Hungarian Jewish Research

Created by Jordan Ausländer, additional references from Vivian Kahn

Chronology of record keeping & borders
1787: Jews ordered to choose German surnames and Germanicize their first names by January 1788.
1827: Register procedures for vital records introduced, two copies to be kept by each religious community.
1840: Vital records mandated, Jewish compliance tempered by the absence of official recognition of citizenship. Town records aggregated in ‘depot districts’ generally where there was a larger congregation
1850: Jewish religious marriage officially recognized, registry compliance increases.
1851, July: Jews required to maintain “parish” registry books for vital records, compliance expands.
1867: Emancipation Act grants Jews full citizenship and mobility. Place names changed to Hungarian.
1894: Register agenda nationalized, civil marriage introduced, along with general freedom of religion.
1895: Jewish register/parish districting ends, now a local civil function with State Archive registry to 1907, then Registry offices only. Jewish records are kept as a separate category through 1948.
1920, June 4 Treaty of Trianon signed at Versailles, dismantling Kingdom of Hungary into predominant ethnic components per its 1910 census, ratified by Hungary 16 November and came into force on 26 July 1921.
1939, Transylvania, Subcarpathia reoccupied by Hungary.
1944, October: Soviet Army liberates Subcarpathia from Nazis, region achieves brief “independent” status.
1945, June: about 80,000 Hungarian Jews survive the war.
1947 Paris treaty restored the Trianon borders of Hungary.

Censuses
Hungarian era censuses in Budapest and/or local county archives though not preserved at all locations; 19th century counties were semi autonomuous. Hungary had annual censuses after 1780, documentation is kept in the regional archives.
1736 – Names head of the household, profession, marital status, # & sex of children and servants; animals; annual taxes paid and name and location of previous & current Lord protector.
1811/12 Zemplen: lists 2050 names of Jewish household heads, by location perhaps 15,000 people.
1828 – Austria national census (Bereg land register filmed by LDS) in Latin (see HSIG website)
1836 – land register (Zemplin)
1848 – Jewish census, a standard form for most of the counties. Ung filmed by the FHL:
1857 – national census, filmed by FHL, search by place name in their catalogue
1869 – national census, filmed by FHL on 171 reels, search by place name in their catalogue
1880, 1890, 1910 – Hungarian national census
1921 – Czech national census (https://larasgenealogy.blogspot.com/2020/06/1921-czech-census-forpodkarpatska-rus.html [webmaster note: link not valid])
1930 – Czech national census
1940 – Slovak census(?) Bratislava archives will look up a particular name, but no town lists available to individuals
1941 – Statistical census: Name, sex, profession, business owned, size of property; wife, children, relatives, servants; year of birth, marital status, citizenship, religion, mother tongue, nationality, lived there since
1944 – “Eichmann” 3 generation census at Yad Vashem, politically sensitive to Hungarians, complicating it’s release; some examples here https://archives.hungaricana.hu/hu/lear/Lakasiv/

Learn current town names and country for vital records since 70% of pre WW1 Hungary is elsewhere Place names have changed from Germanic to Hungarian to the current local language after the 1920 breakup; many locations had, in addition, a Yiddish name.

Maps & Place name resources:

Jewish Gen’s Townfinder database
https://www.jewishgen.org/Communities/Search.asp

Auslander, Jordan, Genealogical Gazetteer for the Kingdom of Hungary, Avotaynu, Bergenfield NJ 2005

