Disappearing Churches, Part 2: Manhattan's St. Stephen of Hungary

The entrance doors to the present-day
Church of St. Stephen of Hungary
(Photo by brooklynbred)

This is the second in a series of Disappearing Churches here at "100 Years in America". These articles have been written as part of the special Doors of Faith celebration in honor of the upcoming Year of Faith 2012-2013 proclaimed by Pope Benedict XVI. For more information, visit The Catholic Gene. 

It was the year 1909 when the family of three consisting of my great-grandparents and their young son (little Ferencz) were reunited at Ellis Island. It had been three years since Ilona’s husband Ferencz had left their home in the Croatian-speaking region of Austria-Hungary's Zala County. They had finally joined him in the United States, jumping right into their new life as residents of New York’s Lower East Side.

As it still is today, the neighborhood was a magnet for new immigrants, each nationality forming its own community within a particular section of city blocks. New immigrants like the Ujlaki family surely found comfort for their homesickness within the neighborhood where the languages, traditions and foods of their homeland were a part of everyday life.

The first St. Stephen of Hungary
Church on E. 14th Street

A central part of life for the Hungarian immigrant families was the Church of St. Stephen of Hungary. It was located at 420 East 14th Street, at the northern boundary of a series of city blocks that were predominantly a Hungarian neighborhood. The church was founded in 1902 by the St. Stephen Roman Catholic Society. It's first church building, formerly used by Episcopal and Presbyterian churches before the area became largely Catholic, was consecrated in 1905 by pastor Rev. Ladislaus Perenyi.

Lucky for Ferencz and Ilona Ujlaki, the Hungarian priest who became pastor in 1907 was from Nagykanizsa – a town that is today about an hour's drive from their home villages. Their families had made visits to his town. It must have been nice to have this connection with their pastor Rev. Louis Von Kovacs de Jardanhaza now that they were all in America and so far away from their homeland.

The Hungarian pastor had quite a distinguished history before his arrival at Manhattan's Church of St. Stephen of Hungary. According to a 1914 publication entitled The Catholic Church in the United States of America, Undertaken to Celebrate the Golden Jubilee of His Holiness, Pope Pius X. v. 1-3, Fr. Kovacs de Jardanhaza was "born in Nagykanizsa, Hungary in 1878 from an old noble family and graduated from the University of Hungary in 1899. He was in the Cathedral of Tamesvar, Hungary, with Bishop Dessiwffy for four years, and was then professor in Nagybeeskerek, Hungary. In 1904 he was a candidate for the Hungarian Parliament. He came to the United States in 1905 and until 1907 was rector of the Hungarians of Perth Amboy, N.J. He was decorated with the Cross of the German Knights by Prince Eugene of Hapsburg in 1907.” With a history like that I hope he didn't seem intimidating to his parishioners!

The Ujlaky family about 1915

By 1914, St. Stephen of Hungary had about 4,000 Hungarian Catholic parishioners, including my great-grandparents. By that year, the Ujlaki family had baptized three daughters at the church, and would continue to be active members for many years, even after the family and the church itself moved - in different directions.

As Hungarian immigrant families settled into their new lives in America and began to live more comfortably financially, they left the Lower East Side, and the church followed them. The Church of St. Stephen of Hungary moved uptown to the upper east side of Manhattan in Yorkville. The area from 75th Street to 83rd Street was becoming the center of Hungarian life and was the natural choice for the location of the new church.

By 1926, plans were underway for the building of a new Romanesque Revival church at 408 East 82nd Street. Construction began on St. Stephen's day: August 20, 1927. Today, the church remains at that address, and includes a rectory, school and community center. Designed by architect Emil Szendy, it is built of light brick and sandstone with an archway at the center for the entrance to the church. Below are photos of the church today, which still offers a weekly Hungarian language Mass. I love the striking stained glass window behind the altar depicting King Szent István (Hungarian for St. Stephen) kneeling at the feet of Mary and the infant Jesus.

