The News
Dedicated to Austrian-Hungarian Burgenland Family History


THE BURGENLAND BUNCH NEWS - No. 221
May 31, 2012, © 2012 by The Burgenland Bunch
All rights reserved. Permission to copy excerpts granted if credit is provided.

Editor: Thomas Steichen

Our 16th Year. The Burgenland Bunch Newsletter is issued monthly online. It was founded by Gerald Berghold (who retired Summer 2008 and died in August 2008).


Current Status Of The BB:
* Members: 2061 * Surname Entries: 6981 * Query Board Entries: 4979 * Staff Members: 18

This newsletter concerns:

1) THE PRESIDENT'S CORNER

2) BURGENLAND CASTLES

3) 1940 CENSUS

4) POST-1895 HUNGARIAN CIVIL RECORDS (by Alan Varga)

5) ILLMITZ (by Hannes Graf)

6) DROPPED UMLAUTS AND OTHER ORTHOGRAPHIC ODDITIES

7) MEET THE STAFF: THOMAS STEICHEN

8) HISTORICAL BB NEWSLETTER ARTICLES:
    - BURGENLAND CEMETERIES
    - GÜSSING CEMETERIES
    - BURGENLAND COMMUTERS (by Markus Prenner)

9) ETHNIC EVENTS (courtesy of Bob Strauch, Kay Weber & Margaret Kaiser)

10) BURGENLAND EMIGRANT OBITUARIES (courtesy of Bob Strauch)


1) THE PRESIDENT'S CORNER (by Tom Steichen)

Concerning this newsletter, the lead article, Burgenland Castles, is a duet, if you will, in the style of Nat King Cole and Natalie Cole, wherein I've taken a 1997 article by Gerry Berghold and updated it, weaving in my contributions and features. I think of Gerry as lead singer... with my harmony enhancing the performance!

Next, I slip in a short ditty about the 1940 US Census before presenting works by staff members Alan Varga and Hannes Graf. Alan's etude leads us through the use of the online Post-1895 Hungarian Civil Records while Hannes presents the first movement, Illmitz, of his suite of articles written over the past two years. We then contemplate a fugue of Umlauts and Other Orthographic Oddities involved in converting surnames amongst the German, Hungarian, Croatian and English languages.

Article 7 starts a new occasional series called Meet the Staff, which we hope will provide not just the "why" of our genealogical interest but also some of the broader picture, beyond genealogy, that make us individuals. As president of the BB, I serve in many roles... in this case, as the "guinea pig" for this new series (but in the musical metaphor style of this introduction, I guess it is blowing my own horn!).

Finally, we provide our standard sections, our variations, bagatelle and requiem, aka, Historical Newsletter Articles, and the Ethnic Events and Emigrant Obituaries sections.



Margaret Kaiser passed along the address for the Passaic County, NJ, Clerk's Office online electronic records: The webpage includes property and naturalization records filed in Passaic County. For deeds and mortgages, electronic images are currently available dating back to January 1, 1989, however, the number of viewable documents will increase as the Clerk’s Office progresses with its back file conversion of older documents. The free access / no password level allows the search and view of the full index and the view of the first page of each document. The address is: http://records.passaiccountynj.org/press/indexPassaic.aspx.



Edith Strobl, a new BB member from Ollersdorf in Burgenland, is writing the emigration portion of the Ollersdorf village chronic (history). She is currently earching for relatives of people who emigrated from Ollersdorf im Burgenland (Baratfalva) to the United States and Canada. She asks that you please write to her if you know of somebody from the village. Klaus Gerger has already assisted her with the Ellis Island records and reports that, "during her work, she got so involved with the emigration of the Burgenländers, especially from Ollersdorf, that she is planning a 'field trip' to the USA, which will take place this June." If you can help her, click here to email her.



Because the organization Auslandsösterreicher-Weltbund (Austrians Abroad World Federation) in Vienna has my email address on one of their contact lists, I receive occasional notices from them. The latest one states that, starting June 15, 2012, registrations of children in the Austrian passport of a parent are no longer valid. Apparently, prior to this point, children under age 12 did not always need a separate passport for travel if they were recorded in the passport of a parent. The rule change is being implemented because the European Union established a principle of "one person - one passport" as protection against child trafficking.

The new policy states that a two-year passport will be issued for children under two years old (at no charge), a five-year passport will be issued for children between two and twelve years old (a € 30 charge), and an adult passport, good for 10 years, is issued for those 12 and older (a € 76 charge). The new passports will store the identifying data and picture on a computer chip; for adult passports, fingerprints are also included.

From what I understand, children currently traveling abroad and not returning to Austria before June 15th will need to obtain a personal passport before their return. They can be obtained at the Austrian embassy or consulates.



Member Kevin Janish passed along word that transcriptions and images of the 1715 and 1720 Hungarian censuses have been made available through website: http://193.224.149.8/adatbazisokol/. This is actually a beta site for the online databases of the Magyar Országos Levéltár (National Archives of Hungary). The main site for the Archives is http://www.mol.gov.hu. The 1715 census has been available online for some time (in fact we have passed that info along in Article 2 of Newsletter 211).

While the viewer supplied on the beta site for reviewing the images of the 1720 census is quite good, there appears to be a flaw in the one for the 1715 census: you can blow up the images but you can't scroll back and forth! Thus you can see well only the center of each page. The viewer from the earlier version of the 1715 census is better.



BB Member Robert Schatz of New York City has now contributed transcriptions of the 1791 Urbar and the 1828 Dicalis Conscripto for Urbersdorf, the 1720 Urbars for Glasing and Sumetendorf (plus a partial 1720 Urbar for Strem) and the 1828 Dicalis Conscripto for Glasing. These listings have been added to the appropriate village history pages and will be added to our BB house lists page.

Many thanks, again, to Bob for making his work available to all of us!



Margaret Kaiser writes: A newly-developing English-language website, called Taste of Austria, can be found at http://tasteofaustria.org. The site is described in "Austrian Information," (Ed: an online and print magazine) published by the Embassy of Austria Press & Information Service, Washington, DC, as a "one stop portal for recipes, stories behind famous Austrian dishes, places to find Austrian dishes in the US, as well as information on organic food production in Austria, sustainable farming, and much more." The accompanying article states that the recipes will begin with A as in Apfelstrudel and run to Z as in Zwetschkenknoedel (plum dumplings), and includes a photo of Marillenknoedel (apricot dumplings) which can be served as a main or dessert dish. Videos on how to make Wienerschnitzel, other Austrian foods, and tours of Vienna's sites abound here.

The article by Anja Mayer further explains: "Most of the (Austrian) dishes were greatly influenced by the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The size of the Empire and the countries it embraced led to a collection of distinct flavors from Italy, Hungary, Germany and the Balkans. The Goulash, originally regarded as a Hungarian dish, can be found on a typical Austrian menu...."

Next she explains the concept of Gemuetlichkeit. Gemuetlichkeit "describes a notion of belonging and social acceptance, of being cozy and welcomed," as you will be in Austrian local taverns, restaurants, cafes, Heurigens (rural taverns sellling home-grown wine) or in Schanigärtens (tables on the sidewalk in front of a coffee house or restaurant). Here Radler (beer with lemonade) or Gespritzer (wine typically mixed with soda water) is served in summertime and in winter Punsch. Gluehwein and homemade cookies are found at Christmas markets. Austrian wine is exported to the US, the third biggest export market for Austrian food and wine.

Prost und Mahlzeit!



The St. Louis Genealogical Society has announced Volume 4 of its Index to St. Louis Burials. This CD volume contains more than 270,000 names of people buried in nineteen cemeteries in St. Louis City and County and brings the total count of indexed burials to over 1.6 million. This completes the set, which indexes every known cemetery in St. Louis City and County, with but one exception.

CDs of volumes 3 and 4 of the Index are now available for $40 each (non-member price). Contact the St. Louis Genealogical Society at #4 Sunnen Drive, St. Louis, Missouri, 63143 or visit its online store at www.stlgs.org. The burial data in Volumes 1 and 2 are available to members, free of charge, on the website (the CDs are no longer available).

The Society is now undertaking the indexing of St. Louis City and County congregation records.



Back in June 2006, the BB presented to the Güssing Auswanderermuseum a booklet containing the 4,500 surnames listed by the 1,200 members of the BB. This booklet was placed on display to assist visitors to the Museum in knowing where in Burgenland to look for family.

At the time we presented it, we also noted that we would update the booklet as we acquired more data. The BB now has over 2,000 members and lists over 7,000 surnames, so it seemed time to update it.

At Klaus Gerger's suggestion, he and I assembled a new book (booklet is no longer a proper designation as it exceeds 500 pages when printed in A4 format) containing the Surnames, Members and Villages data from our website as of May 1, 2012, and Klaus had it printed and bound in book form (click the picture of the book to view its contents). The new book now replaces the former booklet.

Perhaps in another six years we will update it again!



Picture of the month: Here is a rather unusual "family tree" that I'm sure some of you have seen it before... but, for those of you who have not, the challenge is to tell me why it is unusual and, for all of you, to quantify exactly how unusual it is.

Once you understand why it is unusual, I'm sure you will also understand how to quantify the key feature of its unusualness. There is only an "attaboy" / "attagirl" prize for competing but I will publish the names of those of you who do well ...and maybe even a few of the more interesting (but wrong) reasons you believe it is unusual. So take up the challenge! Fame awaits you (even though it be fleeting and small).

For the really ambitious among you, creating a personalized one is the next challenge... can you do it? And can you share it with all of us? If you succeed, it would be something nice that you can add to your family history. Good luck!


2) BURGENLAND CASTLES

Back in 1997, still within the first year of the Burgenland Bunch and its email newsletter, Gerry Berghold created his first multi-part newsletter, No. 13, with the second part, No. 13A being completely dedicated to a single topic: a list and description of Burgenland castles. He titled 13A as a "Special Edition Concerning Burgenland Castles."

The current article uses Gerry's work as its basis and outline, freely repeating full sentences and paragraphs either exactly as originally presented or only slightly modified to incorporate my additions or preferred style. Two key differences are 1) that the online HTML format of the current article allows me to add supporting images and 2) that I've been able to add updates about the changes over the last 15 years as well as newly available information about the various castles. But do think of this article as a collaboration, with Gerry as lead author and myself as contributor!


BURGENLAND - CASTLE LAND

"Burgenland" translates from the German as "Castle Country." It sounds like an old name but it was actually coined about 1920 when the Austrian government was deciding what to call this newly acquired Hungarian territory. Some wanted to call it "Heinzenland," after one of the 12th century German Counts of Güssing, Heinz (Henz), son of Hedrich, who brought in German immigrants to support his fiefdom and started the whole German presence in the Burgenland. There is still a German dialect called "Heinzisch" which evolved from this presence. However, the "Burgs" in Burgenland's name do not refer to castles, rather, they were the four West Hungary counties (megye) out of which Burgenland was originally created: Pozsony (Pressburg in German), Vas (Eisenburg), Sopron (Ödenburg) and Moson (Wieselburg), though the Ödenburg territory was quickly returned to Hungary by a plebiscite. If you're researching written material before 1921, you won't find anything under the name Burgenland. Try the county names or Dunántúl (the Hungarian word for Transdanubia).

