^{The News}
Dedicated to Austrian-Hungarian Burgenland Family History

This newsletter concerns:

1) THE PRESIDENT'S CORNER

2) HISTORICAL BB NEWSLETTER ARTICLES:
    - AUSTRIAN GEOGRAPHY – GEMEINDEN AND BEZIRKS

3) ETHNIC EVENTS

4) BURGENLAND EMIGRANT OBITUARIES (courtesy of Bob Strauch)

A "semi-regular" bit—the St. Louis Spring Gathering—is next then we close with our "regular" tidbits: the BB Facebook-page update, the book sales, a recipe and a humor bit... got to have those!

Oh, and to give you at least one new thing this month, I led this section off with a recent "mug shot" of yours truly... the prior one was getting a few years old.

The remaining articles are our standard sections: Historical Newsletter Articles (this month providing the origins of two BB features), and the Ethnic Events and Emigrant Obituaries sections.

Vital Records Transcription: BB member Susan O’Meara, from Michigan, has contributed a partial transcription of the Deutsch Schützen Catholic church records. Sue began the project intending to transcribe only selected Catholic marriage records from the Deutsch Schützen (Hungarian: Német-Lö, Német-Lövo; Kroat: Nimške Šice) parish to help trace her family lines ...but then she got carried away and has turned it into a complete transcription project (at least for the marriage records). To date, Sue has transcribed all 435 marriages beginning in 1828 and going through May of 1876. Further, she has transcribed 34 more selected marriage records from 1876 to 1895, for a total of 469 marriage records. Transcription of the remaining marriages for years 1876 to 1895 is underway, though she tells me it is a slow process.

Beyond the marriages, she has done similar efforts with the births and deaths, although she has not completed as many years for either set. For births, she has transcribed all 306 birth records from 1828 through 1835, plus an additional 137 selected birth records from 1836 to 1895 (443 in total). For deaths, she has transcribed the 173 death records from 1828 through July 1832, plus 164 selected death records from 1832 to 1895 (337 total). Transcription of the remaining births and deaths may be done when marriages are complete... but she makes no promises! Copyright for all three transcriptions remains with Susan.

While Deutsch Schützen (Német-Lö) was the only Burgenland village actually in this parish, other villages that appear frequently are:
- Horvát Lö, Horvát Lövo, HU (German: Kroatisch Schützen; Kroat: Hrvatske Šice);
- Höll (Hungarian: Pokulfalu, Hétföhely);
- Eisenberg an der Pinka, Schauka (Hungarian: Csejke);
- Pornó, Pornóapáti, HU (German: Pernau; Kroat: Pornova); and
- Keresztes, HU [Vas Keresztes, Magyar Keresztes, Német Keresztes] (German: Großdorf).
The underlined Hungarian names are used throughout the databases to identify the villages.

The entries in the column labeled "FS Page" in the database identifies the image page on which each record appears in the Deutsch Schützen FamilySearch collection.

On behalf of all of us, I thank Susan for sharing her work; it is appreciated!



FamilySearch Records Update: Since the beginning of the year, FamilySearch has announced the addition of over 225 million new indexed records and over 1.6 million new record images. Those records come from 32 different countries and touch 263 different record collections. Over 185 of those collections are for areas of the United States, however, the largest new collection, at nearly 80 million records, was for South African civil deaths. Below I list a few select collections:

The first two I list merely because of their size; they are the largest collections added this year (so far). The next two are of general interest (assuming your ancestors emigrated to the United States). The four after that document marriage collection additions for three top US destinations... always useful! The second-to-last is a valuable collection if your ancestors went to Canada; I assume the images match the indexed pages (at ~ 42 people per page). The last... well it had the most new images.



New Records at GenTeam, www.GenTeam.eu: GenTeam is an European platform containing genealogical data. All data at GenTeam is free of charge, though you must register. It is led by Felix Gundacker and is available at address: www.GenTeam.eu. GenTeam currently has 20 million entries online and 46,500 registered users (including me!). Approximately 630,000 new records were added online during this reporting cycle.