The current St. Stephen of Hungary on 82nd Street was built in 1927
(The beautiful photographs of the interior are by Andrew 
of the Catholic Churches of Manhattan blog)

~

A few short years before the church itself moved, Ferencz and Ilona Ujlaki (now using their Americanized names Frank and Helen Ujlaky) had moved their family not north, but south. Probably in search of more rural surroundings like the villages in which they had been raised, they moved their family to Staten Island in 1921. Because it was closer to home, Holy Rosary became their new parish, yet they remained connected to the Church of St. Stephen of Hungary. Their teenage children attended youth activities with other young Catholics from Hungarian families at St. Stephen's.

One of the Ujlakys' daughters was a teenager when she met and was courted by a Hungarian-born young man from Massachusetts who was attending St. Stephen's while visiting his New York cousins. The Church of St. Stephen of Hungary had introduced the young couple, but Steve and Mitzi were married the following summer at Holy Rosary. He was 25 and she was 18. They were my grandparents.

~

This article is part of the "Doors of Faith" series focusing on our ancestors' Catholic parishes. Visit The Catholic Gene to learn how you can share photos and stories of your family's "Doors of Faith" in honor of the upcoming Year of Faith 2012-2013.

The Hungarian language & the "poetry" of my childhood

Thomas Lynch in his memoir Booking Passage: We Irish and Americans mentions his memories of the words that his grandfather repeated often after blessing the food and giving thanks at family meals. He states, "This was part of the first poetry of my life."

I enjoyed reading the impression that those words made on his life and the interesting chain of events that resulted from childhood memories of his grandfather's references to the family members still left behind in Ireland.

Thomas Lynch's idea of "the first poetry of life" is a thought-provoking one. It sparked in me the desire to remember the "poetry" or "soundtrack" of my own childhood. In the process I asked myself some questions. What were the first sounds and words that have most influenced my view of the world? Whose words do I remember most clearly from my early days, and why?

One of the strongest memories that I do have, perhaps because it stood out from the voices of other family members, was the strong accent of my great-grandmother.

Lisa with Grammy Ulaky

 A native Croatian and Hungarian speaker, she and her husband spoke Hungarian to their children, but reserved the Croatian language to speak of subjects that were not appropriate for little ears. By the time I came around, no-one was left for her to share a conversation in the Croatian language, and only her children could speak Hungarian. That language, like Croatian, was never passed down to the succeeding generations.

I loved hearing my great-grandmother speak with her strong accent, and I enjoyed listening to her childrens' pronunciations of Hungarian words. At one point in my childhood, I asked my grandmother to help me write out a Hungarian glossary of the words and phrases that she used most, pronunciation guide included. I still have the handwritten list of Hungarian words that I made that day. Unfortunately, my proficiency with the language has not gotten too far beyond that first start.

The loss of my family's link to the Croatian and Hungarian languages, woven throughout the lives of my family members just a couple of generations ago, saddens me. It is perhaps one of the reasons that I find myself drawn more and more to learning the history, culture and languages of the lands of my ancestors. I am thankful that at the very least I had a small taste of these wonderfully rich cultures as a young child in the "first poetry" of my life.

For more on the Croatian and Hungarian languages here at 100 Years in America, see:

• Here's to Hrvatski! Google Translate now does Croatian
• A thousand words and a few pictures
• Crossing borders and language barriers
• Linguistically speaking
• Bumo vidli!

This article first appeared here at 100 Years in America on August 13, 2008.  Thanks to Loretta Murphy for recommending the book Booking Passage: We Irish and Americans via the 7th edition Carnival of Irish Heritage & Culture: Looking into the heart of Ireland.

Of falcons and family: Christmas greetings from Hungary & Croatia

The joy-filled Christmas season is celebrated in so many countries on so many continents throughout the world. The merriment and hope of the season crosses borders and language barriers.

How much fun it is to learn how to wish others a "Merry Christmas" in a different language, particularly the language of one of our ancestors! In the spirit of the season, I'd like to share with you what I've learned about sharing holiday greetings in the languages of my Hungarian and Croatian ancestors.

