Magyar News, 2003. szeptember-2004. augusztus (14. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)
2004-04-01 / 8. szám
wedding and the location - Holy Trinity Byzantine Rite Church in Bridgeport. What's In A Name? Your Hungarian surname can be a useful clue to discovering your past. Hungary is a nation with a complex history, fraught with turmoil. There were ethnic groups living there before the Magyars arrived. Other groups settled in the area all the way to modem times. In earliest times there were the Celts. Then came the Romans. The East Slavs or Rusyns also arrived before the Magyars. The Magyars, themselves, were originally people near the Ural Mountain who mingled with the ancestors of present-day Iranians and other Near East peoples. Later, German-speaking people settled in Hungary, as did Slovaks, Italians, Poles, Croats and others. Your Hungarian surname can give some tantalizing clues as to your origins. Bob: I had been told several times that my surname did not sound Hungarian. How could that be? The family had always spoken Hungarian in my memory. I grew up surrounded by Hungarian families, food, customs, and culture. Gradually, the mystery was unraveled. My surname was originally Rusyn (Ruszin Magyar), a people who originated near the Carpathian Mountains in what is now Slovakia. Yet, in my family there are names which are distinctly Magyar, others which suggest Austrian or German origins, and even some Croat or possibly Italian beginnings. Remember, Hungary has a convoluted history. At the crossroads of Europe, it is a place where migrations took place, and where wars wiped out large populations. Resettlement brought in new migrants, and as a result, a variety of names. These names can perhaps give clues as to origins. For example, my “Nemeth” great-grandmother was in the Győr area, suggesting Germanic origins, since Nemeth means "German". Margaret: Keep in mind that to find your family going backwards in time, it is necessary to determine how the name was spelled in the Old Country. This is not always easy to do. The Krájnyiksá name, for example, became in the U.S., Kranyiks, Krainocks, and Krayniks, and these are just three of several variations. My “Csutorás” mother was identified as “Tuteras” on her American birth certificate, and her oldest brother Americanized his name to Sutters. When their baby sister died, she was buried as Czutorash. You need to be a good detective to sift through the adulterations and pinpoint your name as it once was. Birth Information If your ancestors were born in Hungary, you will not find a birth certificate in the U.S.A. Their births would have been recorded on church records in Europe. We'll deal with these sources later. But, birth certificates in the U.S.A. may be valuable nevertheless since they may contain important information about parents and parent origins. Midwife records are also helpful, as midwives assisted at many births among Hungarian immigrants of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Margaret: My great-grandmother, Zsuzsi Krájnyik (nee Gyüre) was a midwife both in Hungary and in the U.S. According to my mother, it was not until 1914 that my great-grandmother had to keep records of the babies that she delivered. We are fortunate to have in the family two of her handwritten ledgers that my mother preserved. When I first looked at these books, I was put off by them because they were written in Hungarian, and though I took Hungarian lessons as a child during Vacation Bible School at the Hungarian Reformed Church, I know very little Hungarian now. Still as I looked up words in my Hungarian dictionary and noted again that anya was mother, and apa, was father, a basic format began to emerge. I found not only that my great-grandmother had delivered three first cousins on my mother's side during the period the books record, but she had delivered three of my father's siblings as well. Midwives often recorded additional valuable information such as the address of a family here, original name spellings, and the villages in Hungary from where the parents had come. Bob: Birth certificates not only confirmed birth dates of my parents, but included the names of both of their parents, confirming proper spelling, and addresses. This helped strengthen an already growing body of information. In addition, local church records included my great-grandparents' full names and their places of birth. This put me on the path to uncovering some very interesting information about family origins, migrations, and associations. Tombstones, Etc. The dead can leave behind a variety of sources of information. Death certificates, available in the municipality where the individual died can often provide information about proper spellings, cause of death, and names and addresses of spouses and parents. Cemetery records can help you locate your family tombstones, but can also provide information about cause of death, proper spelling of names, and addresses at the time of death. The tombstones, themselves, can confirm names and dates. Among Hungarian immigrants, as with many others, there was the tendency for burials to take place from the old Hungarian-speaking churches and synagogues, and the deceased to be buried in cemeteries favored by other Hungarians. Bob: I went to a large cemetery in Bridgeport, and found that all four of my grandparents were buried there, along with hundreds of other Hungarians. I also found the grave sites of my paternal great-grandparents, which helped confirm spellings of their names. I also found obituary notices in the local library, on microfilm. In the Page 6 !Mtm ' ' fcx - wSS^-'-~. 11 i «f$?T W X t'NlíXP-íI/ r*- Vtx^T*1 \J4^ k j / teéx^x-0f«^Ä' t* 11 ^ ■* í' jX ^ X^W «x \x<\ x _. %x ./ ‘J^-^ ^HwyL^äPl “^^^xíy »«w, «y%S £ XW^Wf / \ flí' W* .'é /I * | AAjL-j m^<^.8obi)t'u*tfi \ "' i l&j A \ f / js¥®r'\ ^ ■/ • / / / i^ T\\\ '. \ *• i k^-m» \ l u4 i* \ kJ / f - \ í&8***-!\ í# '•'% XX’ ,• ..J s* hstrW**' •«—AfcferfV x r„ '*$&/* V A' ■ríi*f&u«v/ „ _XWJ \ Xw«a^iáKV’r 1 XS’^X . Sf. X T $»9rt*.jr*4 \ 'x!_ö OW maps of the Hungarian Kingdom could be could be compared to the present, in this case, Slovak or Ukranian maps. In the upper right corner is the city Ungvár. On the Slavic map its name is Uzgorod. Palágy, where Kränyik resided could be easily found (—► ). As a coincidence, south of Palágy you may find Szelmenc, the subject of our first page article.
