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| Catholic Death Records of Mora Szent János, Poszony, Hungary 1730's. Now called Moravský Svätý Ján, Slovakia |
How often does one comes upon many death records for people, presumably all men, that were buried without their given names, their surnames, their ages? Of course, if a soldier is wounded and has died, he can not speak for himself but would he not have an identification tag or papers in the breast coat of his uniform?
I tried to speculate what conditions the priest was under during these times in Mora Szent János, Poszony, Poszony, Hungary in the 1730's in this particular record. The soldiers were from regiments of Bavaria with no other information about them except that one died of "dysentria" (Dysentery). Was the priest summoned to just give last rites in a hurried fashion as he was lead to the graves of the soldiers for prayers and to save their souls? Were these unnamed soldiers not Catholic? I ruled out that theory as this same church married, baptized and buried Lutheran, Anabaptists, Calvinist, Jews. In counting the entries, he did mange to identify a mere three soldiers with names in the records book. Maybe he was under military constraint not to ask for more information for the burial records? Many questioned unaswered.
Who were these young men, husbands, fathers, sons, brothers?
With sadness, I realize that these were documents that could be used by a researcher if they had a shred more information. Hopefully, when these men died serving their country, the headquarters back home had them listed properly.
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