EARLY "BURG" HISTORY

The Burgenland region has been fortified from earliest times. Few modern archaeological digs have been made, but evidence of early Celtic "hill forts" is found at Purbach and Pinkafeld and some Roman fortified sites have been identified at Deutsch Kaltenbrunn, Königsdorf and Rax. An early record of Güssing calls it "Mons Kiscin," implying a fortified hill top. By the 12th & 13th centuries, since this was borderland even then, castles were being built at strategic points, near river crossings, mountain passes, trade route junctions and natural barriers. They were also sited to provide a means of communication. A signal fire, lit on a tower at one site, could be seen at another and thus an alarm of enemy incursion could be sent rapidly from the southern Raab river valley north to Sopron or Vienna. The authorities would thus know of impending trouble well before the arrival of a mounted messenger. The locals would also know it was time to seek shelter behind castle walls.

Depending on which way the political winds were blowing, the Hungarians' enemies were of course the Austrians (the Hapsburgs - the crown) and the Turks; the Austrians' enemies were the Hungarians (the Magyar nobles who were always ready to revolt) and the Turks. Both Austrian and Hungarian aristocracy also had to contend with periodic peasant uprisings, whose yoke became too heavy to bear, and foreign incursions (French, German and the Hungarian and Slavic allies of the Turks). The importance of the Burgenland castles reached its peak during the Turkish Wars (1525-1710), but by the end of the Napoleonic Wars (1815), their use as military strong points had diminished. By 1900, most castles were aristocratic residences, monasteries, museums or romantic ruins. Many include churches that are still in use. A number are well preserved and some castles are serving as hotels or restaurants. Most are open to tourists.

SOME "BURG" ACTION IN WW-II

An interesting aside is that the retreating Wehrmacht (the German Army) used some of these castles to frustrate Russian Army advances toward the end of WW-II (1945). A PAK 88mm high velocity cannon sited on castle heights would deny the Russians the use of the surrounding road network for some time. Their importance as observation posts is obvious. Some were destroyed as a result. Both Riegersburg (Styria), with seven successive fortified gates, and Radkersburg were used in this manner. WW-II damage can still be seen in Riegersburg's doors and stonework.

DEFINITION OF "SCHLOSS"

The German word "Schloss" can mean "castle - a fortified place," but it can also mean "palatial residence," with administrative but no military significance. Most post-1700 "schloss" or "schlössl" (smaller than a schloss) buildings are of the administrative type. It would be less confusing if these were called mansions (Herrenhaus) or palaces (Palast), but the Austrians seem to prefer the word "Schloss" for all. Palaces are not included in this list unless they were built on the ruins of true earlier "castles." A "Wasserschloss" is a castle with a moat of some sort.

[Ed note: Hannes Graf, in reading a pre-publication draft of this article, noted that there is still some mixing between Burg and Schloss in this article, an observation with which I agree (though I'm not tempted to correct it). He also notes that, after the military / defensive role of a castle was no longer needed, some were destroyed and others modified. He particularly notes that most of the wooden fortresses were purposely destroyed and the remaining simply rotted away. In another vein, he mentions that the "Gradišče" have been forgotten, mainly because a "Gradišča" was a "armed village" at a strategic point (beside a swamp, hill, forest, etc.) with wooden palisades on the sides that had no natural walls; those have changed back to unarmed villages now. He also notes that there are many forgotten fortresses, for which no ruins stand today. An example he gives is the "the castle at the hill," where the cemetery of Hagensdorf and Luising is now located (see picture to right).]

GENEALOGICAL IMPORTANCE

Burgenland castles are important because villages and towns grew up around them. They were a source of livelihood as well as a haven during troubled times. Land, vineyards and villages were included as part of a castle's "Herrschaft" or fief.

Our ancestors could have served in many capacities. There still remain, for example, a list of names of the musicians in the 1680 military band employed by Count Adam Batthyány! In other words, a castle may be the main reason for our ancestors to have settled in a particular area, either as peasants performing robot labor, paid employees, members of the military establishment or suppliers of goods and services. A Sorger ancestor of Gerry's is mentioned in Güssing records as a "Weinzödl," or wine purveyor, in 1732. It is very likely that his best customer was the castellan of the castle, who had over 400 mouths to feed. Some castle records, and those of the families (Batthyány, Esterházy, etc.) that owned them, are still in existence. While generally difficult to translate (Latin, Hungarian or German script) and often not available to the public, some do get translated and appear in other publications. We should be aware of their existence. If the present high interest in genealogy continues, I believe it is only a matter of time before many translations become available to the general public. We will then have another source of family data that has survived the ravages of time. If your family village was near a castle, you can be certain your ancestors were somehow involved.

Following are 25 Burgenland Castles (truly a strong argument for calling this province "Burgenland"). There may be others. There were also some fortified churches, which are not included. They castles are listed by region and make an impressive fortified chain of border strong points from the Danube to the Raab.


Northeast Burgenland - The Neusiedler See and "Seewinkel" Region of Eisenstadt

Its few hills and level or marshy land precluded establishment of many important castles.

HALBTURN (Bezirk Neusiedl am See) - Designed by architect J. Lukas von Hildebrandt and built in 1711 from a pre-1683 castle, it became a 1700s hunting lodge, then a magnificent Austrian baroque "schloss" (c1810). Has the look of a feudal castle. It was damaged and burned during WW-II (the central section spared) and rebuilt. It currently has use as a museum, art gallery, courtyard restaurant and a home to other commercial enterprises. Elsewhere on the grounds, in the Roten Hof, castle owner Baron Paul Waldbott-Bassenheim and his wife Marie Therese, aka, the Count and Countess Königsegg-Aulendorf, live with their three children.


KITTSEE (Bezirk Neusiedl am See) - One of the earliest and easternmost castles was built here and provided a doorway to Hungary. Various fortified buildings were built as well as a hunting "schloss." Now greatly restored in palatial style and site of an Ethnographic Museum.



NEUSIEDL AM SEE: "THE TABOR OF NEUSIEDL" (Bezirk Neusiedl am See) - Standing on a low plateau above the town and probably dating originally from the middle ages, the ruin is believed to have been either a defensive "lookout" tower and/or a royal residential retreat. Since the Slavic word "Tabor" translates to "prospect," this gives some credence to the belief that it was a lookout. However, some experts believe it may have been the dower residence of former queens Anna (1296) and Mary (1390). The defensive earthworks below the ruin were added during the Kuruzzen raids of the 1600s. Website Ruine Tabor provides more detail and pictures.


BREITENBRUNN (Bezirk Eisenstadt) - Has only a 1689 Watch Tower (Wehrturm) in the city square. The tower is now used as a museum and serves as part of the town's advertising logo. Breitenbrunn had fortified walls until 1786. Owners: Count Paul von Mattersdorf-Forchtenstein, then the Esterházy family.





EISENSTADT (Freistadt) - Another free city (1648), no longer has a castle, but the location of the massive 200 room Esterházy palace, built in 1663-73 on the foundation of an earlier medieval castle. Has large gateways and an interior parade ground and six assembly halls. Includes a "Haydn" museum and concert hall. There were fortified city walls and towers and the present cathedral (Dom St. Martin) was part of the defensive structure of the town, with towers, turrets and arrow slits in its walls. There is a modern underground car park next door to the palace grounds. The juxtaposition of the two is mind boggling!


PURBACH (Bezirk Eisenstadt) - Its marketplace is still surrounded by a Ottoman-era wall, with three gates and a barbican, a fortified gateway guarded by a tower. There is also the Purbacher Burgstall, a large Halstatt-era military hill fort a couple of miles northwest of town that was destroyed in 1273; its ruins (walls, ditches, grave hills and access roads) remain. An interesting archaeological paper on the site is found here.



RUST (Freistadt) - As a free city (1681), Rust had fortified walls from 1512, but no evidence of a castle. Some of the walls, especially near the fortified Fishermen's church (Fischerkirche), and the Powder Tower (Pulverturm) still survive.





Northwest Burgenland - Rosalia Region


"Hügelland" or hill country, encompassing the "Rosalia" mountains, this is ideal castle country.

DRASSBURG (Bezirk Mattersburg) - A village on the Hungarian border with a history dating from 1304, its name implies there was an earlier castle; and such is the case. The present church of this Croatian village was built on the foundations of a castle built 1289 and destroyed in 1477. There is an interesting "Schloss" (Zichy family originally) dating from the 1700s. It is now being modernized and converted back to a private residence (it had been a hotel for a number of years). The gardens and grounds are especially nice.



FORCHTENAU: "BURG FORCHTENSTEIN" (Bezirk Mattersburg) - The premier castle in all of the Burgenland, if not in all of Austria. First built in the 1300s by the Counts of Mattersdorf and later improved by the Princes Esterházy (starting 1622), it served as one of their residences and never fell to an enemy. Today it still belongs to Esterházy heirs, is in a remarkable state of preservation and contains a museum of weapons from the 14th to 18th centuries, Burgenland and Turkish War historical items, memorabilia of the Esterházy Regiment from the Seven Years War, portraits of the Esterházy family and the Esterházy family records. A stone causeway leading to a drawbridge over the moat, the "Black Tower" and a 455 feet deep cistern built by Turkish prisoners are impressive. It is open to the public and special exhibitions and programs are held. A "must see" for any Burgenland visitor! Featured on a PBS television series, "The Castles of Europe."

MATTERSBURG (Bezirk Mattersburg) - The village name implies a castle owned by the Counts of Mattersdorf, who later built Forchtenstein, however, if such a castle existed, it was torn down in 1294 as part of the Peace of Hainburg agreement. In the past, some researchers assumed that the hill, where the 1390 Gothic / 1659 Baroque church of St. Martin still stands in Mattersburg, was the site of that castle. A more recent theory is that it was on the hill called Hausberg just northeast of Burg Forchtenstein and was only a fortified house; some traces of trenches and ditches with a possible central tower exist there. [No pictures could be found.]


Middle Burgenland - Oberpullendorf

Another hilly area which includes the "Geschriebenstein" (883m), the highest mountain in the Burgenland and on the Burgenland-Hungarian border.

DEUTSCHKREUTZ (Bezirk Oberpullendorf) - Founded in 1245, the village is right on the Hungarian border. Ruins of a previously destroyed castle were rebuilt in 1625-1630 by Count Paul Nadasdy in an Italian Renaissance style. It was purchased by the Esterházy family in 1681. It was a typical combination aristocratic residence, castle and economic center with gothic arcades, outer bastions, a moat and watch towers. Has a 17th Century chapel. Badly damaged during WW-II, it was not used for many years but, since 1966, is the home and studio of leading Austrian artist Anton Lehmden. The Lehmden family devoted over three decades to restoring the castle to its earlier glory and filling it with creative life. Lehmden’s studio is open to the public as are his painting classes. In more recent years, the Lehmdens instituted a program of cultural events—readings, music, theater and dance, guided tours of the castle and the “Literature on the Green” festival, an event celebrating Austrian writers.