In Hungarian, you may wish someone "Merry Christmas" by saying "Boldog Karácsonyt". Other traditional Christmas wishes are, "Kellemes Karácsonyi Ünnepeket " which means "Abundant Christmas Holidays" or "Karácsonyi Üdvözlet" which means "Christmas Greetings".
Adding a wish for a happy new year to your greeting, you might say, "Kellemes Karácsonyi Ünnepeket és Boldog Újévet!" which means, "Pleasant Christmas celebrations and a Happy New Year!". If you'd like to hear how to pronounce that last phrase, click here.

The Hungarian word for Christmas, Karácsony, has an interesting origin. According to Charles Dombi, webmaster of Hunmagyar.org, the story goes like this:

"The origin and meaning of the Hungarian word for Christmas, Karácsony, has its roots in ancient pre-Christian (pagan) culture and religious beliefs. It is associated with the most important celebration of pagan peoples, that of the winter solstice. It was an ancient Hungarian custom to celebrate the event with the releasing of falcons which were called 'kerecsen solyom' - 'solyom' means falcon, and 'kerecsen' refers to the type of falcon. Since ancient times, birds of prey have had special symbolic significance, and in the ancient Near Eastern civilizations, the falcon was associated with the sun or the sun-god. This tradition has been preserved by the ancient Magyars (Hungarians) and their ethno-linguistic relatives. The Hungarian word for Christmas, 'Karácsony' is therefore derived from the word 'kerecsen'."

For more on the origin of the word for Christmas in the Hungarian language, see the Hungarian article on the web entitled Karácsony szavunk eredetéről és jelentéséről.

If you'd like to learn how to celebrate the Advent and Christmas seasons in a traditionally Hungarian way, you might enjoy browsing the Cleveland Hungarian Heritage Museum's webpage on Christmas in Hungary. It includes an introduction to Christmas in Hungary and provides many links to explore.

~

In Croatian, the equivalent of "Merry Christmas" is "Sretan Bozic". If you want to get a little more specific, you might say, ""Sretan i Blagoslovljen Božić! Nadam se da ce vam nadolazeća godina donijeti mnogo radosti, mira i sreće." This means, "Have a blessed and joyful Christmas! Hope this coming year will bring you and your family a lot of joy, peace and luck."

If you are interested in learning more about the Christmas celebrations of the Croatian people, you might enjoy reading an article posted online on the Croatian World Network website entitled Croatian Christmas Traditions by James Monti. The article was published in the Advent 2006 edition of the Catholic devotional magazine Magnificat. The focus is on the faith traditions of the Croatian people of Bosnia-Herzegovina. As Monti states in his article, "The strong sense of family characterizing Croatian Christmas customs serves as a reminder of the joy of the Holy Family at the birth of Christ and the future joy of heaven."

~

In the tradition of my Hungarian and Croatian ancestors, I wish you...

Boldog Karácsonyt and Sretan Bozic!

This article is part of a series written in celebration of the Advent and Christmas seasons. It will be included as part of the GeneaBloggers Advent Calendar of Christmas Memories 2009 Day 9: Grab Bag. Make a visit to Thomas MacEntee's GeneaBloggers website for some additional inspiration to get yourself in the holiday spirit!

The article is based on several others that originally appeared here at 100 Years in America:

• A "Merry Christmas" has no language barrier
• As we approach the beautiful feast of Christmas...
• Not the partridge, but the falcon: A little Hungarian Christmas history

The first was included in Thomas MacEntee's Advent Calendar of Christmas Memories 2007.

István Tóth: The elusive "John Smith" of my Hungarian family tree

In the world of the Hungarian people, a man named István Tóth is as common as an American named John Smith. Take that Hungarian and transplant him to America, and he becomes Stephen Toth - not quite as common as the John Smiths who have become his new neighbors, but still just as difficult for his great-granddaughter to distinguish from the many other Hungarian-Americans named Stephen Toth.

