A Pest Megyei Levéltár. Levéltárismertető (Budapest, 2004)

Seventeen thousand meters of historical source/Introduction of the main archives

of Bars and Hont Counties operating from 1939 to 1944 based on the CzechoslovakianHungarian document exchange pact. The Vice-Lieutenant's documents oi the county were organized based on their topics. According to this the following topics can be researched in them: personal cases of county and settlement employees, cases regarding the local governments and the organization of the county and of the settlements, the public and special administration of the county and its settlements, political cases. The public administrative committee documents, organized thematically, and provided by aid, are divided into the following topics: documents oi the orphanage-districts, forest inspectorates, town clerks, head surgeons, economic inspectorates, pasturing, associations, financial committees, controllers and education inspectorates. MAIN ARCHIVE UNIT V - TOWNS AND VILLAGES OF THL COUNTY This main archive unit contains the archives of six towns, namely Cegléd, Kiskunlacháza, Nagykőrös, Ráckeve, Szentendre and Vác and also the archives of the villages of the county, up to 1950 inclusive (315 archive units at the length of 1931 linear meters). In the archives' register the town names are followed by the names of villages of the county in alphabetical order. The majority of the villages have remaining documents only from the end of the 19

th century, and only a few villages have occasional data appearing fragmentarily in the archives dated back to the 18

th century. Within one village the documents are classified into four groups on chronological base, and within these we established smaller units on species base. Documents from before 1848 are under the sign "A", archives between 1849 and 1871 are under "B", those between 1872 and 1944 are under "C" and finally those between 1945 and 1955 are under "D". The best sources that can be used for researching the history of the villages are the records of the town councils, which were mostly taken over to the Archival trust are more or less incomplete. Besides prefecture registered documents, tax and property registries, housing, financial, warship, military care grant documents, ordinances were taken into the safekeeping of our Archives. The archives of the towns suffered less harm, than the archives of the villages, although previous unprofessional selecting processes caused significant damage. Cegléd. Our written sources mention the town first in 1290, though the area of the town was a church place already in the Age of Árpád. In its diploma Louis I. mentions it as being a royal place for a long time. It was a land appertaining to the Queen, and it was owned by the Óbuda Clarissa order until 1782. During the time of the Turkish yoke, it was the sultan's (khas) estate, and as one of the famous Three-towns, its population significantly increased. In 1782 - after the dissolution of the Clarissa order - the Cegléd Religious Foundation became the owner, but even after the abolition of serfdom, the religious foundation remained the biggest landowner. In the 14

rh century the town was called as possessio, but from the middle of the 15

th century it is consequently called market town in our sources. Its administrative legal status between 1872 and 1929 was a town with organised 172