KOBERSDORF (Bezirk Oberpullendorf) - A "Wasserschloss" or moated castle, from the 1200s, rebuilt and expanded into the 1600s. Called "Die Mächtige" (the mighty) because of its massive round corner towers. Surrounded by a broad ditch of water, it is a typical moated castle. The original aristocratic family names were "Kery" and "Weisspriach." Like Deutschkreutz, Kobersdorf castle had become a ruin, so much so that the government wanted to demolish it in 1963. However, Martha Bolldorf-Reitstätter, Austria's first female academic architect, was searching for a castle that she could rebuild as a lifework for herself. Her choice became Kobersdorf, mainly because time was so short until its demolition. Renovation started immediately and continued until her death in 2001. The castle then became the property of her daughter Dr. Anna Schlanitz. The castle now is the site of several Festivals and many concerts, exhibitions and seminars. Parts of the castle can be rented for weddings and celebrations. Guided visits are possible.

LACKENBACH (Bezirk Oberpullendorf) - Another early "Wasserschloss," the Renaissance-concept palace was first noted in the 1553 transfer of the domain of Landsee to Miklós Oláh, Archbishop of Gran. It served economic and administrative purposes and offered more amenable living conditions than the nearby castle of Landsee, with its military orientation. Nicholas Esterházy acquired it in 1612 with his marriage to Ursula Dersfy, the heiress of Archbishop Oláh. Lackenbach Palace was the main Esterházy residence until 1628 but is still highly preserved and owned by the family. Currently, it is home to “On Nature’s Trail,” a museum that focuses on the history of mankind, archaeology, hunting and forestry, wood, climate issues, tourism, art and culture. There also are theme-oriented special exhibitions and concerts, readings, events and educational projects dealing with nature and the forest. Rooms can be hired for private celebrations.

LANDSEE (Bezirk Oberpullendorf) - The Landsee castle, likely built in the 1100s, became a possession of the Hungarian Crown in 1222. It changed ownership numerous times before Nikolaus Oláh bought it. He gave it to his nephew Nikolaus Császár, whose son-in-law started the extension of the castle to a mighty fortress shortly before 1600. Landsee became the possession of the Esterházy family, which still owns it, when daughter Ursula married Nikolaus Esterházy in 1612. The castle was further extended by Esterházy and was used as a sanctuary for the people and as an arsenal for Esterházy's troops during the wars against the Turks. After the Turks were driven out, Landsee lost its military significance. The arms and other military equipment were brought to Forchtenstein and the complex was finally abandoned in 1790. Thereafter, the surrounding population used its walls as a stone quarry for building their houses. In 1950, renovation was started by a local beautification society. Installation of iron stairways, bridges, safety railings, etc., was accomplished as a EU project in 1998; however, it remains a ruin. Over the past years, theatrics had been held in the castle. Article 2 of BB Newsletter 190A provides an extended report on the castle.

LOCKENHAUS (Bezirk Oberpullendorf) - Another "mighty" castle... but in two parts, the lower built in the 1600s on the highest mountain in the Burgenland ("Geschriebenstein"). The upper part was built about 1242 and contains a famous Gothic knight's hall ("Rittersaal"), chapel and massive casemates. The "Keep" is surrounded by five outer works of high thick walls. The castle may have been owned by the Knights Templar and became a possession of the Counts of Güssing from 1242 then the Esterházy's from 1676. Since 1968, it is owned by a foundation and managed by the province of Burgenland. It has the character of a well-preserved knight's castle but with a modern restaurant and hotel integrated into the building. Several music festivals are held annually and it is a frequent site for scientific and cultural meetings. Guided tours are available.

OBERPULLENDORF (Bezirk Oberpullendorf) - The site of a former Rohonczy family castle from the 1700s, is now called Haus St. Stephan. The current structure was built in the second half of last century by Baron Georg Rohonczy. In 1965, it was purchased by the Chamber of Agriculture and converted to an agricultural college. In 1992, it was bought by the Catholic Diocese of Eisenstadt. The rear wing houses the Caritas Home for Disabled Children. The historical front building complex was rebuilt as a training and conference center that offers a varied program of pastoral events and is also a popular conference and exhibition space for non-church organizations.


Southern Burgenland - Oberwart, Güssing & Jennersdorf

Traversed by a range of hills and containing the valleys of the Pinka, Raab, Strem and Lafnitz rivers, this is ideal castle country. River valley heights were excellent defensive positions.

BERNSTEIN (Bezirk Oberwart) - Another "mighty" castle built sometime before 860. Its very strong outer bastions withstood multiple sieges by the Ottomans in the 1500s. Suffered a number of lightning strikes in the 1600s that destroyed parts of the castle, including a strike to the gunpowder tower in 1617 that destroyed much of the Gothic inner part of the castle; it was rebuilt in the Baroque style of the period. Has a Knight's Hall. Purchased in 1892 by Eduard von Almásy, it remains in family hands today. Part of it used as a small, romantic-historical hotel (10 rooms in the traditionally-decorated family chambers, dining by candlelight beside fireplaces, but no central heat and no TVs or phones in rooms). Beautiful appointments and grounds. Said to be haunted by the "white lady," the ghost of Lady Cathalina Frescobaldi, who was buried alive after caught cheating on her husband in the 15th century. The historic garden, the chapel and the Knights' Hall are open to the public.

HANNERSDORF / BURG / WOPPENDORF (Bezirk Oberwart) - Ruins of a fortress castle, including Roman-era stone lion carvings, are incorporated into the wall of a 15th century Gothic church in Hannersdorf. It likely was part of the defensive border network that is more apparent in nearby Burg, a town which obviously takes its name from fortress or castle. There are remnants of a late Bronze age (1000 BC) earthen wall fort there. In the 10th and 11th centuries, a wood-earth defensive wall was also built but only a few ground works remain today.



RECHNITZ (Bezirk Oberwart) - Construction of the most recent castle at Rechnitz was started by Adam Count Batthyány soon after he acquired the dominion in 1648, replacing one that stood since the 1200s. It was completed in the 1700s. The castle proper was completely destroyed when the Red Army overran the town and the surrounding area during the night of 29 March 1945. Although the Russians were blamed for setting the castle ablaze, many townspeople believe it was the German forces who torched it in compliance with Hitler's scorched earth policy. The surviving private chapel suffered the ignominy of being converted into a bar and other buildings into apartments. In its last days, the castle also was the site of an atrocity. Margit Thyssen Batthyány-Strattmann de Németújvár, daughter of self-styled "Baron" Heinrich Thyssen-Bornemisza de Kaszon, a German entrepreneur and art collector, received ownership of the castle from her father in 1938. On 24 March 1945, with the Reds closing in, she hosted a party for SS officers, Gestapo leaders, Nazi Youth and local collaborators at her castle, during which nearly 200 Jews were shot by the attendees, apparently as after-dinner "entertainment."

ROTENTURM: "RED TOWER" (Bezirk Oberwart) - Situated beside the Pinka River, the Red Tower is an 1860s Neo-Moorish style "schloss" built on the site of an 1334-1540 moated castle and a "new" palace, complete with a zoo and roaming deer, that was built towards the end of the 1600s and demolished in the early 1800s. By 1840, the surviving baroque park was transformed into an English landscape garden. Count Stephan Erdödy built the present castle, with its Oriental forms and bright red decorative elements. It came to its demise in 1924 due to a fire that destroyed most of the interior, including the Erdödy family archives and the Secret Archives of the Hungarian national hero Prince Francis II Rákóczi, leader of the Kuruzenkrieges (1704-1711). Auctioned in 1929, the Red Tower was owned for a short time by the Czech violin virtuoso Jan Kubelik. In 1971, the building came into possession of the province of Burgenland. Since 2008, it is back in private hands and is being renovated. This webpage provides quite a few pictures of the schloss before renovations were undertaken (they start about halfway down the page).

SCHLAINING (Bezirk Oberwart) - Built by the Counts of Güssing in the 13th century, it reverted to the crown and was given to Knight Andreas Baumkircher in 1445 and was later enlarged. Has one of the largest "Keeps" and was one of the most powerful castles in the province, with 30-foot-thick walls and a drawbridge entrance. It came into the possession of the family Batthyány in the 16th Century, then the Hungarian government (1849-1957) and a federal minister (1957-1980). The castle was then taken over and restored by the Burgenland government as an international conference center and site for a museum, pottery, two peace institutes and a hotel, whose rooms are situated in the former forge and armory. It is well-preserved and open to visitors.

EBERAU (Bezirk Güssing) - Ruins of a "Wasserschloss, a moated castle with medieval fortifications at the southern edge of the town. Owned by the Ellerbach family (1465), then Erdödy and Zrinyi families, then Erdödy family again, who have since held it for over 500 years. Never taken in war until the end of WW-II, being occupied then for a winter by the Red Army, who stripped the interior wood for heating fuel and ransacked it looking for valuables. Papers from the family archives in the castle were also burned or used as toilet paper. Although "fully renovated" in 1907, the castle is not now open to the public due to this damage and because rotting of the foundations are causing the outer walls to move apart.


GÜSSING (Bezirk Güssing) - Begun in 1157, supposedly on the ruins of a Roman hill fort, Güssing Castle has a lengthy, well-documented history. In the possession of various owners, it was begun by "Wolfer and Hedrich out of Viltonia (Styria) with 40 riders," founders of the line of the "mighty Counts of Güssing," who were powerful enough to tweak royal noses until 1387 when the line died out. Ownership then reverted to the Hungarian King, Stephen, who gave it to the Peterfi family. They lost it to Nicholas Ujlaky, Prince of the Siebenburgen. This line became extinct in 1524; it was then acquired by the Batthyánys, who own it today (Draskovits-Strattman line). Now operated as a museum with special programs. Has a chapel with a 16th-century organ, Knight's Hall and picture gallery. Clock in bell tower strikes the hours and can be heard in nearby villages. City is clustered around the base of castle hill. Most picturesque. Road to the "Keep" passes through ruins of many outer defensive works and walls. Can also be seen from villages throughout the district. The "Inner Stadt" (city) also had a series of walls (2.2 meters thick) as well as gates and towers, some still incorporated in the buildings of today. There is a legend of a tunnel leading from castle to city.

OLBENDORF: "CASTRO OLBER" (Bezirk Güssing) - There was a castle (schloss) here as early as 1271 but is no longer in evidence. However, a memorial tablet was placed in 1971 to commemorate 700 years of its known existence. The castle was located southeast of the church on hills called "Schlossriegel." Belonged to Duke Albert II in 1289; to Counts of Güssing from 1291-1468; to Andreas Baumkirchner in 1469; and Batthyány from 1566. The castle was destroyed during the Bocksky Rebellion (1605) and the associated village was totally burned down. Webpage Castrum Olber (Castrum Ulm) provides German-language information about the palisade fortress at Olbendorf.


