A Historical and Archival Guide to Székesfehérvár (Székesfehérvár, 2003)

THE HISTORY OF SZÉKESFEHÉRVÁR TOWN ARCHIVES

tion and guarding of denominational registers.

35 The Act provides that the registers (birth, marriage, death) must be issued in two copies at all denominations; the municipal authority must receive one of the copies and place it in the municipal archives. The registers were placed in the archives to ensure legal security, which was of importance in case the denominational registers got lost, since the act also provided that the registers had to be treated as classified material; the abbreviated copies were to be asked from the pastor. The town management occupied with treating the denominational registers even before this. They certified the requested copies for other authorities on several occasions. The magistrate did the certification for the army too.

36 The magistrate corrected the misentries in the registers as well.

37 Following the codification of the act mentioned above, there weren't significant changes, because the parishes (town centre and "upper-town") failed to fulfil the regulations that require to place the duplicate document of the denominational registers in the municipal authority. Progressive measures were taken in the 1840s in this respect; the registers of certain years were actually placed in the archives, but as for the town centre, the missing registers were supplied only in 1848.

38 The Calvinist administrator Ádám Kálmán was the first among the denominations who handed the registers (1825-32) to the town council in 1837; the registers were given to the archives on trust. Later on the registers of the 1840s were forwarded to the archives. Mihalik'

s activity generated disapproval in the council especially of the debates that upset the town's public life. In 1839 he was reprimanded, because he acquainted the electors with the documents that were kept in the archives.

39 There had been some tension earlier as well around this case; Vilmos Lintzer (Linzer) asked for the Israelites' files from the archives for the sake of protecting town-law; however, his request was refused.

40 Later the council permitted the chief representative to look into the files.

41 In 1 844 the council affirmed its prior decision again that the files could be handed out only with the permission of the council.

42 The council dealt with the archives on several occasions in these years, the lack of shelves was one of the items on the agenda.

43 During these years great care was taken in organising the archives; the