My genealogical search for my great-grandfather has been (and continues to be) a challenge for me. His common Hungarian name has sometimes made it difficult for me to track him down. Born in 1874 in the village of Mezőkeresztes in what was then the district of Mezőkövesdi in Borsod County, Hungary, István Tóth was one of two babies born of the same name to appear in the Roman Catholic Church records of that locality during a period of several years. A few clues such as his birth month (as listed on later records), his family's residence, and the name of one of his siblings helped me to narrow my search down to the right István Tóth. Here he is listed in the Roman Catholic parish registry for Mezőkeresztes in 1874:

As an adult, my great-grandfather traveled back and forth from his home and family in Gelej, Hungary (a village very near to his birthplace of Mezőkeresztes) across the Atlantic several times before finally settling in America with his family.

Here listed within one of his daughters' birth records in 1903 as a törvényes atya (the legal father), it is interesting to note István's lakóhelye (place of residence): "jelenleg Trenton Amerika", meaning "currently Trenton, America".


As far as I have determined, István usually traveled alone - his wife and children made their voyage to America separately on another ship after what I assume was István's last visit back to Hungary. My great-grandfather's common name has made it difficult for me to narrow down his passenger lists from the many other István Tóths that made similar trips during the years that he traveled. Thanks to his children's birth records, I know that he made at least two trips to America before finally settling in Trenton. I have unfortunately not been able to confirm even one ship passenger manifest for him yet.

His wife and children, however, were easy to recognize once I found them. (Read more of their story at A little boy, a big ship and a brand new world, Lajos long forgotten: An immigrant baby's story, Update on baby Lajos: His arrival at Ellis Island, and On babies and trans-Atlantic crossings).

István, who became Steven/Stephen in America, first settled with his family in the U.S. in Trenton, New Jersey. He is one of five Stephen Toths that resided in the city during the year 1908, according to the city directory. Another instance with too many possibilities to narrow down easily thanks to Stephen Toth's common Hungarian name!

My real dilemma with my great-grandfather has been my search for records that tell the story of the end of his life. Various records in the early 20th-century (censuses and city directories) indicate his wife as a "widow". Interestingly enough, these records alternate between other records in intervening years where he is listed with his family or where new children were born into the family.

Note the 1908 and 1909 city directory listings for what may be my Stephen Toth and his family in Trenton, New Jersey. Stephen is with the family in 1908, but Mary, a "widow", appears at the same address in the 1909 directory.

1908 Trenton city directory listings for Toth

1909 Trenton city directory listings for Toth

A year later what is clearly my Toth family appears residing in Trenton, father included, in the 1910 U.S. Census.

This pattern occurred later within city directories for the Toth family in Massachusetts. Mary appears to have sometimes labeled herself a "widow" when questioned about her family, although her husband was probably just absent.

It appears that Stephen Toth was not always "around", although he appears to have remained a presence in his family's lives for many years. He is conspicuously missing from this formal family portrait taken of the Toths about 1929.

I have word, however, from one of his daughter-in-laws that Stephen Toth was alive and well in New Jersey at some point during the 1930s. Although the rest of his family was living in Massachusetts at the time, she remembered visiting him there in New Jersey with her husband, Stephen's son.

My questions: Where did my great-grandfather Stephen Toth spend the rest of his life after he apparently left his family in Massachusetts? How long did he live? Where and when did he die, and where is he buried?

These questions have troubled me for some time. There does not seem to be a Social Security record for him. Because of this and because of his birthdate, I assume that he may not have lived past the 1930s or 1940s.

Did Stephen Toth resettle in Trenton, his first American city of residence, after leaving his family in Massachusetts? I may never know the reasons why he made the choices that he did, but it would be nice to at least finally know the genealogical facts regarding the end of his life.

Great-Grandpa, whom so many of your family members never knew: here's hoping that I'll finally find your whereabouts and learn a little more about the missing story of your life.