STINATZ (Bezirk Güssing) - Village named by Croatian immigrants about 1530 after "Castle Stenicnjak," in ruins in Croatia today. Included since it is the only Burgenland village known to be named for a foreign castle!

MOGERSDORF (Bezirk Jennersdorf) - Scene of the Battle of Szt. Gotthárd in 1664, when Count Montecuccoli achieved a major victory over the Turks. There is mention of a "schlössl" being used as his headquarters. There is also a memorial park on the battle site, called the "schlosslberg." [No ruins remain.]

NEUHAUS AM KLAUSENBACH (Bezirk Jennersdorf) - Burg Dobra, built on a volcanic cone, was established before 1170 by the Güssing Counts to control entry to the Klausenbach valley. It is the southernmost Burgenland castle. King Sigismund Nicholas Széchy acquired it in 1387. It was destroyed in 1467 and reconstructed. Franz Batthyány II acquired control of it in 1607 by his marriage to Eva Poppel-Lobkowicz. When in the area, however, Batthyánys stayed at the neighboring Schloss Tabor, rather than the castle, because the schloss was far more comfortable than the rugged military castle. The current decay of Burg Dobra is not attributable to destruction but to the tax measures of Emperor Joseph II, which led many owners to remove the roofs of their unused castles to avoid the required tax payments. The Burg Dobra ruins were used as a quarry to erect, among other things, the Catholic Church. The town is now the owner of the remaining ruins. Schloss Tabor was built by Styrian prince Ulrich Pressnitzer in 1469 and acquired in 1607 by the Batthyánys. In the 19th century it was used by the government for various functions. Badly damaged during WW-II, it was purchased in 1998 and renovated and refurbished by the Der Kulturverein Schloss Tabor, housing an art gallery and a local history museum. The Rupprecht family leased part of it in 2004 for use as a catering business and bar. The Schloss is a setting for cultural events such as readings, exhibitions, concerts, festivals, opera and parties. Article 7 of BB Newsletter 193 provides an extended report on the castle.

References:
• Austria, Phaidon Cultural Guide, Prentice Hall, 1985.
• Austria & the Austrians, S. Musulin, Praeger Publishers, 1972.
• Baedeker's Austria, 1900.
• Bezirk Güssing & Bezirk Jennersdorf - Im Wandel Der Zeit, Kisner & Peternell, Lannach, Austria, 1996.
• Book of Austria, E. Marboe, Austrian State Printing & Publishing House, Vienna, 1948.
• Burgenland für Jedermann, Zimmermann & Gesellmann, Wien, 1980.
• Burgenland Österreich, Merkurverlag, Graz, Austria, 1974.
• Castle Hotels of Europe, Long, Hastings House, 1973.
• plus WikiWeb and numerous websites from across the internet.


3) 1940 CENSUS

The 1940 US census, which includes all 132,164,569 residents of the United States born on or before April 1, 1940, and its armed forces serving overseas, was released for public viewing on April 2, 2012, having completed its mandated 72 years of being sealed. Unlike previous censuses, where the master microfilm was copied onto distribution microfilm for public access, this one was scanned, put directly online and made available for free to anyone with Internet access. Initially, however, there will not be a name index (speculation is it will take at least six months to complete one). Until then, the only way to access the census will be by determining the appropriate Enumeration District (ED) and then visually searching the scanned pages in that ED to find your people of interest (more on EDs later).

Currently, there are at least five sites with image viewers available, starting with the US Archives free viewer at http://1940census.archives.gov/.

LDS also has a free viewer (see https://www.familysearch.org/1940census/). In addition, LDS has its indexing project well underway and moving rapidly, with about 38% indexed nationwide as of May 16, including 6 states already complete and searchable plus 12 more states with 100% of the names indexed and ready to be made searchable. If you go to the link above, you can see the status of the indexing for each state, as well as view the images. Even better yet, for those pages already searchable, you can use search the 1940 census just like any other indexed LDS resource... and since a number of states are already or soon to be searchable, you might be in luck!

MyHeritage Genealogy offers a free viewer at http://www.myheritage.com/research/collection-10052/ and will be indexing the names during 2012; however, no index is yet available.

FamilyLink (a MyHeritage company) offers their free viewer at http://familylink.com/genealogy/records-1940-us-census/ and has a (currently) free search tool that, so far, only covers part of Rhode Island.

Ancestry.com also offers a free image viewer (see http://search.ancestry.com/search/db.aspx?dbid=2442), however, you must sign up for a free account in order to see the images.



This brings us back to the question of EDs (Enumeration Districts). An enumeration district is an area that could be canvassed by a single census taker (enumerator) during the census period. EDs have been in use since the 1880 census, though you may not know that since most census image collections and indexes have been restructured into friendlier formats (counties, townships, cities, wards in cities, etc.) for easy viewing. But, until that restructuring is done for the 1940 census, you need the ED number.

Each enumeration district within a state has a unique number. In 1940, the number consists of two parts, such as 31-78. The first part is a prefix number assigned to a county (usually alphabetical) and the second part is a district number within the county. Some larger cities have their own prefix number and such city prefix numbers come after the last county prefix.

Most rural townships only have one or two EDs, so browsing those is no problem. However, if you are looking for someone who lived in a large city and you don't know their address, you are not going to be able to find the correct ED... your only real option is to browse all of the EDs for the city and all of the pages in each of those EDs... and since there are only 40 people per page, you are talking about 100 pages for a village of 4,000 residents, 1,000 pages for a town of 40,000, 10,000 pages for a city of 400,000, etc. The other option is to wait for the indexes to be completed.

One of the easiest ways to find ED numbers, assuming you know enough of an address to do so, is to use Steve Morse's One-Step Tool called the Unified 1940 Census ED Finder at http://stevemorse.org/census/unified.html. To use it, you enter the State, County, Town (city or township), and (if a city) the street and house number. The Finder will show the ED number(s) at the bottom of the page. Click the ED number (there may be more than one) and the Finder will pop up a new page allowing you to select a viewer from the group I mentioned above (however, the address built in for Ancestry.com appears to be incorrect... Ancestry must have moved its page). Personally, I'd use the LDS FamilySearch viewer, as it seems to have the easiest and best interface (but feel free to try the others; you may disagree with my humble opinion plus it will put less load on my preferred viewer!).



A couple of considerations in choosing a viewer are download speeds and image quality. Not surprisingly, these two are inversely related, as both depend on the size of the underlying image... bigger images are clearer but take longer to download, while smaller images download quickly but are not as clear. Most of the websites above have altered the original images to improve both download speed and quality, and they have chosen slightly different ways to present their results, though the apparent effectiveness of the "improvements" and presentation depend on your personal views (you saw my choice listed above).

Margaret Kaiser shared some technical results with me that she found in The Ancestry Insider. See the full article at that website, though I'll present two excerpts here.

First, their evaluation of changes to the images, with resulting file sizes and download speeds:

  Straightened Contrast Resized Compression File Size (MB) Display Speed (s)
Original       1.0 4.712  
Ancestry.com Yes Increased   2.19 2.151 >3
Archives.gov       3.05 1.545 4
FamilySearch.org Yes Sharpened   1.07 4.414 34
MyHeritage.com     Smaller 2.60 1.814 17

I will note that I have used the FamilySearch.org viewer for a number of hours and found typical download speeds to be on the order of 3-5 seconds per image on my home computer, so I cannot confirm the times noted above. One would expect them to be directly relative to size, with smaller sizes loading faster. I'll also comment that an image that is too small to read is useless, so speed is not everything.

Second, they show identical sections of an image, so you can see the image quality when displayed side-by-side (...and decide for yourself which is best):





A noted problem of the underlying original images is that the focus was poor, either when originally microfilmed or when digitized (attempts to fix this focus problem underlies the alterations made by the various websites). Probably the best source for clear images of the census form headers is: http://www.archives.gov/research/census/1940/1940.pdf. It is well worth the time to read the headers and absorb what is there before you start browsing pages. One thing I had not seen from previous censuses is that the street and house number (for city dwellers) is recorded. Another thing is that two people on each page have expanded questions at the bottom of the page; be sure to check to see if they are your people. Also, note that "call backs" (people missed on the first canvas of a neighborhood) are at the end of the ED pages; be sure to check these pages if you don't find your person.



A last thought: As noted above, there are a number of indexing projects underway. You might consider offering your services as an indexer to speed the process. See the links above to learn about what is involved (those sites that welcome volunteers have links that explain the process).


4) POST-1895 HUNGARIAN CIVIL RECORDS (by Alan Varga)

I am researching family in the villages of Schandorf, Dürnbach and Althodis in southern Burgenland. I discovered that there are Hungarian civil records beginning in 1895 that are available for viewing online. I'm not an experienced researcher by any stretch of the imagination, but I wanted to share how I was able to find my grandparents' birth records in the hope that it will assist other novices like me.

I started by clicking the LDS Films button on the BB home page. My family is Roman Catholic and I know the villages are in the Oberwart district, so I clicked on that link and found the film numbers I needed in the bottom section of the page. I also made note of the RC Parish and Civil district names of the villages I'm interested in.

Dürnbach and Althodis are in the RC Parish of Dürnbach and the Civil district of Markt Neuhodis. Schandorf (which also includes the Hungarian village of Kisnarda) is in the RC Parish of Schandorf and the Civil district of Vaskeresztes, Hungary.

Now that I had the film numbers, I could order the microfilms for use at my local LDS Family History Center. I recently signed up for a free account at FamilySearch.org in order to take advantage of online ordering that it is now available for my area of the country, the Chicago area. We Burgenländers are more interested in the Hungarian records than in the Austrian records, which cover other provinces and Vienna, so I clicked on the Hungary link. I found 5 Hungarian collections.

I knew I was looking for the Catholic church records ending 1895, but I also discovered that civil registration records beginning in 1895 were available and viewable online, so I didn't need to order the films. The three Hungarian counties that Burgenland was created from are Moson, Sopron and Vas, so I chose Vas for southern Burgenland. So far, so good. [Ed: This map on the BB website shows the pre-1921 Hungarian counties that sections of current-day Burgenland were part of.]

The next selection is for town or registration district. Vaskeresztes was explicitly cross-referenced to Schandorf, but I needed the Hungarian name for Markt Neuhodis. Originally I went through some extra steps, but learned of a quicker way to get that. Going back to the BB home page, I clicked the button for Maps and clicked the second link on that page for the List of all Villages. I found Markt Neuhodis linked to Városhodász. BB map /Hungary/Vas.jpg also proved helpful in understanding and confirming the physical relationships of my villages to their Civil registration centers.

Once I knew Vaskeresztes and Városhodász, I clicked on the links for those names and was able to narrow down the pages I needed because I knew my grandparents' exact birthdates. Unfortunately, these records are not yet indexed, so it took a little time, but I found both of them. I am continuing to search, page by page, to find their siblings, and am having slow success with that.

