch comparisons, one showing (in their words) "a match" of a living person with
one of their 14th century German Jews, while the second does not:
Then they ask, what does a genetic match with a medieval person mean for your genealogy? and they answer:
Surprisingly, very little.
They go on to provide a number of valid reasons why this is true (which I'll discuss below), but also miss one
reason, likely because they misinterpreted the GEDmatch output. In truth, the above is not solely
the output GEDmatch provides. Instead, it has been supplemented by the authors with a text-based
indicator of where a "shared DNA fragment" exists and with a legend to indicate what the colors mean.
And it is the words they wrote to indicate the meaning of the colors where they erred.
I need to give a little background to allow you to understand why their words are erroneous. As you likely know,
you have 23 paired chromosomes, with one chromosome coming from your mother and the second in that pair
coming from your father. However, when DNA is analyzed to determine what value (typically indicated by a letter,
A, T, G or C) is found at a particular position on a chromosome, the maternal and paternal chromosomes are not
evaluated separately. Instead, 2 values (called alleles) are returned, and it is unknown which value came
from which parent (there are ways to sort this out but it requires obtaining DNA data from both parents, which is
obviously unavailable for the 14th century people).
GEDmatch actually uses green to indicate what they call fully identical regions, red to indicate
non-matching regions, and yellow to indicate half-identical regions in one-to-one comparisons. Half-identical
regions are areas of paired chromosomes where at least one allele from one person's pair matches
at least one allele from another person's pair throughout the region. Fully identical regions
are areas where each allele in one person matches an allele in the other person.
However, one cannot distinguish whether such a relationship is fully identical by descent (the implied
description the authors used for a green area) or fully identical by chance (another possibility), which is
why GEDmatch only says a region is fully identical.
Let's simplify this and look at only a single DNA location, expressing a 14th century person's values in
capital letters and a living person's values in lower-case letters, then numbering these letters with the
chromosome they came from (maternal, paternal). Let's assign values as follows:
A1 G2 / g1 a2 (which clearly is not a match for either chromosome 1 or 2)
We pair these up in the 4 possible ways, then remove the numbers, yielding:
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.
|
3) HISTORICAL BB NEWSLETTER ARTICLES
Editor: This is part of our series designed to recycle interesting articles from the BB Newsletters of
10 years ago. Last month, I reprinted an article about two translations of a old document and what I preferred
from those quite similar yet differing versions... it turns out there was a lengthy follow-up in the October 2014
newsletter, one which I was sorely tempted to reprint here. However, there was also an introduction to the
Historisches Ortslexikon and I can't resist reprinting it because it is so useful. In fact, just this past
month, I extracted data from it to help a potential member understand the history of her ancestral village. So, if
you found the translation article from last montth useful, I suggest you check out the October 2014 newsletter for
the follow-up (there's even a third article there that I thought worthy of reprint... but the Ortslexikon one won
out!).
I'll also note that I published a second article on this Ortslexikon in Newsletter No. 288, dated June 30, 2018.
If you enjoy this reprint, check that one out too!
THE BURGENLAND BUNCH NEWS No. 248
October 31, 2014
HISTORISCHES ORTSLEXIKON / HISTORICAL GAZETTEER
I
discovered an interesting pdf document concerning Burgenland on the website for the Vienna Institute of
Demography of the Austrian Academy of Sciences (the particular page is
https://www.oeaw.ac.at/vid/research/
research-groups/demography-of-austria/historisches-ortslexikon/). This page contains information about, and
links to, the various parts of the online "Historisches Ortslexikon: Statistische Dokumentation zur
Bevölkerungs- und Siedlungsgeschichte" (Historical Gazetteer: Statistical Documentation on Population and
Settlement History). This is a multipart web publication that documents the historical settlement history and
population counts for the states, counties, districts and villages of Austria.
The pdf link for the Burgenland part is:
https://www.oeaw.ac.at/fileadmin/subsites/Institute/VID/
PDF/Publications/diverse_Publications/Historisches_Ortslexikon/Ortslexikon_Burgenland.pdf.
Also of interest is the introductory section (link entitled "Erläuterungen zum Historischen Ortslexikon"
[Notes to the Historical Gazetteer]), which can be found at
https://www.oeaw.ac.at/fileadmin/subsites/Institute/VID/PDF/Publications/
diverse_Publications/Historisches_Ortslexikon/Ortslexikon_Einfuehrung.pdf. It contains an introduction to and
explanation of the Ortslexikon, as well as an Appendix that has the Austria-wide data, a list of references
and, most importantly, an explanation of the many abbreviations and notations used.
