Vivian Kahn is JewishGen’s Hungarian SIG Coordinator, moderates the Hungarian SIG discussion list, and is JewishGen‘s Vice President of SIG Affairs.

She has presented workshops on Jewish genealogy and, especially, Hungarian Jewish family research at IAJGS annual conferences; for Jewish genealogy societies;  and in Sighet, Romania, during a May 2015 gathering of Sighet descendants.

Since beginning researching her own family from pre-Trianon Hungary over 20 years ago, she has identified and used a wide range of archival, print, and on-line resources and made research trips to Hungary, Slovakia, and Romania.

“Northwest Passage: Hungarian Jewish Migration from Moravia, Bohemia, and Austria” (Tues-115), 3:00-4:15 P.M.

The first Jews to settle in Hungary arrived with the Romans almost 700 years before the Magyars. Over the next two millennia, the Jewish population of the area that became the Hungarian part of the Hapsburgs’ Dual Empire grew from a handful, primarily in counties bordering Austria and Moravia, to about 910,000 in 1910. Between 1650 to 1700, there were only 4,000 Jews in Hungary, primarily artisans and merchants, who came to the western counties from Germany and the Austrian provinces. Between 1700-1750 a larger influx from Bohemia and Moravia occurred after the Habsburg rulers decreed only one male in each Jewish family would be allowed to marry and then expelled the Jews from Prague.

This session will trace the routes, reasons, and results of migration into greater Hungary from Moravia, Bohemia, and Austria and review resources and techniques for researching families who immigrated into Hungary from the northwest.

Topics: Ashkenazic research, Immigration and migration over the ages, Repositories, Specific countries or geographic areas (Hungary)

“Jewish Family Research in Pre-Trianon Maramaros: Resources, Techniques, and Travel Tips” (Weds-121), 3:00-4:15 P.M.

Since the Romanian State Archives began allowing imaging, the JewishGen Maramaros database has grown to almost 60,000 records from areas of the Hungarian county, now in Maramures, Romania and adjacent areas of Ukraine. The collection is ultimately expected to comprise some 200,000 records from Jewish registers plus thousands of civil records created after October 1895 as they become available from the Archives.

Vivian Kahn, JewishGen Hungarian SIG Coordinator, and Sandy Malek, Maramaros Coordinator, both descendants of Maramaros families, will provide an overview of these records and other resources they have used including burial records, Holocaust records, and maps. They will describe techniques they have devised to identify and sort out family relationships in locales where many shared surnames like Kahan, Malek, Teszler, Adler, and others common to Sziget and surrounding communities. Their talk will include tips on research travel to Transylvania drawn from their May 2015 visit to the area. (Presented with Sandra Malek)

Topics: Ashkenazic research, Cemetery research, Holocaust research, Repositories, Specific countries or geographic areas (Maramures County, Romania; Hungary)

“Hungarian for Family Researchers”  (Thurs-114), 9:00-10:15 A.M.

Hungarian, a Finno-Ugric language unrelated to any European language other than Finnish, is recognized as one of the most difficult to master. The problems researchers encounter when trying to locate and use records to find their Hungarian-Jewish families are compounded by issues including the fact that much of the pre-Trianon Kingdom of Hungary is now in Slovakia, Romania, Ukraine, and other parts of central Europe where Hungarian is no longer spoken.

Although many of our Hungarian-Jewish ancestors had a basic understanding of the Magyar language, Yiddish was spoken among family members who used Jewish names rather than the secular ones listed in documents.

Other problems arise because Hungarian place names were often incorrectly recorded by officials who recorded what they heard, which may be very different from the original place name.

This session will provide guides and clues to researching families in Hungarian records.

Category: Beginning genealogists

Topics: Ashkenazic research, Specific countries or geographic areas (Hungary)