How to start with family search?
Family research is a lifetime activity; in most cases it takes years or rather decades of diligence. There are a lot of resources and helpful people everywhere, but the majority of the work must be done by you. Start with the closest family and move slowly further. Always write down everything, organize your data. Get birth certificates for your parents (and all old documents you can find around the house, the attic, etc). Aunts, cousins and old neighbors can also help with some of the details. Their parents' place of birth might or might not be listed. In the latter case you will have to find the ship manifests with the passenger lists your grandparents arrived into US, Canada or whatever your country is. In the USA Branches of the National Archives and the FHCs (Family History Centers of the Mormons) have these on microfilm. (Of course you have to guess or know which port they arrived at and around when.) The ship lists usually provide, age, place of birth or at least where they were residing, closest relative remaining there and where they were heading in the new country. (Different times and ships provided different information even in the same country) If your grandparents married in the new country, marriage certificates will provide their parents' names. If they married in the old country, go back to the ship's lists. Check your data in the appropriate US census, if you live in the US: There are lots of information on the Internet nowadays, many on personal homepages. You might search the large free homepage communities, like Geocities, Tripod, AOL hometown, Xoom - these have their own search engines. More and more people creates genealogy homepages - this is a rapidly growing, valuable source. However, search based solely on surnames are not always helpful.
1. Most Common Hungarian surnames:
Balogh, Balog, Horváth, Juhász, Kis, Kiss, Kovács, Kovách, Nagy, Molnár, Sós, Soos, Szabó, Székely, Takács, Takáts, Tót, Toth, Varga, Vargha
Other common surnames
Abel, Antal, Bakos, Barta, Bartha, Beke, Bene, Benke, Benkő, Csordás, Domokos, Domonkos, Dömötör, Demeter, Egyed, Erős, Farkas, Fehér, Gábor, Galambos, Gyulay, Gyulai, Jakab, Jánosi, József, Kiraly, Kolumbán, Kristóf, Lakatos, Lipták, Lengyel, Madarász, Miklós, Mester, Nyári, Nyerges, Oláh, Pásztor, Róbert, Rózsa, Sebestyén, Somos, Szilágyi, Szegedi, Tamás, Tamási, Téli, Teleki, Török, Vadász, Veres, Veress, Virág.
A 'blind' search based solely on these surnames is a waste of time.
2. Watch your spelling. Spelling might have changed in the last dacades, many times right after the immigration. Also, special Hungarian sounds altered to English letters, leaving accents out
'á' became 'a', 'é' became 'e', 'ó, ö, ő' became 'o' and 'ú,ü,ű' became 'u'.
If you search on Hungarian search engines, try a couple of versions of these vowels. Hungarian alphabet can be installed on your computer if you use Windows 95 or higher. Start - Control Panel - Keyboard - Add new language
In most cases first names changed to their English versions. For example, György became George. Also, keep in mind that you have to switch the order of first and last names in Hungarian. Women got the entirely name of their husband, with the ending -'né'.
3. How to look for ship manifests.
5. The Social Security Death index on line helps to find out where a person died.
6. Be particular, before you move to Hungarian or other Eastern European Church or baptist records. To ask for a great grandfather who was born "about 1860 somewhere" in their country - just waste of time. 7. When you find a particular town or city, don't just look there - move to its neighborhood. People often say they live for example in Philadelphia, when they actually live in the large Philadelphia area - maybe 20 miles away.
8. Are you a beginner genelogist? Read the official Beginners Guide to Genealogy in Seven Basic Steps.
9. Do you have old letters written in Hungarian? If you think they might answer some questions in your research, I translate them for you in 3 days. Ask for details |
10. Finally a website of Hungarian counties with Hungarian, Slovak, German and Latin names:
These links will take you a page with map on it from around 1800.