Maps of the Austro-Hungarian Empire Spezialkarte der osterreichisch-ungarischen Monarchie. (1877-1914)
https://www.alamy.com/stock-photo/austro-hungarian-empire-map.html
https://shop.geospatial.com
Cadastral maps (Habsburg Empire XIX. century) naming property owners.
https://maps.arcanum.com/en/map/cadastral
Hungarian Archive Portal http://mlp.archivportal.hu/index.php?lang=en
Downloadable county maps associated with 1910 Hungary
http://lazarus.elte.hu/hun/maps/1910/vmlista.htm
Hungaricana http://hungaricana.hu/en/ Links to Mapire, Public Collection Library, Old Hungarian Library (RMK) for cadastral & town maps. http://archives.hungaricana.hu/en/urberi/ and http://archives.hungaricana.hu/en/urbarium/ 18th century census records including 1767 Urbarium and Urbaria et conscriptiones
Radix: Cross-referenced place & surname index, databases1913 Gazetteer, military maps on-line (by subscription): http://www.radixindex.com/

Slovak Gazeteer http://www.iarelative.com/gazateer.htm [webmaster not: link not valid]
from Slovak and Carpatho-Rusyn Genealogy Research Pages http://www.iarelative.com/slovakia.htm (link not valid)

Family History Library Hungarian resources are grouped by current border country
https://www.familysearch.org/en/wiki/Hungary_Genealogy
Exclusively Jewish record groups are rare, frequently these records are amongst other vital records during the sectarian era. The best approach is to search records by location. To search the FHL catalog by alphabetically by locality (grouped numerically)
http://www.familysearch.org/Eng/Library/fhlcatalog/supermainframeset.asp?fir=st=3D1&display=3Dloc
alityrelated&subject=3D90&subject_disp=3DSlovakia&last=3D [webmaster note: link not valid]
Then add the number range of towns to search, there are many.

ROMANIA (Transylvania; Records over 100 years public)

Vital Records – Máramaros/Maramureş County Jewish Records Indexing Project
http://www.jewishgen.org/databases/Hungary/Maramaros.htm
Romania, Vital Records from Selected Regions http://search.ancestry.com/search/db.aspx?dbid=5412

Burial Records – Sziget Pinkas [Burial Records], about 3900 records c. 1750- c. 1985 transcribed from headstones in Sighet, Romania, cemetery, Jewish On-Line World Burial Registry-Maramures
http://data.jewishgen.org/wconnect/wc.dll?jg~jgsys~allcountry2 Also see Hebrew-language Sighet website at
http://www.sighet.org/ and Romania, Maramures region and Ukraine, Transcarpathia cemeteries at
http://www.jewishgen.org/databases/Cemetery/tree/CemList.htm for cemeteries in other places in Maramaros listed under current Romanian and Ukrainian place names.

Jewish Burials in Satu Mare. Romania/Szatmarnemeti, Szatmar, Hungary http://szatmar.us/db/index.html

Directories – A magyar korona országainak mezőgazdasági statisztikája. [Landowners and Leaseholders in the Kingdom of Hungary], Budapest, 1897 Maramaros megye entries begin p. 576 http://kt.lib.pte.hu/cgibin/kt.cgi?konyvtar/kt04022302/0_0_2_pg_576.html [webmaster note: link not valid]
A videki halozatok beturendes tavbeszelo nevsora 1943 [The alphabetical register of the country’s telephone network] May 1943. The 1943 telephone directory covers all areas that were part of Hungary in 1943, including Maramaros, the eastern part present-day Slovakia, Transcarpathia and other parts of Transylvania ceded to Hungary by the Vienna Awards in 1938 and 1940. Digitized and uploaded to the Internet Archive, with sizes ranging up to over 15 megabytes. http://www.jewishgen.org/Hungary/methods.htm

SLOVAKIA (Records over 90 years public)

Some rules apply to Hungarian to Slovak place name changes, such as prefixes Kis- (little) becomes Maly, Nagy (big) -Velky; suffixes -dorf/-falu, -falva/-covce) with many notable exceptions (Pressburg/Bratislava, Eperjes/Presov, Kaschau/Kassa/Kosice etc.). Towns that have been absorbed into adjacent towns, metropolitan areas or merged, are also referenced by the new and old Slovak names.