If you have ever worked with the Roman Catholic church records of 1828-1895, you may know that each page is a register of 10 names per page, and each line extends across both the left and right sides of the original book. The civil records, on the other hand, list one person per page, but with more information. Although I don't read Hungarian, I was able to guess what data was presented. The layout, from top to bottom, is as follows [Ed: the numbers below correspond to the numbers in the sample document shown here]:

1. Kelt – the registration village name and date recorded
2. Megjelent az alulirott anyakönyvvezetö – the person appearing in the registry office
3. lakóhelye – the above person's place of residence (house number)
4. A törvényes atya – the legal father's name, religion, house number and age
5. Az anya – the mother's name, religion, house number and age
6. A születés – the location (house number) and date of birth
7. A gyermek – the child's religion and name

The bottom of the page (8.) lists a witness name and name of the person reporting the birth and, again, the date recorded (9.).

[Ed. Note: It is important to search these documents based on the name in Section 4 rather than that in Section 2. The sample document is an example of why that is true: it was the midwife/bába (ózosgy Szedlacsek Mátyásné Merinszki Maria: the widow Mrs. Mátyás Szedlacsek nee Maria Merinszki) who reported the birth, not the father (József Varga). Also, note that married female names are of the form shown for the midwife just above. This can also be seen in the mother's name in 5: Varga Józsefné Bailicz Terezia (né means Mrs.). Other things worth noting is that the religion is given after text "vallása", the sex of the child is given after text "neme" (the Latin filii for male, filiae for female; sometimes Hungarian férfi for male, női for female), and that years and days are spelled out after the appropriate numeric symbol(s).]



The BB website has other resources that can help understand both the church and civil records. From the home page, click on the button for Archives, and you will find all of the past newsletters, starting with the very first one. Some that may helpful for reading foreign source documents are numbers 15, 18A, 41A, 47B and 72B.

• 15 has Hungarian and Latin heading translations for Jennersdorf marriage records

• 41A has Hungarian translation for civil birth records

• 47B has Hungarian death terms

• 18A is devoted exclusively to translating the Burgenland church records: birth, marriage and death

• 72B has translations of miscellaneous personal characteristics found in an unknown source document



The final obstacle is reading the names. Again, on the BB home page, there is a link for German Script Letters, which illustrates the alphabet written in Kurrent script [Ed: however, the Hungarians did not tend to use Kurrent script in official documents, though the occasional Kurrent letter does creep into their stylized modern script; see, for example, the lead character in the second example of György below.]. That is a good starting point, but I needed to browse quite a few records before I was comfortable guessing at names.

These screen shots demonstrate several versions of the same name with different handwriting; good luck with this!

Ferencz:    

 György:    

   Karóly:  


Female names are pretty much what you would expect: Anna, Maria, etc. Male names are another matter. If you know the name of an ancestor, either from American records or from oral interviews with family members, you won't always find the Americanized form of their given name in the Hungarian records. For name translations, go to the BB Links page. Go to the section labeled Hungarian Links and click the link for Hungarian Names 101; this should help a lot.



I hope this article is successful in providing some useful information, and perhaps also in providing a methodology for newer members who need to know how to begin their own searches.


5) ILLMITZ (by Hannes Graf)

(Ed. Note: Hannes Graf recently returned to the BB Staff as Members Editor. In addition to taking on this task, Hannes has given permission to republish articles he wrote over the past two years for inclusion on his personal site, Spirit of Gradišće - Őrvidék Group. This is the first of what will be a series of his republished articles. We thank Hannes for making his work available to our readership.)

Geography

Illmitz (Illmic in Hungarian) is a market community (Marktgemeinde) with 2,463 inhabitants in the district Neusiedl am See.

Illmitz is part of the national park Neusiedler See-Seewinkel and belongs to the Fertö/Neusiedler See Cultural Landscape (a "cultural landscape" is a UNESCO World Heritage Site defined by its unique landscape as created through the evolutionary symbiosis of human activity with the local physical environment), which was inscribed (added to the list of sites) in 2001. The community is located at 117 m above sea level and thus has the lowest average elevation of any village in Austria. The lowest point in Austria (113.5 m), however, is located in the neighboring community, Apetlon.

The Illmitz Hotter (the village territory/farmland as a whole) contains the most surface area of any community in Burgenland. To the south, the community borders Hungary; to the west, the Neusiedlersee; to the north, Podersdorf am See; and to the east, Apetlon.


1873 map of the Illmitz area. Small numbers are elevations (in meters). The rise marked 119 (m) to the left of the southern edge of Illmitz is the likely location of the early St. Martin's church.

History


The oldest discovery in the Illmitz Gemeinde is a late New Stone Age grave (probably from the globular amphora culture, ca. 3400-2800 BC), found in the Ried “Teilung” (a cleared woodland, marshland and dried swampy area around the Upper and Lower Stinkersees, which are shallow lakes in the northern part of Illmitz). Countless stray finds, from the New Stone Age until Roman times, were excavated from the meadows beside the Upper Stinkersee. The most famous is a ca. 3200-year-old stone cist grave with a “spirit hole.” (A cist is a small stone-built coffin-like box or ossuary used to hold the bodies of the dead. The "spirit hole" is a round opening in the capstone though which the souls can symbolically exit and enter.) The discovery is exhibited in the Natural History Museum in Vienna. In 1958, a Roman votive altar, which honors the God Mithra, was found in the “Schellgärten” (an area along a road on the southern edge of Illmitz village). Another cultural artifact from Roman times (1st-2nd century A.D.) is a relatively large (ca. 25 cm) Cupid statue. It is verifiable that Auarehans / Awaren (in English, "Avars," a Central Asian nation of horsemen, believed to be of Mongolian extract, who dominated Pannonia from 600 to 800 AD) also lived in Illmitz on what is now Seegasse (a road leading from central Illmitz toward the Neusiedlersee). In a former brick cavern, 17 Auarehan graves were found.

The first mention of Illmitz in documents was in 1217, when it was called "Pred. Ygmeleech” or “Illmeuch." In this year, Provost Herkules from Eisenburg, from the house of Ols, gave his Illmitz property (Oberillmitz) to the Eisenburg cathedral chapter (in European cathedrals, the "chapter" is the administrative council or senate supporting the bishop). This gift was confirmed by the Hungarian King, Andreas II.

In terms of ownership, the area was divided into Upper and Lower Illmitz. Lower Illmitz was owned by secular lordships. Several documents report the numerous ownership conflicts at the end of the 14th century. In 1410, Lower Illmitz was owned by the aristocratic family Kanizsai, owners of the lordship of Eisenstadt. In 1622, Kaiser Ferdinand II gave the lordship Eisenstadt and the county Forchtenstein to Count Nikolaus Esterházy (1583–1645). With the reintegration of Eisenstadt into Hungary in 1649, Lower Illmitz became part of the Komitat Wieselburg. When the Esterházy lordship was reorganized in the 18th century, Lower Illmitz was given to the lordship Frauenkirchen. Upper Illmitz remained in the hands of the church, as it belonged to the Provost of Eisenburg as caretaker for the cathedral chapter Eisenburg. In 1777, the chapter was relocated and ownership was transferred to Steinamanger. In 1802 and 1803, the entire area was incorporated into the state of Wieselburg.

The old Martin’s church was first mentioned in documents from the year 1299. It was located near Lower Illmitz on a slight rise on the south end of the Kirchsee. Because the water level of the lake and ponds in the area rose, it was difficult for locals to attend the church. When the community was abandoned in 1363 due to flooding, the church also became desolate; it could not be repaired until the year 1438. It was permanently abandoned after St. Bartholomew church (shown left) was constructed in Illmitz in 1775-1792.

A new settlement of the area followed at the beginning of the 15th century. At this time, there was already a parish school. Between 1437 and 1468, many students who acquired their fundamentals in school in Illmitz attended the University of Vienna. When the Turks wreaked havoc coming through Seewinkel in 1529, Illmitz also suffered. Protestantism made an early foothold in the area, however, by 1674 the Esterházy restoration efforts had succeeded and the community was predominantly Catholic.

During the Turkish War of 1683, the Bocskay Rebellion of 1605, as well as the Bethelen and Kuruzen wars of 1620 and 1704-09, Illmitz had the same fate—destruction of property and killing of citizens—as other communities in Seewinkel. In 1767, Empress Maria Theresia passed the Urbarial Patent, which protected farmers from the caprice of state officials. The Liberation of the Serfs in 1848 brought the abolition of aristocratic privileges and the end to subservience of subjects. Farmers had the opportunity to purchase the leased land they had cultivated, although pastures and forest still belonged to the community. At the end of the 19th century, livestock farming was the most important source of revenue for Illmitz. In 1898, the first-ever dairy cooperative in Wieselburg was founded in Illmitz. “Illmitz Cheese” was well known and appreciated in Vienna as well as Budapest.

In 1905, the villages Upper Illmitz and Lower Illmitz united. From 1921 on, the community belonged to the newly-founded federal state of Burgenland.
 
lllmitz District Neusiedl am See
Year population 1869=100 population 1869=100
1869 1,662 100 38,909 100
1880 1,898 114 42,467 109
1890 1,853 111 42,311 109
1900 1,929 116 45,085 116
1910 1,867 112 46,072 118
1923 2,042 123 46,206 119
1934 2,165 130 51,669 133
1939 2,241 135 52,270 134
1951 2,261 136 50,572 130
1961 2,316 139 49,509 127
1971 2,376 143 49,342 127
1981 2,392 144 48,458 125
1991 2,517 151 49,397 127
2001 2,595 156 51,730 133
2010 2,463 148 54,449 140
Changes in the population of Illmitz and the district of Neusiedl am See from 1869 to 2010,
in count and percentage of the 1869 population.

Additional Information

(Ed: Previously published in the BB Newsletter were two short articles by Hannes that relate directly to this article; we reprint them below.)

THE SPRING OF ST. BARTHOLOMÄUS IN ILLMITZ
(from BB Newsletter No. 186A, April 30, 2009)

The unhygienic drinking water of the shallow house wells in Illmitz was the reason for the annual summer sickness of the whole population. Also, typhus sometimes affected the village. The water had a very high concentration of calcium (1200 mg/l) and nitrate (1500 mg/l). In comparison, the Viennese water currently has a maximum of 8 mg/l! For this reason, the mayor of Illmitz chartered a drilling team in 1929 that would search for fresh water. They found an artesian spring and established a spring house where everybody could come to take the water they needed. The mineral water is named "Arteserwasser," and has been available for free since 1931. As a result, now the population is largely free of sickness and cancer. (I always take some bottles with me to take some water back to Vienna. It's really good for the kidneys & prostate.) The spring of St. Bartholomäus is a "Natrium-Hydrogencarbonat-Mineral-Trinksäuerling" (sodium bicarbonate mineral drinking water) with a constant temperature of 15.6° Celsius (60.1° Fahrenheit), at 201.3 meters below ground. In 1996, the Burgenland Government declared it to be a Heilquelle (mineral/medicinal spring / health spa). Since then, other drillings show that the largest European mineral water lake is under the Lake Corner, with a total area of about 250 square kilometers, equal to 96.53 square miles.