Abaúj - c. Abaujvár
http://www.akm.externet.hu/km/terkep/tkp-a41.htm
Arad - c. Aradiensis
http://www.akm.externet.hu/km/terkep/tkp-a50.htm
Árva- c. Arviensis - Orava
http://www.akm.externet.hu/km/terkep/tkp-a9.htm
Baranya - c. Baranyiensis - Baranince
http://www.akm.externet.hu/km/terkep/tkp-a33.htm
Bars - c. Barsiensis
http://www.akm.externet.hu/km/terkep/tkp-a13.htm
Bács - c. Bacsiensis - - Baatsch
http://www.akm.externet.hu/km/terkep/tkp-a19.htm
Bereg - c. Beregniensis
http://www.akm.externet.hu/km/terkep/tkp-a39.htm
Békés - c. Békés - - Bekesch
http://www.akm.externet.hu/km/terkep/tkp-a51.htm
Bihar - c. Bihariensis
http://www.akm.externet.hu/km/terkep/tkp-a52.htm
Borsod - c. Borsodiensis
http://www.akm.externet.hu/km/terkep/tkp-a43.htm
Csanád - c. Csanád
http://www.akm.externet.hu/km/terkep/tkp-a49.htm
Csongrád - c. Csongrád
http://www.akm.externet.hu/km/terkep/tkp-a45.htm
Esztergom - c. Striganiensis - Strihom - Gran
http://www.akm.externet.hu/km/terkep/tkp-a16.htm
Fejér - c. Albensis - - Stuhlweisser
http://www.akm.externet.hu/km/terkep/tkp-a30.htm
Gömör (& Kishont) - c. Gömöriensis - Gemer
http://www.akm.externet.hu/km/terkep/tkp-a40.htm
Györ - c. Jauriniensis - - Raab
http://www.akm.externet.hu/km/terkep/tkp-a28.htm
Heves & Szolnok - c. Heves et Szolnok
http://www.akm.externet.hu/km/terkep/tkp-a44.htm
Hont - c. Hontensis
http://www.akm.externet.hu/km/terkep/tkp-a14.htm
Komárom - c. Comaromiensis - Komárno - Kamarun or Komorn
http://www.akm.externet.hu/km/terkep/tkp-a29.htm
Krassó - c. Krasso
http://www.akm.externet.hu/km/terkep/tkp-a46.htm
Liptó - c. Liptoviensis - Liptov - Liptau
http://www.akm.externet.hu/km/terkep/tkp-a10.htm
Maramaros - c. Marmarus - - Marmarosch
http://www.akm.externet.hu/km/terkep/tkp-a57.htm
Moson - c. Mosoniensis - - Miesenburg
http://www.akm.externet.hu/km/terkep/tkp-a20.htm
Nógrád - c. Neogradiensis - Nowgrad - Neograd or Nauraden
http://www.akm.externet.hu/km/terkep/tkp-a15.htm
Nyitra - c. Nitriensis - Nitra - Neutra
http://www.akm.externet.hu/km/terkep/tkp-a6.htm
Pest - c. Pestiensis - Budapest - Budapest
http://www.akm.externet.hu/km/terkep/tkp-a17.htm
Pilis & Solt - c. Pilisensis et Solthensis - Pilis a Solt - Pilisch und Scholth
http://www.akm.externet.hu/km/terkep/tkp-a18.htm
Pozsony - c. Posoniensis - Bratislava - Pressburg
http://www.akm.externet.hu/km/terkep/tkp-a4.htm
Sáros - c. Sarosiensis - Saris - Scharosch
http://www.akm.externet.hu/km/terkep/tkp-a35.htm
Somogy - c. Sümeghiensis - - Schomod
http://www.akm.externet.hu/km/terkep/tkp-a32.htm
Sopron - c. Soproniensis - Sopron - Odiburg or Ödenburg
http://www.akm.externet.hu/km/terkep/tkp-a21.htm
Szabolcs - c. Szabolcs
http://www.akm.externet.hu/km/terkep/tkp-a54.htm
Zala - c. Szaladiensis
http://www.akm.externet.hu/km/terkep/tkp-a24.htm
Szatmár - c. Szathmariensis
http://www.akm.externet.hu/km/terkep/tkp-a55.htm
Szepes - c. Scepusiensis - Spis - Zipser
http://www.akm.externet.hu/km/terkep/tkp-a34.htm
Temes - c. Temesiensis
http://www.akm.externet.hu/km/terkep/tkp-a47.htm
Tolna - c. Tolnensis - - Tolnau
http://www.akm.externet.hu/km/terkep/tkp-a31.htm
Torontál - c. Torontal
http://www.akm.externet.hu/km/terkep/tkp-a48.htm
Torna - c. Tornansis - Turna - Tornau
http://www.akm.externet.hu/km/terkep/tkp-a42.htm
Trencsén - c. Trencsin - Trencin -Trentsin or Trenschin
http://www.akm.externet.hu/km/terkep/tkp-a8.htm
Turóc - c. Thurotziensis - Martin
http://www.akm.externet.hu/km/terkep/tkp-a11.htm
Ugocha - c. Ugocsiensis
http://www.akm.externet.hu/km/terkep/tkp-a56.htm
Ung - c. Ungvár - Uzhorod - Ungwar
http://www.akm.externet.hu/km/terkep/tkp-a38.htm
Vas - c. Castriferrei - - Eisenburger
http://www.akm.externet.hu/km/terkep/tkp-a22.htm
Veszprém - c. Veszprim - Vesprim - Wesprim
http://www.akm.externet.hu/km/terkep/tkp-a27.htm
Zemplén - c. Zempliniensis - Zemplin - Semplin
http://www.akm.externet.hu/km/terkep/tkp-a36.htm
Zólyom - c. Zoliensis - - Altsohl or Sohl
http://www.akm.externet.hu/km/terkep/tkp-a12.htm
11. Links to Rootsweb pages:
RootsWeb
RootsWeb HelpDesk
Surname Resources
U.S. County Resources
ROOTSWEB'S GUIDE TO TRACING FAMILY TREES
More reference on my second reference page.