Sources:

Hungary. Borsod. Mezőkeresztes. Anyakönyvek, 1769-1895. Római Katólikus Egyház, Keresztespüspöki. FHL 623394, page 95. Family History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah.

Hungary. Borsod. Gelej. Állami anyakönyvek, születtek [births], 1895-1908. Gelej (Borsod) Anyakönyvi Hivatal. FHL 2227088, item 5, page 628. Family History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah.
City Directory (Trenton, New Jersey: The city, 1908), Toth listings.
City Directory (Trenton, New Jersey: The city, 1909), Toth listings.
1910 U.S. census, Mercer County, New Jersey population schedule, City of Trenton, enumeration district (ED) 59, sheet 13B, Stephen Toth; digital images, ProQuest (http://www.heritagequestonline.com/hqoweb/library/do/index: accessed March 2009); citing National Archives and Records Administration microfilm T624, roll 674.
Toth family portrait. Photograph ca 1929. Digital image. Privately held by the author, United States. 2009

Author's Note:

Thanks to Amy Lenertz Coffin of We Tree for the suggestion of Weekly Genealogy Blogging Prompt #12: to post a genealogy "brick wall" problem to share with others. This genealogist would be very grateful to anyone who might be able to provide any further clues on the life of Stephen Toth (1874-?) of Mezőkeresztes and Gelej, Hungary; Trenton, New Jersey; and various towns in Massachusetts (including Wilmington, Malden and Cambridge).

For those of us that are Hungarian-language-challenged...

...technology at least gives us a hope of taking baby steps toward translation!

Google Translate has just added seven new languages: Albanian, Estonian, Galician, Maltese, Thai, Turkish and Hungarian! I was happy to announce last May that Google Translate had added the Croatian language to their repertoire. Now they have added the other primary language of my Eastern European ancestors. What joy! The only thing more that I could ask for is a Kajkavian language translation tool. Anyone at Google have time to fit that one into the schedule?

Thanks to Janos Bogardi of RadixLog for announcing the addition of Hungarian to Google Translate. You might also want to check out another online Hungarian translation tool that he recommends: web translation (web forditas) at Webforditas.hu.

Not the partridge, but the falcon: a little Hungarian Christmas history

On this Christmas Eve 100 Years in America wishes you Boldog Karácsonyt! The Hungarian word for Christmas, Karácsony, has an interesting origin. According to Charles Dombi, webmaster of Hunmagyar.org, the story goes like this:

"The origin and meaning of the Hungarian word for Christmas, Karácsony, has its roots in ancient pre-Christian (pagan) culture and religious beliefs. It is associated with the most important celebration of pagan peoples, that of the winter solstice. It was an ancient Hungarian custom to celebrate the event with the releasing of falcons which were called 'kerecsen solyom' - 'solyom' means falcon, and 'kerecsen' refers to the type of falcon. Since ancient times, birds of prey have had special symbolic significance, and in the ancient Near Eastern civilizations, the falcon was associated with the sun or the sun-god. This tradition has been preserved by the ancient Magyars (Hungarians) and their ethno-linguistic relatives. The Hungarian word for Christmas, 'Karácsony' is therefore derived from the word 'kerecsen'."

For more on the origin of the word for Christmas in the Hungarian language, see the Hungarian article on the web entitled Karácsony szavunk eredetéről és jelentéséről.

Here's wishing you all a Boldog Karácsonyt, a very Merry Christmas!

Hello Hungarian! Jó napot magyar!

While I am on the subject of the Hungarian language, I thought I'd share with you a free online Hungarian language course that I just became aware of.

Ért magyarul? (Understand Hungarian?)

If not, do you wish you did?

Here's your opportunity!

Originally developed by the Foreign Service Institute, the FSI Hungarian Language Course website includes links to both volumes one and two of the program along with a Hungarian graded reader section. It also provides a printable (but quite large) student text to accompany the online course.

If you've always wanted to learn Hungarian, but never had access to a language course, now's your chance!