While the document is in German, the key portions are simply numbers, so understanding the raw data is not
difficult... that is, assuming you also understand the abbreviations and notations that modify their basic
meanings.
My goal in this article is to provide a list of the most important and/or most common abbreviations and notations
and to provide translations of them, as well as explanations when such explanation may help understanding. I'll
also provide an example listing or two to help you understand the data.
To give credit where credit is due, note that Fritz Königshofer acted as my sounding board when some of the more
obscure notations confounded me. However, if there remain errors, they are mine, as I did not ask him to review
the completed article!
I begin with a loose translation of some of the text from the introductory section noted above:
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:
Abbreviation |
German |
Translation/Explanation |
Ang. |
Angesessene |
residents, settlers |
aufr. |
aufrechte (d.h. nicht verödete) Häuser |
upright (ie not deserted) houses |
Bh, BH |
Bauernhäuser, Bürgerhäuser (in Städten und Märkten) |
farmhouses, mansions (in cities and markets) |
E |
Einw. Einwohner |
inh. Inhabitants |
E. |
Ende (in Verbindung mit Zeitangaben) |
end (in conjunction with times) |
Fam. |
Familien |
families |
FSt |
Feuerstätten |
fireplaces |
G |
Gemeinde |
community |
GL |
Ganzlehen |
full fief |
Gr.B. |
Grundbuch |
land registry |
H |
Haus |
house |
H |
Hälfte (in Verbindung mit Zeitangaben) |
half (in conjunction with times) |
h.G. |
heutige Gemeinde |
current community |
Hh |
Haushalte |
households |
HL |
Halblehen |
half-fief |
HR |
Hochrechnung |
extrapolation |
Hschft. |
Herrschaft |
landlord |
HSt |
Hofstatt |
paddock |
Jh. |
Jahrhundert |
century |
K |
Katastralmappe aus dem Franziszäischen Kataster |
cadastral parcels of the Franziszäischen land |
KG |
Katastralgemeinde |
cadastral village |
Klh |
Kleinhäuser |
small houses |
Komm. |
Kommunikanten |
communicants |
L |
Lehen |
fief |
lf. |
landesfürstlich |
country royalty |
M. |
Mitte |
middle |
OB |
Ortschaftsbestandteil |
town constituent (topographic units below the village level) |
o.J. |
ohne Jahresangabe |
without year |
Q |
Quelle(n) |
source(s) local sources/references, e.g., Ortschroniken or Heimatbücher |
Repr. |
Repräsentation |
representation |
Sess. |
Sessionen (Lehen oder Lehenteile); Sessionalisten (Besitzer von Lehenteilen) |
Session (fief or feudal unit of land measure for a full farm); Sessionalisten (owners of fiefs parts) |
Sö |
Söllner, Söllhäuser (auch Kleinhäusler, Keuschler, Bergler, Hofstettler, Untersässen, Inquilini oder
Kurialisten) |
Söllner, Söllhäuser (incl. Smallholders, Keuschler, Bergler, Hofstettler, Untersässen, Inquilini or
Curialists) |
Stpfl |
Steuerpflichtige |
person liable for tax |
Stt |
Stadtteil |
district |
urk. |
Urkundliche Erstnennung |
documentary first mention |
urspr. |
ursprünglich |
originally |
VL |
Viertellehen |
quarter fief |
Wf. |
Wehrfähige |
# of military conscriptable men |
ZH |
Zerstreute Häuser |
scattered houses |
ZBez |
Zählbezirk |
enumeration district |
ZSpr |
Zählsprengel |
enumeration sub-district |
z.T. |
zum Teil |
partly |
The second is a list of commonly used words and phrases, complete with a translation to English:
German |
English |
Angaben für |
information for |
Ansässigkeit/en |
residence/s |
Arme |
poor (unfortunate) |
etwa |
about (circa) |
Ganz(e)- |
full / whole |
Halb(e)- |
half |
Hofstätten |
farmstead (but often Söllner farmsteads) |
Juden |
Jews |
neue |
new |
öde/ödes |
deserted (desolate) farms |
ohne |
without |
Ort entstand im 15.Jh |
village was founded in the 15th century |
Pastor |
priest/minister |
Porte(n) |
tax unit assigned to the portal entrance(s) to a farm courtyard [became a way to count farms] |
Richter |
judge / mayor |
samt |
with |
Siedlung/en |
settlement/s |
Stammgüter |
family estates |
Viertel-lehen |
quarter farm |
* |
"fuzzy" information |
? |
information that seems not credible |
(###) |
estimated/constructed count |
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.
|