Slovak Registers in regional archives are open to research, with a per volume usage fee, photocopies remain a problem, some are available through the FHL (see above) Transcarpathian Jewish community registers are emerging; responsibility for maintaining them appears to be hereditary. For what Jewish registers exist in the Slovak Archives see: Auslander, Jordan, Index to Jewish Vital Statistics Records in the Slovak Archives, Avotaynu, Bergenfield NJ 1994

Slovak archives tri-lingual research application forms:
http://www.civil.gov.sk/SNARCHIV/uk_written_requests.htm [webmaster note: link not valid]
Click “Regulation of the Minister of the Interior of the SR no. 9…” A file “opatrenie.doc.” will download. The current administrative fees are listed, p. 16-20 for ordering specific records, see pages 11 through 15 for “running accounts.”

JewishGen’s Hungarian & Subcarpathian research divisions
Hungarian SIG (H-SIG) includes all areas within “Greater Hungary” http://www.jewishgen.org/Hungary/
http://www.jewishgen.org/Sub-Carpathia/
http://www.jewishgen.org/Hungary/links_hungary.htm (link not valid), has information on all current and former Hungarian territories, and where to write for vital records.

AUSTRIA Burgenland, POLAND, SERBIA

Burgenland Bunch Genealogy Group http://www.the-burgenland-bunch.org/homepage.htm Maps, houselists, and other resources for the province in southeast Austria formed from parts of the Hungarian counties of Vas, Sopron and Moson following World War I.

HOLOCAUST

“An Open Secret? The Dissemination and Reception of News about Auschwitz in Hungary in 1944” by Gergely Kunt
https://www.academia.edu/

Yizkor books http://www.nypl.org/research/chss/jws/yizkorbookonline.cfm (link not valid)
http://www.jewishgen.org/Yizkor

Names Searches in Simon Wiesenthal Center Digital Archives http://tinyurl.com/mqll4jn
Köszeg Register of Birth: Jewish register of births from 1866 to 1943, deaths and deportations from 1944-1945, and the first post-war birth in 1947 (270 names) Slovakian Manuscript: Record of Jews in Eastern Slovakian who were deported during the Holocaust and survived (approximately 700 names).

Budapest Holocaust Memorial Center https://hdke.hu/en/
Szatmari Memento [Szatmar Ghetto Memorial] including searchable consolidated list of Szatmar martyrs, deportees,  forced laborers http://egyur.50webs.com/indexe.html

SLOVAK HOLOCAUST (per Tom Venetia 2018)
In February 1942 the Slovak fascist government issued the “Supis Zidov.” Ordinance compelling all Jews to register their birthdate, address, ID card #, etc. The complete set of lists of around 90,000 Slovak Jews, sorted by district and county of residence, is stored at the Slovak National Archive (Slovensky narodny archiv).
Slovak government does not allow publishing online this list of names and related data. Only certified historians and genealogists can examine and search it at the archive’s center in Bratislava. Individual searches can be requested.

CEMETERIES

Cemeteries: JOWBR at JewishGen.org

Hungarian Jewish Cemetery Database http://www.oroklet.hu/ Hungarian language website searchable in English but usable if you know a few terms: Temetok felsorolasa telepulesek szerint = Listing of cemeteries by town Kereses az osszes adatban nev reszlet = Advanced search of the whole file allows search by: Full name (Surname first, followed by first/given name – Hungarian style) Surname only First/given name only Part name (e.g. Sch, Ber, etc.) See Hungarian SIG archives for additional tips for using this website.

