From Jablonca, Hungary to NYC

            In 1898, my great-grandmother, Maria, immigrated to New York City from the mountainous village of Jablonca, Torna-Abauj, Hungary. She was following the man who would eventually be her future husband. He was working in the mines of Pennsylvania and while she waited for him, she lived in New York City. Her residence was on Attorney Street which is, luckily, still quite intact in its 19th century aura. There is a Jewish tenement history museum which portrays the Jewish immigrants' lives on the Lower East Side. Although it was not built until 1913, the original synagogue is still active around the corner from Attorney Street. The building she lived in is still standing, nicely restored in it's brick and iron railings. It had red flowers in the window when I went there to visit. I imagine she slept in the children's room or in the upper story as she was only 19 years old and in charge of the Klein children until she moved west to marry my great-grandfather in Michigan.

            If you want to read about the Stanton Street Synagogue, there is a great description of the people who are trying to save this 20 feet wide historic building on New York's lower East side from being gobbled up by the New York urban real estate market: http://www.placematters.net/node/1516        

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