Not ready to dedicate much time to learning the language? Try Ákos Dömötör's quick Introduction to the Hungarian language.

The Hungarian language & the "poetry" of my childhood

Thomas Lynch in his memoir Booking Passage: We Irish and Americans mentions his memories of the words that his grandfather repeated often after blessing the food and giving thanks at family meals. He states, "This was part of the first poetry of my life."

I enjoyed reading the impression that those words made on his life and the interesting chain of events that resulted from childhood memories of his grandfather's references to the family members still left behind in Ireland.

Thomas Lynch's idea of "the first poetry of life" is a thought-provoking one. It sparked in me the desire to remember the "poetry" or "soundtrack" of my own childhood. In the process I asked myself some questions. What were the first sounds and words that have most influenced my view of the world? Whose words do I remember most clearly from my early days, and why?

One of the strongest memories that I do have, perhaps because it stood out from the voices of other family members, was the strong accent of my great-grandmother. A native Croatian and Hungarian speaker, she and her husband spoke Hungarian to their children, but reserved the Croatian language to speak of subjects that were not appropriate for little ears. By the time I came around, no-one was left for her to share a conversation in the Croatian language, and only her children could speak Hungarian. The language was never passed down to the succeeding generations.

I loved hearing my great-grandmother speak with her strong accent, and I enjoyed listening to her childrens' pronunciations of Hungarian words. At one point in my childhood, I asked my grandmother to help me write out a Hungarian glossary of the words and phrases that she used most, pronunciation guide included. I still have the handwritten list of Hungarian words that I made that day. Unfortunately, my proficiency with the language has not gotten too far beyond that first start.

The loss of my family's link to the Croatian and Hungarian languages, woven throughout the lives of my family members just a couple of generations ago, saddens me. It is perhaps one of the reasons that I find myself drawn more and more to learning the history, culture and languages of the lands of my ancestors. I am thankful that at the very least I had a small taste of these wonderfully rich cultures as a young child in the "first poetry" of my life.

For more on the Croatian and Hungarian languages here at 100 Years in America, see:

• Here's to Hrvatski! Google Translate now does Croatian
• A thousand words and a few pictures
• Crossing borders and language barriers
• Linguistically speaking
• Bumo vidli!

Thanks to Loretta Murphy for recommending the book Booking Passage: We Irish and Americans via the 7th edition Carnival of Irish Heritage & Culture: Looking into the heart of Ireland.

A thousand words and a few pictures

They say, "A picture is worth a thousand words..."

I say: "Possibly even more when the words you'd like to read are written in a language that you can't easily understand!"

Years ago I learned about Dr. Dragutin Feletar's book about the history of Legrad, Croatia.

Last summer I became aware of his new book (authored with several others) regarding the history of Donja Dubrava. Published by Meridijani, Dr. Feletar's publishing company, it is entitled Općina i župa Donja Dubrava (The Community & Parish of Donja Dubrava).

Meridijani also has a book of interest to me written by Petar Feletar entitled Istočno Međimurje (East Međimurje). The vintage photo of villagers in the local folk-costume of my ancestors just calls me to read this book!
I was also interested to find a part of Donja Dubrava's history online via the Central & Eastern European Online Library (a good source for many a genealogist with European roots). The article, also written by Dr. Dragutin Feletar, is about the history of Donja Dubrava's lumbering industry and includes mention of the firm Ujlaki-Hirschler & Sons, perhaps a link to my family. The article is entitled Donja Dubrava - Središte Splavarstva na Rijeci Dravi (Donja Dubrava - Center of Lumbering & Floating Trade on the River Drava).

Another interesting item I found on the web was a small excerpt of Legrad's history on the website Eko Legrad.

So many good historical resources!

Then, a couple of weeks ago, Janos Bogardi of Hungarian genealogy's Radix suggested I take a look at a 1912 history of Legrad that he found published online at the Nagykanisza public library website (the library is named for István Halis). Legrad was formerly part of Hungary's Zala county, so both Hungary and Croatia have played a role in its fascinating story. Nagykanizsa, still in Hungary today, is not too far from Legrad and Donja Dubrava (both today in Croatia) and was visited by my ancestors who had lived in those small towns. (My great-great-great-grandparents appear to have gone there to have their portrait taken in the late 19th-century.)