WEB SITES

Budapest Municipal Archives: pictures, records, maps & lists http://www.bparchiv.hu/adatbazisok/en
Magyar Zsidó Okleveltar-Hungarian-Jewish Documents (Monuments) 18 volumes of Hungarian Jewish genealogies published Budapest 1903-1980 in Hungarian, name searchable & pre-surname era 1092-1789
https://kisebbsegkutato.tk.hun-ren.hu/en
http://kisebbsegkutato.tk.mta.hu/adatbazis/magyar-zsido-okleveltar

Hungarian Jewish Homepage – http://www.interdnet.hu/zsido/english/ (link not valid)

Magyar Zsidó Múzeum És Levéltár The Hungarian Jewish Museum http://www.milev.hu/

Hungarian Funeral notices 1840-1990. Browse (no word search) 500,000+ images of funeral notices collected by National Library of Hungary, Budapest. About a third from Budapest.
NOTE: First name suffix “ne” denotes “wife of” i.e. Morne not a name, but wife of Mor
https://www.familysearch.org/search/collection/show#uri=http://hr-searchapi:8080/searchapi/search/collection/1542666 (link not valid)

Searchable funeral records from the National Szechenyi Library. Jews and non-Jews
https://dspace.oszk.hu/handle/123456789/663648

National Archives of Hungary – http://www.natarch.hu/mol_e.htm (registers, censuses, etc.)
http://193.224.149.8/adatbazisokol/kategoria/genealogia_-csaladtortenet (link not valid)
Translation Guide for Vital Records – http://www.bmi.net/jjaso/index.html (link not valid)
Hungarian Archive Portal http://mlp.archivportal.hu/index.php?lang=en
Magyar Zsidó Lexikon I-II. Szerk.: Ujvári Péter. Budapest, 1929. http://mek.oszk.hu/04000/04093/html/
http://zsidomult.hu/ (zsido mult or Jewish past in Hungarian) encyclopedia of Hungarian Jewry edited
Tiszafured-based Menora foundation and the Rabbinical seminary staff, grateful for any updates, stories, memoirs and pictures.
Searchable Hungarian Newspapers: Hungaricana (http://hungaricana.hu/en/ (in Hungarian and English), search the libraries. Search index, mainly local and/or specialized newspapers, publications.
http://library.hungaricana.hu/en/
Searchable Hungarian papers in Canada http://multiculturalcanada.ca/contentdm_browse
Multicultural newspapers in Canada, search all contents or just a particular newspaper. Some back to 1930s.
Hungarian papers, The Canadian Jewish News and other Jewish publications
Memorial Museum of Hungarian Speaking Jewry, Safed, ISRAEL. For preservation of heritage, community life, customs and traditions of Hungarian-speaking Jewish communities of Hungary, Transylvania , Slovakia, Transcarpathia, Bachka (Bacska), Banat and Burgenland http://www.hjm.org.il/
Makor, the Jewish Theological Seminary catalog. E-resources has digitized books and articles covering Austria, Hungary, Transylvania, Dalmatia, and Bosnia; Randolph Braham’s The destruction of Hungarian Jewry. Some materials require a password (e.g. New York State Library access password), other items are available via links to Hathi Trust and other digital library collections.
Digital collections, enter Hungary, get over 75 hits including:
Birth Register from Koszeg (Guns), Hungary, 1852-1885
Register of Jews in the province of Sarvar-Szombathely, Hungary, ca. 1807
Account book of the Budapest Hevra Shas, 1892-1906
Birth Register from Sarvar, Hungary, 1887-1939
Sod ha-Shem (Ritual of Circumcistion) circumcisions in Egerszasz, Hungary 1856-1875
MACSE Budapest resources (essentially same as FHL)
Öröklét (some Jewish cemeteries register. Don’t click on the English version button.):
http://www.oroklet.hu Familysearch.org (Hungarian civil and Jewish registers):

Jews Emigrating from Moravia to Hungary, 1740-52 Magyar-Zsido Okleveltar, Vol. 13, p. 108
http://www.kisebbsegkutato.tk.mta.hu/uploads/files/olvasoszoba/magyarzsidookleveltar/Magyar_zsido_okleveltar_XIII.pdf German-language list of names of Jewish emigrants from Moravia with name of place from which they left in Moravia and name of place where they went in Hungary