Of greatest interest to us are the records provided by Jürgen Brandweiner, who added indexed Urbarial records from the Burgenland villages of Bocksdorf, Eisenhüttl, Heugraben, Olbendorf, Rohr, Stegersbach and Stinatz for the years 1634, 1643, 1648, and 1660. He added similar records for the Styrian villages of Burgau, Neudau, Wörth from the 1741 Urbar. These are of interest to us because they include records for the Burgenland villages of Burgauberg, Neudauberg and Wörtherberg.

Beyond that, Jürgen also provided indexed records for the Roman Catholic parishes of Bocksdorf, Hannersdorf, Kukmirn, Litzelsdorf, Mischendorf, Stegersbach and Stinatz in Burgenland and again for Burgauberg, Neudauberg and Wörtherberg via the Styrian villages of Burgau, Neudau and Wörth.

The remainder of the new records are split among:

1) The Austro-Hungarian Casualty Lists of World War I: ~1.5 million of the expected 3-3.5 million names of wounded or killed soldiers and prisoners of war are now online.

2) The Diocese of Passau Catholic records: ~4.4 million records are online.

3) Various Vienna-area record sets: Roman Catholic baptisms, marriages and burials; Protestant church registers; Vienna Coroner records.



Ancestry.com Updates: Ancestry can't be left out of the updates update, so here's a bit about what they have been doing since the beginning of the year.

Ancestry reports they added 17 new datasets and updated 37 more, for a total of 54 record sets touched in some way. In most cases, they do not report how many records were involved, so I can't pass that along, but I can point out a few of the more interesting datasets relative to Burgenländer interest... New York was featured in four new datasets, though two of those precede the Burgenland emigration era. However, the Marriage Index, 1881-1967, and Death Index, 1852-1956, should prove useful. Pennsylvania also has a new dataset: Birth Certificates, 1906-1911. A potentially important update was to the Pennsylvania Death Certificates, 1906-1967.

Ancestry has also been busy showing off some beta versions of web tools that will arrive soon. These beta tools are available to Ancestry guests right now, but will become member-only when out of the beta test cycle.

The first beta tool, MyTreeTags, are labels you can apply to people in your family tree to indicate whether your research is confirmed or unverified, or to record personal details like “never married.” You can also create your own custom tags to note whatever you want about a person, then use filters to see all the members of your tree with the same tag.

The second beta is a redesign of their DNA Matches tool to add color coding, custom labeling and what they call "other innovative new tools to see your DNA connections in the clearest light possible."

The last tool in beta test is a new one called ThruLines that lets you link your family tree to your DNA results.



Rail Problems in Northern Burgenland: A major, long-in-planning, Euro-Asian Breitspurbahn (broad-gauge railway) proposal has citizens in the adjacent districts of Neusiedl am See in Burgenland and Bruck an der Leitha in Lower Austria up in arms.

Back in 2009, Breitspur Planungsgesellschaft mbH, (Broad-Gauge Planning Co, Ltd) a joint venture of Russia, Ukraine, Slovakia and Austria was founded and headquartered in Austria, with the state railways from Russia (RZD), Ukraine (UZ), Slovakia (ŽSR) and Austria (ÖBB) each holding a quarter of this company. The intent of the project was to allow continuous freight transport on Russian broad-gauge rail from the Kazakh-Chinese border to Central Europe, thus reducing shipment time from China to Europe from over 35 days to about 15 days. The major impediment to this plan is that the EU rail systems uses standard gauge (1435 mm) track while the countries of the former USSR use broad gauge (1520) mm tracks. That three-and-a-third-inch difference means freight loads need to be trans-shipped (unloaded and reloaded onto different cars) where the two gauges of rail come together or the bogies (wheel sets) under the railcars need to be swapped out. Both methods are currently used but cause substantial delays in the movement of freight.