LAKE NEUSIEDL-SEEWINKEL NATIONAL PARK
(from BB Newsletter No. 186A, April 30, 2009)

This steppe national park, which crosses international borders, was established in 1993. Part of its territory belongs to Austria (100 km2, or 38.61 square miles) and part to Hungary (150 km2, or 57.92 square miles). The park ranks among the most fascinating natural areas of Europe: the open water and reed-covered zones of Lake Neusiedl, the meadows close to the water, the pasture land, and the saline and periodically-dry pools are the habitats that this park has to offer. See it's English-language website: www.nationalpark-neusiedlersee-seewinkel.at/en/.


6) DROPPED UMLAUTS AND OTHER ORTHOGRAPHIC ODDITIES

We recently received a couple of New Member forms that listed surnames that our European-based staff immediately recognized as modifications of the original West Hungarian surnames. (Many of us long-time staff also recognized the modifications but we did so based on experience rather than upbringing.) The surnames in question were GOLTL (a family surname of Susan Crayne Price) and TSCHOGL (a family surname of Donald Tschogl). In both Burgenland past and present, these names have an umlauted O: Ö, so these researchers must keep this in mind as they look at European records.

But is it quite that simple? Of course not, or I would not be writing this article.

To get technical for a minute, orthography, per Wikiweb,

"...describes or defines the set of symbols used in writing a language, and the rules about how to use those symbols... (it) is largely concerned with matters of spelling, and in particular the relationship between phonemes and graphemes in a language."

(Actually, things like hyphenation, capitalization, word breaks, emphasis, and punctuation are also considered part of orthography... but they are not relevant to the current discussion.)

What is especially relevant, though, are those words phonemes and graphemes... A phoneme is defined as "the smallest segmental unit of sound employed to form meaningful contrasts between utterances." A grapheme is "the smallest semantically distinguishing unit in a written language."

Said simpler, a phoneme is what you say and a grapheme is how you write it. However, a real problem occurs when we have an utterance in one language and wish to write it in another language (which occurs frequently in our multi-ethnic world of emigrants from Burgenland, as we commonly convert names amongst the German, Hungarian, Croatian and English languages).

Why is this a problem? Largely, for three reasons...

1) spoken languages do not have a single, identical set of phonemes (i.e., we don't make a common set of sounds when we speak);
2) written languages are not composed of a single, identical set of graphemes (i.e., we don't use the same symbols to write what we speak); and
3) the same grapheme may represent a different phoneme depending on which language is involved (i.e., the common written letters have different sounds in different languages). Worse yet, even in a specific language, a single grapheme can represent different phonemes and a single phoneme can represent different graphemes!

To describe these issues, let me introduce the standard notation used in orthography. A grapheme (either a single character or a collection of characters that represents the written form of a particular utterance) is typically enclosed in angle brackets: ⟨f⟩, whereas, the phoneme (either a single character or a collection of characters that represents the sound) is placed between slashes: /f/.

As an example of problem 3) above, consider that the English sound (phoneme) /f/ can be represented by letters (graphemes) ⟨f⟩, ⟨ff⟩, ⟨ph⟩, ⟨gh⟩, and so on; while the letter (grapheme) ⟨f⟩ can also represent the sound (phoneme) /v/ (as in the word "of"). However, in German, the grapheme ⟨v⟩ most commonly represents the phoneme /f/ whereas the German ⟨w⟩ is spoken /v/, which is an example of problem 2) when considering German versus English. An example of problem 1) above is the rolled-r in, for example, the second r in Frauengruppe... that vibrating r is not part of English.

To cope with these types of issues, the general approach over the centuries has been to change the spelling in each language to match the sounds. However, no form of spelling change can deal with the problem of sounds not used in the language, as it makes no sense for a written language to have a letter combination (grapheme) for a sound (phoneme) not used in that spoken language.

This issue is, of course, also a problem for a person learning to speak a foreign language, as frequently there are sounds needed in the new language that are not part of the learner's native language.

But, let's go back to Goltl and Tschogl, better known as Göltl and Tschögl in German.



Fritz Königshofer wrote, concerning Tschögl: As Hannes wrote, the name Tschögl is, in Austria, always spelled with the umlaut o (ö). In German lands like Austria, there is an official way to transcribe the ö, by oe. This means that most (but not all) of the times the spellings Tschögl and Tschoegl are equivalent. For instance, if you enter Tschoegl in the Austrian on-line telephone directory (www.herold.at), you will receive all Tschögl listings too. There is another spelling variation of likely the same name, i.e., Schögl.

Americans (and other non-Germans) tend to drop the umlaut dots with which they are not familiar. The damage is minor, as in most cases the other spelling is rare or non-existing. Any Burgenlaender [Ed: Burgenländer] who sees your name written as Tschogl will immediately mentally add the two dots on the o, the same way as my last name, if spelled the American way (Konigshofer), will, after an initial shock, also receive the two dots on the o.



Hannes Graf wrote in reply: Additional to Tschögl, this a Germanized Hungarian name, the original is Csögl. In the Austrian telefonbook, there are also some Csögl reported. All of the German "TSCH"-beginning names are pronounced (and written) in Hungarian as "CS," like Tschida and Csida, also the village Tschanigraben, former Csanigraben, Tschantschendorf and Csencs, and so on.

The stem of the word (Wortstamm) is the Hungarian Csög(e)l(y), the e and y became hidden. The source could be the village of Csögle, so the Csögl (Tschögl) are people from there.

The pronouncement of Ö (OE) is, in English, like "ea" in early in the morning, O is like the "O" in Oregon. You can imagine the difference.

So the pronouncement of Hungarian "Csögely" equals the German "Tschögl" equals the English "Tscheagl." I hope you don't get totally confused now.



These comments raise the question of letter substitutions between languages. In BB Newsletter 145A, November 30, 2005, "Variations in the Spelling of Burgenland Names," Gerry Berghold commented on the problem and presented a list passed on by Klaus Gerger.

Gerry wrote: Anyone who has researched Burgenland family for a few generations has undoubtedly found variations in the spelling of some family names. The further back we go, the greater the probability of change. We are well aware of phonetic spellings acquired at port of entry, spellings which changed due to language differences as German, Hungarian and Croatian priests, pastors and government officials replaced each other and spellings which changed as the umlaut and other diacritical marks were dropped in favor of English substitutes, like the "e" in the American name Muehl (Mühl). I often receive queries asking me if such spelling variations apply to a given family name, and quite often they do. Recently I was scanning some files given me by Klaus Gerger. I found a list of general changes to the spelling of local Burgenland names encountered in church and civil records as a result of the move from Hungary to Austria. I don't know who recorded them but I feel it was the work of some researcher compiling records for a research paper. They have been copied below and you may wish to apply them to your own family names. Our thanks both to Klaus and the unknown author.

Letters As in… Letters As in…
A = O Adlovits = Odlovits G = K Groboth = Kroboth
Gallovits = Karlovits
Ai = Ei Aichler = Eichler H = a/o Mahr = Maar = Mar
Mohr = Moar = Moor
B = V Bodisch = Vodisch
Billovits = Villovits
J = Sch Jusits = Schuschits
B = P Berger = Perger
Brenner = Prenner
P = B Pauer = Bauer
Pleier = Bleier
B = W Botka = Wotka S = Sch Seper = Scheper
Sveinzer = Schweinzer
C = G = K Cavalar = Gavalar = Kavalar
Casper = Gasper = Kasper
Sz = S Szorger = Sorger
C = K Clement = Klement T = D Tax = Dax (Dex)
Traxler = Draxler
Ch = K Christ = Krist
Chober = Kober
Tsch = Cs Tschandl = Csandl
Cs = Tsch Csandler = Tschandler U = O Urban = Orban
Cz = Z Czotter = Zotter V = B Verkovits = Berczkovits
D = T Dugovits = Tukovits
Deutsch = Teits
V = W Volf = Wolf
Vexler = Wexler
F = V Felinger = Velinger
Fennes = Vennes (Venus)
W = V Veber = Weber
F = Ph Filippi = Philippi Y = J = I Mayer = Majer = Mejer = Meier

If you scan the existing Burgenland phone book, you will find many of these variations. Exactly when a particular family changed the spelling can be a very important clue as to whether a family with a similar spelling is part of your family.



We bounce back to umlauts, as Fritz writes: The German language has three umlauts, Ä, Ö and Ü, which work like separate vocals. Of these, the Ä has a similar pronunciation as E in, e.g., the word "set." The difference is mostly in the written language, where ä provides consistency with the root of the word, when the root is spelled with A. Examples are "Vater" (father) which has the plural "Väter," while the word "Vetter" (male cousin) has the plural "Vettern." If one wanted to find a difference, then Ä is closer to A in pronunciation than is the E. A bit like the difference between the vocal sounds in the words "sat" and "set."

The Ö sounds like the French word bleu (blue). The sound exists in the English language as well, e.g., in the words Sir or fir, or furry.

As for the sound of Ü, I know of no equivalent in English pronunciation. It's close to U as in "put," but also close, if not closer, to I as in the words bit or bitter.

The substitutions ae for ä, oe for ö, and ue for ü are perfectly legal in German lands. A German speaker writing an e-mail in German on a computer with an American keyboard nearly always will use the umlaut substitutions. The international machine-readable part of an Austrian passport uses the substitutions, like in the case of my surname. A user searching the on-line phone book of Austria at www.herold.at for the name Goeltl will receive listings of Göltl as well as Goeltl.

The three umlauts have caused a sorting problem for indices and dictionaries / encyclopedias. I have run across three different approaches. One of these was to sort the umlaut behind the letter, i.e., ä after a, etc. Another approach was to sort the umlaut in at the position of its transcription, e.g., sort ö in at the position of oe (i.e., after od... and before of...). The third method is to sort the umlauts as if they are no umlauts. Today, this is the prevailing approach. In contrast, the Hungarians seem to sort their umlauts (short and long-barred o and u) according to the first method and, furthermore, do not seem to have the option of a transcription.

Most non-Germans are not aware of the transcription of umlauts into ae, oe and ue. If they encounter the latter, the difficulty of pronouncing German last names increases further. English speakers automatically separate the two vocals, e.g., pronounce Koenig as koh-een-ig, which is probably a worse mangling than dropping the two umlaut dots as in Konig.

When Americans read, or need to write, a name with umlauts, it is much easier to leave out the unfamiliar two dots. One of the best examples is the begin of the German anthem of 1922, "Deutschland, Deutschland über alles," where the word "über" almost invariably gets spelled "uber" in America (such as in crossword puzzles). Correct German spelling would allow only über or ueber.