All of these resources are wonderful, but they share one drawback:

They are all (to my eyes and ears, at least) in a foreign tongue!

The Nagykanizsa library's 1912 history of Legrad is in Hungarian. All of the other resources that I mentioned above are in Croatian. Another problem on top of that, as Janos Bogardi explained to me, is that the library's Hungarian history was scanned and then translated using OCR so the results are sometimes challenging even for a native Hungarian speaker to understand.

So many great resources in my hands, but I can't read any of them! (Yet...)

On top of all of these wonderful discoveries of historical reading material in Croatian and Hungarian, did I mention that I have been corresponding with several readers of 100 Years in America who are current residents of Legrad and Donja Dubrava? And, you guessed it, not all of them have written to me in English.

Another linguistic challenge for this student of Croatian genealogy and therefore (by default) a student of Hrvatski!

A picture is truly worth a thousand words for someone like me who struggles with genealogy in a foreign country and foreign language (or languages, as in my case). However, I value those words tremendously when they pertain to my family's heritage, whether they come by the thousand or by the handful, and even if it takes me awhile to understand them.

If you have any additional recommended reading for me in Croatian or Hungarian, please don't hesitate to send it! And of course, emails in Hrvatski or Magyar are just as welcome, although it may take me awhile to respond.

Hvala (a Croatian thank-you) and köszönöm (a Hungarian thank-you) to those that have sent me recommended reading materials and photos and to all of my 100 Years in America readers throughout the world!

Hungarian Catholics to welcome Auxiliary Bishop in New Jersey

The Hungarian Catholic Bishop's Conference (Magyar Katolikus Püspöki Konferencia Titkársága) has appointed a man to shepherd the flock of Hungarian Catholics living abroad.

If you are one of those sheep and live in the Mid-Atlantic area, you might be interested in attending a special Mass celebrated by newly-appointed Auxiliary Bishop Dr. Ferenc Cserháti.

Join Saint Ladislaus Catholic Church of New Brunswick, New Jersey in welcoming their new Bishop on Sunday, April 6 at 6:00 p.m. For more information view this announcement of the event.

Nagyon köszönöm! The National Archives of Hungary in English

I recently mentioned the Croatian National Archives' (Hrvatski Drzavni Arhiv) new online records search: ARHiNET. It is a great resource for those researching Croatian family history, although I'm hoping for an English version of the site (or the ability to increase my speed at learning the Croatian language).

I also recently mentioned my decision to work further on the Tóth, Németh and Nagy families of what is now Hungary's Borsod-Abauj-Zempeln county and write about this side of my family here at 100 Years in America.

How happy I was to have found the National Archives of Hungary's website, their family research webpage, their online database/finding aids webpages, and the link to their e-Archivum electronic record system. The archives has kindly created this website in English -Thank-you! Nagyon köszönöm! - although most of the links require an understanding of Hungarian. (Including the website where you can create your own Hungarian family tree.) I think the Hungarian archives' Parish Registers search feature will be most helpful to me if I can just get past the Hungarian language prompts and understand what it is I am searching through.

My foreign language studies are certainly looking imminent. I'm so glad that I can take breaks and go back to the English records of my Irish ancestors of Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and Ireland when I'm feeling really lost in Hungarian or Croatian. If only my great-grandmother and my grandparents had spoken to me in these languages more often throughout my childhood!

Crossing borders and language barriers

I love the taste of the töltött káposzta, palacsinták and kifli recipes that have been handed down in my family.

I enjoy pouring over maps of the areas of Croatia and Hungary where my family originated, wondering if their villages look today like the pictures I have of them or the places I saw on my trip to what was then Yugoslavia years ago.