To date, the Russian broad-gauge rail has been laid into the Košice area in eastern Slovakia and an agreement is in place to extend it to Bratislava and the Austrian border. The final step will be to cross into the EU and connect to its transport systems. That is proposed to be done by creating a massive new rail freight yard and terminal (3 miles long, 1000 feet wide) and a 21-million-square-foot supra-regional logistics center to trans-ship containers onto EU rail and roads. The planned capacity would be 50 trains and 20,000 containers a week (~1 million containers per year).

Initial plans called for the terminal to be, broadly, in the Vienna/Bratislava area, with Vienna being somewhat better than Bratislava because of better connections to Western Europe and both significantly better than Košice because of their Danube ports. However, by June of 2017, it became clear that the new terminal and logistics center could not be fit into the Vienna port or in the existing rail freight terminal in Vienna-Inzersdorf. Thus Parndorf in Burgenland became the preferred location, as it is conveniently located on the railway lines to Slovakia and Hungary, and at the intersection of the A4 and A6 autobahns. In addition, a new double-track rail corridor into Vienna's airport and Danube port areas that starts in Bruckneudorf, just a few miles from Parndorf, is already planned, so could serve as a solid connector into the EU rail network.

Various estimates say construction would create 21,000 jobs through direct or indirect employment and, once the project was complete, about 11,000 continuing jobs for the operation of trains, terminals, logistics center and the rest of the infrastructure.

However, critics say that those jobs come at a cost to the region: a "huge industrial area" with "hundreds of additional trucks" and "enormous particulate-matter pollution" will impact the districts of Neusiedl am See and Bruck an der Leitha. Thus a non-partisan citizens' initiative has been set up across national borders "to protect nature and the environment."

"We do not want the Breitspurbahn and we do not need it. If there comes the station, then it's over with Bruckneudorf, with the quality of life," stated Bruckneudorf's local head, Gerhard Dreiszker. Likewise, the city chief of Bruck an der Leitha, Gerhard Weil, argued that "the entire region—whether Parndorfer plate, Leithagebirge or Brucker basin—would be affected by the plans." And Parndorf mayor, Wolfgang Kovacs, made it clear about local resistance, saying the Parndorfers are a "warlike people, when it matters."

How this will all shake out is yet to be seen, but there are powerful voices in the Austrian federal government and in Austrian heavy industry who support the project... and plenty of smaller voices who oppose it.



BB Hungarian Editor, Emmerich Koller, retires from the BB Staff: At just a month short of ten years on the BB staff, Emmerich Koller has chosen to retire. He joined the BB staff in July of 2009, with title Hungarian Editor.

Emmerich was born in Pernau/Pornóapáti, Hungary, in 1942 and escaped in 1956 across the Iron Curtain with his parents and siblings. The family lived for four years as refugees in Oberbildein, Burgenland, before they immigrated to America and settled in Hyde Park, Chicago, IL, in 1960.

He earned a BA in Philosophy, and then an MA in German and an MA in Education while teaching for 36 years.

After retiring, he wrote his memoir, "Good Dogs Do Stray," published in 2006, about being an emigrant from Hungary, which also included a history of Pernau and the Pinkatal as well as a description of life in a German village east of the border. In 2011, he published a German version of the book: "Über die Grenzen: Lebenslauf eines deutsch-westungarischen Emigranten" [Across the Borders: Life History of a German/West-Hungarian Emigrant] and then an expanded, second German edition this year. The Burgenland government recognized Emmerich's contributions by awarding him an Ehrenzeichen (Badge of Honor) during the 2017 Burgenland Delegation visit to Chicago.

As for his BB contributions, he wrote a number of articles for the BB newsletters over the years, provided excellent translation services for both German and Hungarian documents, and was a knowledgeable voice in staff discussions and in assisting members.

Please join me in thanking Emmerich for his 10 years of service to the BB community.



St Louis Burgenländer Spring Gathering: Theresa McWilliams writes: "We spent a most enjoyable afternoon making connections, sharing food and stories, and welcoming some new friends including a couple from Port Huron, MI."





The Facebook Bunch (from Vanessa Sandhu):

Greetings Burgenland Bunch!