What does all that mean for the family searcher? The most important consequence is that family names need to be evaluated as to whether they might have been written with umlauts in the old country. If so, or if there is a chance that there were umlauts, one needs to search in the new country for both the version with the two dots dropped and the version with transcripted umlauts. As to my surname, the Ellis Island records show 7 arrivals spelled Konigshofer versus two spelled Koenigshofer. Other examples are Poltl (30) vs. Poeltl (6), Schabhuttl (6) vs. Schabhuettl (2), or Kolndorfer (3) vs. Koelndorfer (1). An interesting case I ran across when looking for examples is the surname Benkö. There are 850 Ellis Island arrival records with the spelling Benko. However, although the name Benkö is Hungarian, there are four arrivals with the spelling Benkoe, two of which coming from Unterwart and Oberwart.

Another lesson is to be cautious when searching for a name with an umlaut in an index or encyclopedia. The first thing to establish is the manner in which the umlauts are sorted in, out of the three general ways listed above.



Another aspect of this basic problem of sounds and their spellings in different languages is the use of accents in Hungarian (though dropping those accent marks when converting to English seems to be less of a problem when compared to dropping umlauts). What I have noticed is that the Google Translate online translator is especially sensitive to the presence or absence of the accent marks in Hungarian... forget to put them in and the word or sentence may have a very different translation. For those interested in translating the occasional Hungarian phrase, note that there is a little keyboard icon in the lower left corner of the Google Translate input box. Click it and you'll get a virtual keyboard where you can select the appropriate accented characters (you may need to click the virtual "shift" key to find some of them).



In passing, I will also mention what Alan Varga noted in Article 4 above. That is, that given names also change between languages... for example, George (English) = Georg (German) = György (Hungarian) = Juraj (Croatian) = Georgius (Latin), etc. We offer some tools on our Links page to help resolve these differences. Of importance, you will often find given name forms recorded in official records based on the background (ethnicity, nationality, religion) of the person writing the record, even when the family involved was not of that background. So a Hungarian record keeper might use the Hungarian form, a priest might use Latin, etc. Regardless, the given name used within the family would be of the form appropriate to the family's ethnicity.



While the above does not cover the full complexities of the orthographic issues when switching among languages, I hope it helps make you aware of some of the shifts that may have occurred in the spelling of your family names. Good hunting!


7) MEET THE STAFF: THOMAS STEICHEN

Editor: This is a new intermittent series wherein we will more fully introduce the BB staff. The articles will be self-written by each staff and intended to tell you a little about the genealogical interests and background of that staff member plus give you some of the broader picture, beyond genealogy, that make us individuals. Although you readers likely know a lot about me already, I am serving as the "guinea pig" so will go first.



Tom Steichen & Genealogy: It Had a Life of Its Own...

I first became involved with genealogy, somewhat involuntarily, back in the mid-1990s when my work manager gave me a copy of the Family Tree Maker software. He had ordered a copy of the program over the web... but it was backordered... and delayed... and delayed some more... but then he stumbled across a copy in a local computer store, so he bought it. Of course, the next day the copy he ordered arrived, leaving him with two copies. Knowing that I was a competent computer guy—and worried he might need help with his copy—he found a home for it: with me. My copy sat uninstalled for a month... but it was a month where my manager nattered on about all the neat things he was finding out about his family... yadda, yadda, yadda (you know how we genealogists can be). So I finally installed it... and my life has not been the same since.

But to step back a bit, I was born in Minnesota at the midpoint of the last century and was raised in the small town of Litchfield. I was a somewhat bright but underachieving and, perhaps, under motivated student (my standardized test scores said I should have had higher grades than I actually did). I participated in wrestling and tennis as sports and in the more "technical" high school clubs: sciences, theater (but back-stage only), newspaper, etc., and I was on the academic "pre-college track," as it was called in those days. I especially enjoyed the math classes, though I took things like art and shop too. When I graduated, I enrolled in the local four-year state college, St. Cloud State University. However, I was truly unsure of what I wanted to do there so I dropped out before I started. After a short stay in Minneapolis, I ended up being a bit of a vagabond, hitchhiking with a friend across the northwestern tier of states then down the coast to southern California.

Although my extended ancestral family was one that emigrated to Minnesota and pretty much stayed there, one of my mother's aunts did leave, and she went to Van Nuys, California in the 1920s. Great Aunt Mary is what she was known as to me and, though I had never met her, I stopped in and introduced myself as I passed through. She was very kind to me and my traveling partner, taking us in and introduced us to her children and grandchildren, my second cousins, the next day. While I did not know it at the time, Mary was born in 1886 in Albértkázmérpuszta, Austria-Hungary (a village which begins just a few yards outside of current-day Burgenland near Halbturn). Mary was 83 when I visited her and she lived to see her 101st birthday! I also later learned that my mother considered joining her in California shortly after WW-II... well, if mother had joined her, I doubt I'd be writing this article today.

Since I was out of pocket money and had a childhood friend living in Pomona, CA, I ended up working there for a year before being drafted into the Army in 1970 near the end of the Vietnam War. Luckily, I missed Vietnam by one training cycle and, instead, served my time as a company cook in Germany. When I completed service, it was back to Minnesota and St. Cloud State, this time knowing I wanted to go into math and science with the intent of becoming an engineer. However, a superb statistics professor changed my mind and I found myself taking the statistically-oriented math classes rather than those engineering-oriented. I also discovered computers and, further, that with proper motivation, I was actually a pretty good student. By the time my four years were done in 1976, I had enough credits for degrees in both mathematics (statistics emphasis) and computer science (though the university would not offer a computer major degree until the year after I graduated). So I earned a BA in mathematics with a very large minor in computer science and a normal minor in business (I stuffed that into those four years too). Oh, and between my junior and senior years, I married the girl I met on the second day of my freshman year and who has shared my life for these past 40 years (if you also count the three pre-marriage years we dated).

The next steps were a fellowship at the University of Kentucky, where I earned a Masters in Statistics, then a career as a research statistician and computer scientist for RJ Reynolds in Winston-Salem, NC. I worked there for 32 years, retiring two years ago. Along the way, my wife and I had twin sons, became ballroom dancers, and started a bluegrass gospel band, among many other things.

However, if we back up 17 years from the current year, we are again back in the mid-90s, and I had just installed Family Tree Maker...

Probably like most people, I started my genealogical search with my birth surname... in my case, Steichen. What I knew of my surname was that it was of German origin, that it would probably be a bugger to research (after all, who had ever heard of the Steichen name?), and that the family had settled in Stearns County, Minnesota, sometime in the unknown past. It turns out, however, that only one of my three "knowns" of the previous sentence was correct; that is, they had settled in Stearns County (in 1865... even the unknown in my previous sentence was wrong). Steichen turns out to be of Luxembourgish origin and I quickly learned there was a whole community of Steichen researchers who had traced the family back into the 1500s. Other than being able to fix errors and fill in detail about my local branch of Steichens, there wasn't much research to be done! Much tougher was convincing my father that we were not Germans. When told by me that the surname came from Luxembourg, he replied, "Well, that's Germany, isn't it?" (In fact, actually not... and never has been, though some of what is now Germany used to be Luxembourg, as is also true of some of France and half of Belgium.)

What is probably most interesting about the Steichen surname is the fact that, so far, every Steichen line that has been traced back to the 1500s meets at a single couple, Caspar and Marguerite (Ranckandals) Steichen, whose family apparently invented the modern spelling (the previous spelling was Steiffgen; Steychen was a variation that appeared in records for a short while). The most famous Steichen? That would likely be Edward Steichen, pioneer "artistic" photographer, fashion photographer (Vogue and Vanity Fair) and military photographer (WW-II); he was the best known and highest paid photographer of his era. His sister, Paula, married poet Carl Sandburg.

What I blithely skipped over, two paragraphs back, was the conceit that one is of the nationality/ethnicity of the paternal surname. However, I was a genealogical neophyte at the time and ignorantly disregarded the fact that I had other ancestors who might not be of Luxembourgish heritage. Research over the next few years would show that I am but one-quarter Luxembourgish, the rest being about half German (with a smidgen of Polish thrown in) and a quarter Austro-Hungarian.

By 2000, my once-empty Family Tree Maker database had become home to about 10,000 family members. In that same year, I published the first version of my personal family genealogical website, which tracks my "great eight" ancestral lines, Steichen & Kremer (of Luxembourg), Zwilling and Fruth (of Rheinland-Pfalz and Bavaria), Schaefer and Wink (of Westfalen and Württemberg), and Weiss and Halbauer (of Halbturn and Wallern, Burgenland). Currently, my database holds 18,819 family members and it continues to grow every month as family members find my site and choose to share updates. Just recently, a question prompted me to count the number of direct-line ancestors that I have identifed—there are 324.

So how did I end up becoming so involved with the Burgenland Bunch? That is a story I've told before, but I'll repeat the bones of it here... the initial, core reason was to give back to those who gave to me. My Burgenland lines, Halbauer and Weiss, were the ones that seemed to defy research, with the little hard data being consistently inconsistent... they were from Germany... and Austria... and Hungary... but no more specific than that. When I pulled Social Security applications on the Weiss family, I read Budapest and @asimer and the US as birthplaces, with the eldest child claiming being born in the US! That "@" in "@asimer"? well that represents the official stamp that obliterated the first letter(s?) of that place name.

It would be Albert Schuch, an early staff member of the Burgenland Bunch, who would see a six-month-old genealogical board post from me and would suggest that "@asimer" might represent "Albértkázmérpuszta, Austria-Hungary." His conjecture would prove correct and eventually lead me to both my Weiss' and Halbauer's. Along the way, the Burgenland Bunch would provide help at every step.

When I discovered in early 2000 that the BB Surnames Page had been without an Editor for over a year, I volunteered to take the task as a bit of payback for the help the BB gave me. Then, given my computer background, as technically-oriented staff members started retiring, I started taking a bigger technical role, eventually becoming one of Gerry Berghold's trusted lieutenants. When Gerry became ill in 2008, he asked me to take on the president role, which I did. And the Newsletter Editor role... that fell to me when Hannes retired two years ago (anyone want the job?).

As to other genealogical interests, I once put a fair amount of effort into the Stearns County Minnesota GenWeb site, providing material for it, and I transcribing the 1870 Federal Census of Stearns county, making it available to the two volunteer census sites that started the original transcription efforts. I also put some effort into the neighboring Meeker County GenWeb site (Stearns is where my emigrant ancestors settled but Meeker is where I was born). Now, I gather more family data only when it is offered to me and I keep the Burgenland Bunch operating... and that is plenty enough!


8) HISTORICAL BB NEWSLETTER ARTICLES

Editor: This is part of our series designed to recycle interesting articles from the BB Newsletters of 10 years ago. In our May 2002 Newsletter, Gerry provided two short articles about Burgenland cemeteries, one generic and the other specific to Güssing; we reproduce both below.

