The 1715 Hungarian Census

There is this census in Hungary called the "Urbarim Register" which was basically a possessions inventory for the feudal estates which means that it counted the landowners in Jablonca. It was like a tax list type of census .

Among the men (only men, I wonder what happened to widows of landowners ?) is listed JOANNES NAGY who is the ancestor of the Istvan Nagy family at house no. 9 and no. 10 in the 1869 census (see article "A Jablonca family named Nagy"). The other names of the landowners in Jablonzca in 1715 were: Kecsey, Kovacs, Benes, Cseh, Gal, Csobadi, Szabo and Farkus. Joannes Nagy was not nobility. He somehow established himself as a landowner by 1715. I assume that he made a deal with the original landowner, probably a typical feudal service obligation arrangement.

Since I researched from the early 1700's to follow many families, it's nice to see whatever records existed in tax lists and censuses to supplement the church records. Many people think that only nobility records exists prior to 1869 and to a large extent, that is true. However, the 1715 census does not count the nobilty who were exempt from taxes. The other census, the 1828 census, can not be ignored because even though it's ninety-nine percent men and property owners, one must remember that some tax-payers were peasants. Occasionally the Urbaria can list peasants by name with their land rights, sometimes with information on family members who inherited debts and obligations that were established with the Estate owner to eventually work for ownership of land. 

Many of the tax census are on microfilm and now, happily, some are digitalized online. They are not of much genealogical value except if one already knows that a family has deep roots in a village and owned land. Even if your immigrant ancestor did not own land - perhaps prompting the move to the USA - his parents or grandparents may have had land-owning roots in the village . 

I find the 1700's census easy to read if you ignore the chaotic insertions of many documents; most are presented alphabetically by village name. The 1828 census is a piece of cake, listing the names and a lot of numbers related to house numbers, amount of land owned, etcetera. The other great reason to look at the 1828 census is if you have a very common Hungarian name (like, need I say, Nagy or Szabo), the listing of house numbers in the census and then, cross - referencing with the house numbers listed in church records, can help one pinpoint their particular branch of family .

There is a great website by a man named Bill Tarkulich who gives many great guideposts pertaining to Hungarian and Slovakian genealogical research. The best link for the 1715 Hungarian research can be used here for further information on the 1715: http://www.iabsi.com/gen/public/Census_Arcanum.htm