Here is a quick recap of what you missed if you haven’t joined us in our Facebook group! Please feel free to join us. We now have 976 members, having added 39 this past month, and we would love to have you with us, too! You can join at facebook.com/TheBurgenlandBunchOFFICIAL/.

During the month, our members shared 56 posts, which yielded 1,020 comments and 1246 reactions (likes), with 855 of the 976 members actively involved in some way in the past month. I am thrilled to see the amount of positive interaction and helpful networking that is going on. Anyway, on to the update! 

Member Amy Bentz posed the question, “Why did our ancestors leave Burgenland and come to the US circa 1919, and why settle in the Lehigh Valley area?” We had a wonderful discussion about the hardships faced by our ancestors post WW-I, and about the booming cement and steel mills in the Lehigh Valley that offered countless jobs to them. The topography of Eastern Pennsylvania was similar to their homeland, and the presence of fellow Burgenländers, who had come before them, made it a welcoming place to live. It was suggested that anyone with interest in the topic check out Walter Dujmovits’ book, “The Burgenländer Emigration to America.” Several members ordered the book, and those who have received their books have given it excellent reviews!

Two of our members were kind enough to share photos of their recent trips to Burgenland. Member Pat Dolan visited Tadten, Wallern and Illmitz. She shared beautiful photos of the Frauenkirchen Basilica of Our Lady, which really showcase the beauty of the church. She also visited other churches and their cemeteries and took the time to photograph individual stones.

Member Serena Williams shared her experiences in Großpetersdorf and Eggensdorf (Styria). At the time of this writing, she was on her way to visit the Dorfmuseum Mönchhof and Schloß Halbturn. We look forward to hearing more about our member’s travels!

As always, we have been busy assisting with lookups and deciphering old script. Please feel free to ask us for help!

We close with this month’s Song of the Month, shared with us by Werner Schoenfeldinger. Entitled “Mei Herzal is treu” (My Heart is True), it is a love song from Oberschützen. Enjoy! youtu.be/D0TGIucz6sM

Have a great day! Vanessa



Update for book "The Burgenländer Emigration to America": Here is this month's update on purchases of the English issue of the 3rd edition of Dr. Walter Dujmovits' book "Die Amerika-Wanderung Der Burgenländer."

Current total sales are 1426 copies, as interested people purchased 10 more books during this past month.

As always, the book remains available for online purchase at a list price of $7.41 (which is the production charge for the book, as we purposely choose not to make a profit so we can avoid dealing with the income tax consequences and so you can obtain the book at as low a cost as possible!), plus tax & shipping. See the BB homepage for a link to the information / ordering page and for information about current discounts (there is at least one discount on price or shipping available most of the time... if not, wait a few days and there will be one!).



Burgenland Recipes: This recipe is from ongoing contributor Christine Rubba.

Fried Catfish (Wels Gebraten)
(from Christine Rubba)

Ingredients:
1 catfish (5-6 lb)
 (up to 15 lb, but adjust cooking time and proportions)
1-2 Tbsp melted butter
1 tsp salt
1 tsp white pepper
1 tsp lemon pepper
3 Tbsp Worcestershire sauce
juice of 1 lemon

Preparation:
1) Make a rub of salt, pepper, lemon pepper and Worcestershire sauce.
2) Bone the fish, but leave the skin on.
3) Rub the paste on the inside and outside of the fish.
4) Drizzle with lemon juice.
5) Pour on the melted butter.
6) Simmer gently on low heat in a deep frying pan, basting often with the butter.
7) Cooking time, based on the size of the fish, will be 30-45 minutes.

Serving suggestions:
Serve the fish whole (not as steaks), along with roasted potatoes, Hollandaise sauce and a fresh green salad.



Note: We again have a "regular" source for Burgenland recipes.

Nonetheless, if you have a favorite family recipe, please consider sharing it with us. Our older relatives, sadly, aren't with us forever, so don't allow your favorite ethnic dish to be lost to future generations.

You can send your recipe to BB Recipes Editor, Alan Varga. Thanks!



Cartoon of the Month:

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Burgenland Bunch Newsletter, copyright © 2019 by The Burgenland Bunch
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