In addition, there was a contribution from Markus Prenner (with an introduction from Gerry) about the large number of Burgenländers (38,000) forced to commute outside of Burgenland to find work. This article shows why the focus of Burgenland development, targeted by the EU Funds I reported on recently, was on bringing jobs into Burgenland. Simply put, it was the obvious, most needed, target.


THE BURGENLAND BUNCH NEWS No. 107A
May 31, 2002


BURGENLAND CEMETERIES

General Burgenland cemetery notes. Most villages have a cemetery or share one with a nearby neighbor. Since villages average 800 years of age, these cemeteries have been in use a long time. It is rare to find graves for more than four generations of an existing family. Earlier grave markers were of wood (deteriorated) and later of iron (scrapped during WW-I & -II). Following WW-I, stone markers began replacing wood or iron. With the arrival of affluence, grave markers are now mainly of granite or marble and quite ornate. They often contain pictures of the deceased and the trend is toward integrated family plots. Plots are well maintained by family members and are covered with plants and flowers. There is often a small church or chapel nearby, if not, a small meeting house may be available for funerals. Parking lots are often available as well as water facilities and unlocked iron fences and gates. Most cemeteries are well landscaped but are often on hillsides, reflecting the use of ground which would be difficult to cultivate. The cemeteries are generally under the supervision of the parish church and the village community office and require payment of an annual rental fee. When the fee is no longer paid, the marker is removed and the grave site reused. Even though a village may belong to a parish church in another village, burials most often take place in the village cemetery of the deceased. In Lutheran communities, such as Eltendorf and Kukmirn, one will find both Lutheran and RC burials. Some communities have two cemeteries (Königsdorf is one). On the Hungarian side of the border, one will find abandoned and overgrown cemeteries (Rönök is an example) particularly in areas contained within the communist iron curtain. Others like Pinkamindszent are in excellent condition.

Burgenland cemeteries are idyllic spots, often in a very picturesque setting. I've used their parking places to have a picnic lunch, being very careful to take nothing and leave nothing. I do not take rubbings from grave markers but I do take pictures (use a sun filter to cut glare) and my wife makes back-up notes for me. You will often find a village matron tending her family plot and you can then ask the location of your own family plots. I remember one poor woman in the cemetery at Heiligenkreuz, who after helping me find some graves, remarked that she was the last of her family and that she hoped someday descendants of her immigrant family would return seeking her grave, a poignant episode. Sometimes when I'm in a Burgenland cemetery I feel like my ancestors are talking to me.

GÜSSING CEMETERIES

Given the centuries of settlement in the Güssing area, it is not surprising that there are many graves. Unfortunately, most grave markers are no older than the late 1800's. The main cemetery is located south of the castle at the base of the hill and is an adjunct of Pfarrkirche St. Jakob (12th Century), the former Güssing parish church which now serves only as a chapel. In addition to the cemetery graves there are some aristocratic Batthyány and Draskovitch family crypts. There must have been burials within the castle complex itself and there is a chapel, which dates to the 13th or 14th century when the masonry castle was erected. A Benedictine cloister (no remains) was erected there as well and it too could have provided some burial sites. There are none in evidence today but the castle complex has yet to undergo an archeological dig.

St. Jakob was replaced as the Güssing Parish church when the present Kirche Maria Heimsuchung was built about 1638. As an integral part of the Franciscan Cloister, it contains the main Batthyány Family Crypt.

East of the Stadt, on the road to Strem (Rt 56), in the area known as the Mühlwinkel (Mill Corner), one will find the small Jewish Cemetery surrounded by a masonry wall. There were few grave markers when visited by me in 2001 but, as the previous article states, this will soon be changed. This cemetery was restored a few years ago and there is a memorial marker containing its history.

Now part of Gemeinde Güssing, the former Croatian parish church of St. Nicholas (Szt. Miklos) was merged into the Güssing parish in the late 1800's. It has its own village cemetery. The other Ortseile (community villages) of Langzeil, Rosenberg and Urbersdorf do not have cemeteries that I am aware of, but Neustift bei Güssing does.

BURGENLAND COMMUTERS (from Markus Prenner)

(ED. Note: Emigration got its start when Burgenland area workers began commuting to other countries to help with seasonal harvests. They would be gone as long as there was work and then return home with money to support them until their next trip. When one-way trans-Atlantic fares of $14 became available, a commute to America became a viable option. About 25% returned - the others found they preferred life in America. My own grandfather Berghold emigrated, returned and emigrated again. If you visit Burgenland villages, even today, you will be struck by the absence of young people during the week - many are commuting to the larger cities to work. Markus tells us there are 38,000 of them (about 15% of the total population). He also tells us they wish to do something about it - or are we going to see another exodus to foreign lands?)

A few weeks ago the "Club Burgenland," a "think-tank-platform" established by the former Vice-Governor of Burgenland, Feri Sauerzopf (ÖVP), started a new project: Work and Mobility in Burgenland.

Project manager is BB member Markus Prenner, theologian and teacher from Strem and Güssing, now living in Horitschon. Main purpose is to study the 38,000 commuters who work outside Burgenland. In partnership with the "Pendlerclub" (a newly established commuter network), the Club Burgenland wants to provide the politicians with strategies and the latest results of the economical sciences and point out possibilities for the Burgenland as part of the European Union of the 21st century! Who knows it better? There is no other province in Austria that has had so much "experience" with commuting workers than the people who had to leave Burgenland for America!


9) ETHNIC EVENTS

LEHIGH VALLEY, PA
(courtesy of Bob Strauch)

Friday-Sunday, June 1-3: 51st Northeast Sängerfest in Allentown. Info: www.lehighsaengerbund.org

Saturday, June 2: GTV Edelweiss 63rd Stiftungsfest at the Reading Liederkranz. Info. www.readingliederkranz.com

Friday-Saturday, June 8-9: Sommerfest at the Lancaster Liederkranz. Info: www.lancasterliederkranz.com

Saturday, June 9: Wurstfest at the Reading Liederkranz. Music by the Josef Kroboth Orchestra. Info: www.readingliederkranz.com

Sunday, June 10: Old World Multi-Cultural Fest at the Lancaster Liederkranz. Info: www.lancasterliederkranz.com

Friday, June 22: Friday Night Oktoberfest at the Evergreen Heimatbund in Fleetwood. Info: www.evergreenclub.org

Saturday, June 23: Bavarian Biergarten at Emmaus Community Park. Sponsored by the Lehigh Sängerbund. Music by the Emil Schanta Band and the Lehigh Sängerbund Festchor. Info: www.lehighsaengerbund.org

Sunday, June 24: 95th Stiftungsfest at the Coplay Sängerbund. 2 PM Choral Concert with the Coplay Sängerbund Chorus, the Hianz'nchor, and guest choruses from the Reading Liederkranz and the Lehigh Sängerbund. Dance music by the Johnny Dee Orchestra. Open to club members and their guests - all guests must be accompanied by a member.

Friday, June 29: Friday Night Oktoberfest at the Evergreen Heimatbund in Fleetwood. Info: www.evergreenclub.org


LANCASTER, PA

First Tuesdays, June 5, 5:30-7:30 pm: All you can eat Buffet. Entertainment by Carl Heidlauf on Piano. ~ Open to the Public ~ $10 ($12 guests). Lancaster Liederkranz, 722 S. Chiques Rd, Manheim, PA. lancasterliederkranz@verizon.net, 717-898-8451.

Friday & Saturday, June 8 & 9: A German Sommerfest.
~ Open to the Public. $5 ($2 Child, 6-15 yrs). Lancaster Liederkranz. Musical Entertainment by Hank Haller (Friday) Phila. German Brass Band (Saturday afternoon) and Walt Groller (Saturday evening). Performances by Club Organizations.

Sunday, June 10, noon-5 pm: Old World Multi~cultural Fest. $7 (Guests $10, under 13 Free) ~Open to members & their families only! Liederkranz Pavilion & Fest Grounds. Ethnic Food, Wine, Beer; Music, Singing, Dancing, & Games.


NEW BRITAIN, CT


Friday, June 1, 7 pm: Heimat Abend. $3. Austrian Donau Club, 545 Arch Street, New Britain, CT, (860) 223-9401. Music by Joe Rogers and his band. Hot food is available from the kitchen (Special: Wursts).

Sunday, June 10, 8 am - Noon: Sonntag Frühstuck. Austrian Donau Club. Come enjoy breakfast.

Friday, June 15, 7:30 pm: Heurigan Abend. $3. Austrian Donau Club. Music by Schachtelgebirger Musikanten. Hot food is available from the kitchen (Special: Meatloaf).

Friday, June 22, 7:30 pm: Heurigan Abend. $3. Austrian Donau Club. Music by Schachtelgebirger Musikanten. Hot food is available from the kitchen.

Friday, June 29, 7:30 pm: Fifth Friday. $3. Austrian Donau Club. Steaks and Music, featuring Frank Billowicz.

Tuesdays at 7 pm: Men's and Women's Singing Societies meet. Austrian Donau Club.

Thursdays at 7 pm: Alpenland Tänzer (Alpine Country Dancers) meet. Austrian Donau Club.


ST. LOUIS, MO (early notice, courtesy of Nancy W Thomas)

Friday & Saturday, July 13-14: 2012 Missouri State Genealogical Association Conference, to be held in Columbia, MO, at the Stoney Creek Inn. Keynote Speakers are Pam Boyer Sayre, CG, CGL and Rick Sayre, CG, genealogy experts who will be presenting lectures on various land records and maps. Supporting speakers include Patricia Walls Stamm, CG, CGL, Pamela Stone Eagleson, CG, Beth Foulke and Carole Goggin. Here are pdf copies of the conference brochure and poster; also see website www.mosga.org for more information or contact Nancy W Thomas, Conference Chairman, NancyThomas@Centurytel.net, 573-443-6052.


10) BURGENLAND EMIGRANT OBITUARIES (courtesy of Bob Strauch)

Camilla Dulmovitz

Camilla Dulmovitz, 98, of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, died Saturday, May 12 at Holy Family Manor.

She was the wife of the late Frank Dulmovitz.

Born November 29, 1913 in Eberau, Austria, she was the daughter of the late Alois and Theresia (Polzer) Gratzl.

Camilla was a member of Queenship of Mary Catholic Church in Northampton and a former member of Our Lady of Perpetual Help Catholic Church in Bethlehem.

Survivors: Son, Frank Dulmovitz, of Bethlehem; and a brother, Josef Gratzl, of Eberau, Austria; nieces and nephews. Camilla was predeceased by a brother, Louis Gratzl; and a sister, Paula Gratzl.

Services: A Burial Mass will be celebrated on Wednesday, May 16 at 10:30 a.m. in Queenship of Mary Church, 1324 Newport Ave., Northampton. Family and friends may call Wednesday 9 to 10 a.m. in the Reichel Funeral Home, 326 E. 21st St., Northampton. Burial will follow in Saint Raymond's Cemetery, Bronx, NY.

Contributions: Memorials may be presented to Queenship of Mary Church c/o funeral home.

Published in Morning Call on May 15, 2012


END OF NEWSLETTER

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