The peoples and cultures of Croatia and Hungary have a warm place in my heart - they are a part of me in many ways.

Oh, how I wish I could have inherited a natural proficiency for their languages along with my love of their culture!

I read with interest Jasia's Database Envy post at Creative Gene a few months ago. Though her troubles relate to the difficulty of reading Polish records, letters, documents and such, the story was all too familiar. Take out Polish, insert Croatian and Hungarian (and a little bit of Latin for church records) and you have the same difficulty in my family history search that Jasia has found: a genealogical language barrier.

It has been so exciting to receive new microfilms from the Family History Library at my local center with images of my ancestors' vital records from various Hungarian and Hungarian/Croatian villages. I've noticed often, however, that it takes me a lot longer to discover the significance of my finds than the others around me who are searching through English-language records, even though the Family History Library's Hungarian and Latin genealogical word lists have offered me much help.

Then there's the new digitization of records in Croatia. I had learned about the ARHiNET project of the State Archives in Zagreb several months ago and intended to write a post about it. I hesitated, planning to search the site for matične knjige (church records) of my family members and then write about my experiences. My problem: I couldn’t even get past the Croatian language log-in prompts.

Titula:
Ime:
Prezime:
Imatelj:

These fields threw me for a loop at first.

But it got worse...

Korisnicko ime:
Zaporka:
Potvrdi zaporku:
Kontrolno pitanje:
Kontrolni odgovor:

Kontrolno pitanje i kontrolni odgovor služe za ponovno dobijanje zaporke u slučaju da ste je zaboravili. Molimo upišite smisleno pitanje i odgovor.

At least I could read the field asking for:

E-mail:

Many of the others were words and phrases that I had not yet encountered. Not only had I not seen many of these words before, but some were not even in my handy-dandy Serbo-Croatian phrasebook. What a struggle it was to get through this gateway into the site itself. I could only imagine what difficulties would befall me once I entered.

Ivan Ćurković, my fellow Croatian genealogy blogger, thankfully does not share my struggles. A native Croatian speaker, he surely breezed through what I found to be a huge roadblock. At his blog, Curkovic.ca, he has written a nice explanatory article about the digitization of the Croatian archives. I appreciated his well-informed update about the project, and also several of his other recent posts about Croatian resources online, particularly his mention of the ImeHrvatsko.net website and a Vjesnik online article, both about the meanings of Croatian names. But there’s one problem: what is a great resource to Ivan is only a tease to me, since I am only at the word-by-word-phrase-by-phrase Croatian language translation level.

I am hopeful that slowly but surely I will gain more of an understanding of these languages that my forebears spoke daily. Thanks to helpful sites like Tomislav Kuzmic's EUdict.com Croatian-English Dictionary online, and Translation-Guide.com's online language translators, I may have a chance. Who knows, I may even be able to start reading whole books in Croatian!

Though finding the Croatian and Hungarian languages only a couple of generations back in my family can make the genealogical research process difficult, I do enjoy the challenge of learning these languages, and the feeling of camaraderie with my ancestors who spoke them well into the 20th-century.

If you're joining me on this quest to learn Hungarian and Croatian (maybe even a little Kajkavian), I wish you...

In Croatian: Sretno!
In Hungarian: Jó szerencse!
(Good luck!)

Another year in America...

To all of you reading 100 Years in America:
Sretna nova godina & boldog új évet!
(That's Happy New Year in Croatian & Hungarian)

I'm glad that you've enjoyed this blog during 2007, its inaugural year. Hopefully you will find that 2008 brings more reasons to visit.

If you have been reading, please take a minute to send me a quick message letting me know. I'd like to hear what your favorite posts have been and what you would like to read more about in the coming year at 100 Years in America. Email me at smallestleaf at earthlink dot net. I look forward to hearing from you!

In the meantime, here is a blessing for you in the new year 2008. In the words of St. Francis of Assisi:

May the Lord Bless
you and keep you;
May He show
His face to you
and be merciful to you;
May He turn
His countenance
to you and
give you peace.