About the 1869 Hungarian census

       The 1869 Hungarian census was a population census conducted by the Kingdom of Hungary and it's stored in the Hungarian National Archives. It was also the first census done after feudalism ended and the peasants were emancipated. For research purposes, it provides a great framework to finding other records in doing family history in Hungary. This website was basically inspired by the transcriptions  I did of many villages in the 1869 Hungarian census. It would only hold interest to people who are related to the surnames from these villages and probably great amusement to the people who actually live there. I have never traveled to Hungary; only researched the records for my families first, and now, do research for others. I can also help you locate the census you need to search for your family if you want to try reading the census yourself. I also have an index of many villages in the Abauj~Torna regions.

                           Here is the link for some of the 1869 Hungarian Censuses free online if you want to read them yourself. This website is labeled Slovakia 1869 Census because many parts of Hungary are now located in Slovakia. The census forms are written in the Hungarian language (or sometimes German).

                      https://familysearch.org/search/collection/show#uri=http://familysearch.org/searchapi/search/collection/1986782

Using FamilySearch Export function in Slovakian and Hungarian records

FamilySearch (www.familysearch.org) have some new developments at their website. One of the most amazing tool is the EXPORT functions of records. If you use spreadsheets to organize your family genealogy in any fashion, you will accomplish much by downloading the exports into spreadsheets and adjusting them to make sense on the worksheets. It beats data entry and it saves time. Once you master the cleaning up of the spreadsheets after the export, you will have a nice arrangement of data.

If you are doing a one-place study, you can export all the indexed records (with their transcriptions errors) that are available. For instance, I am working with the surname of "Adam" in the village of Szilas, in Abaúj-Torna, in Hungary. I go to the Hungary Catholic records collection at FamilySearch. I plug the surname ADAM in the surname field and then, I put  SZILAS in the residence place field. Many Adams come up, so I click on any Adam from SZILAS and a record comes up. I then click on the GSU batch number located in the right sidebar as "GSU 62336 ". Up pops all of these people with birth records in SZILAS. You will see that there are 22,653 records indexed in Szilas . Do I want all these records? Absolutely not but I can have fun looking at all of them if I have a whole day.

As the surname ADAM begins with " A", I click through to see how many pages of ADAMS there are in this SZILAS collection. I have an option in " Number of results to show"; I select 75. I can also replace the number 75 with the number 100 in the URL field if I want to see 100 records. It will not go further than 100, though.

Then, I click EXPORT ! Presto. It's that easy.  By the way, the EXPORT function only works if you SIGN IN with an account. You do not have to be an LDS member to have an account. Another important thing to notice is that each individual set of collection has a different interface of fields. For instance, Hungary Reformed did not have a residence place field but Hungary, Civil Registration, 1895-1980 had one.

Something new at the Guild of One-Name Studies: FamilySearch Initiative.

      Late last night, I uploaded my small One Name Study up to the Guild of One-Name Studies section of FamilySearch. It was really neat to see this happen as I felt ready to “let go” of my study and share it all. I already have a member website sponsored by the Guild running in the TNG software that publishes the study.

In July, the Guild of One-Name Studies announced another arrangement to help preserve the One Name Studies run by their members so they created the Guild of One-Name Studies Trees category in the GENEALOGIES section of FamilySearch.

Since joining the GOONS1, I have learned so much about research. I loved the courses I took to learn how to do it. I love the quarterly GOONS Journal that comes in the mail. I love how it’s a non-competitive, happy community of researchers who like to share their experiences and techniques with anyone who has the interest.

Coincidentally, the person who helped me upload my gedcom last night to FamilySearch was Marie Byatt2. What is interesting about Marie is that years ago when I was exploring different websites to post some genealogy, I came upon her Pepler One Name Study on Tribal Pages. Now, years later, with Marie's help at the FamilySearch & Guild of One-Name Studies Initiative, I am preserving my own study for the future.



1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guild_of_One-Name_Studies
2) http://one-name.org/name_profile/pepler/

Why I use the "FamilySearch Matches" tool at WikiTree

My family history research and some of my One Name Study has been on WikiTree for years. It's my only online public tree. For reasons why I use WikiTree, please read my earlier article: Zen & the Art of Genealogical Maintenance

WikiTree released a new tool last month. It's called the FAMILYSEARCH MATCHES tool. What it does is matches all your WikiTree profiles to the FamilySearch records or FamilySearch Tree. I was also a beta tester when FamilySearch Tree first started testing their product. When Chris Whitten, the master developer behind WikiTree, created the "FamilySearch Matches" tool, I was, at first, skeptical but now very excited about how it works for my research. To access the FamilySearch Tool, one needs to get to it from their own MY WIKITREE MENU from FIND; slide down to FamilySearch Matches. A window will open up; You will see that it is FamilySearch certified and you need to put in your WikiTree login information as well as your FamilySearch login information.

Next, your WikiTree WATCHLIST will be displayed with potential matches at FamilySearch. In this example, I have one match at the FamilySearch Tree so I clicked that it was a "certain match". If I want to remove the match, I can always do so. You also have the option to check that a match is "uncertain". Now here is the REAL reason why this tool is very exciting ! If you look at where I placed a YELLOW STAR, this is a baptismal record that I did not know that was indexed in FamilySearch under "New York Births and Christenings". I have been finding records, left and right, for all the people in my WikiTree Watchlist !

When this tool finds the record matches, it does not transfer the records automatically to your WikiTree profiles. What I do is copy the source citation from the new record at FamilySearch and paste it in the WikiTree profile (I always work with two windows open). Chris Whitten explains at length about FamilySearch Matches in this document: You can also click on the "more info" link which is at the top of the FamilySearch Matches list.

The great thing that WikiTree DOES DO is add a MATCH LINK automatically on the WikiTree profile that looks like this:

It's important to note that the WikiTree FamilySearch Matches, like the FamilySearch Tree and records, is user-generated. Therefore, the information may be incorrect and needs to be verified by the researcher (that's you !). I actually have not had one wrong match and I have 1662 profiles. I think a lot depends on how much data entry are in your WikiTree profiles to get the closer matches but I have had so many surprises, especially for my One Name Study profiles. The great thing about this RESEARCH section is that you can quickly check from your WikiTree profiles if new matches or records have been located.

By the way, in terms of navigating the FamilySearch Matches Watchlist, there is a pagination tool on the bottom that's very handy.