Hungarian Genealogy: Research Tip #1

This is the beginning of a new theme that's going to be published here, on The Official Blog Of Hungary Exchange. The purpose of this new theme is to offer advice and tips to Hungarian genealogy researchers out there, with information ranging from beginner, intermediate and advanced. Each new post will highlight one specific tid-bit of helpful information to help you find your ancestors.

The theme of today's tip is: Town Names!

As always, it's extremely important to be very thorough with your research and the records you're working with. The most important part of researching in the Hungarian parish registers is to read through the entire record. There may be tiny pieces of information that could send you on possible leads, if you're stuck at a brick-wall.

A perfect example for this is my own 3rd-great-grandmother, Mária Tóth. According to her marriage record (top image), her birthplace and residence were "Tiszadob 3". Looking for a baptism record for Mária yielded nothing, so I sought out for her death record (bottom image). This time the information yielded additional information; a birthplace of "Szada". Knowing this new information, I was able to locate the baptism of Mária in the Taktaszada parish registers. She was born to parents who constantly moved back and forth, between Taktaszada and Tiszadob. Without having located her death record and finding that "Szada" notation, I never would have found her baptism record.