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

This newsletter concerns:

1) THE PRESIDENT'S CORNER

2) A FIRST TUTORIAL FOR MATRIKEN.AT

3) HISTORICAL BB NEWSLETTER ARTICLES:
    - HOMEPAGE SURNAME LIST VOLUNTEER STILL NEEDED
    - HUNGARIAN REFORMED CHURCH - OBERWART REGION

4) ETHNIC EVENTS

5) BURGENLAND EMIGRANT OBITUARIES (courtesy of Bob Strauch)

Because of this change in voter preference and the taint on the FPÖ in the current Burgenland SPÖ-FPÖ coalition government, a new Burgenland election was called for January 26th. However, this text was written before that date so I do not yet know the official results. Clearly, though, if the Federal results translate to the State election, we may be seeing a new ÖVP-led coalition state government, but who they join with to get a majority (at least 19 seats) remains unclear.



I'll conclude this tidbit today, January 28th... the Burgenland state election is final and it is apparent that Burgenland voters have not followed the pattern they set in the Austrian federal election. The SPÖ was a clear victor in the state election, obtaining nearly 50% of the popular vote plus an absolute majority in the Burgenland Landtag with 19 seats. This means they will not need to form a coalition government. The ÖVP and Green parties maintained their previous 11 and 2 seats, but the FPÖ dropped to just 4 seats and the minor parties lost the 2 seats they previously held.

SPÖ party leader, Hans Peter Doskozil, made it clear that there would be no 'coalition light': “Don't get it wrong, an absolute majority is an absolute majority. In my view, there will be no government participation by any other party with this result.” He did, however, say he would hold meetings with the other parties and that there could be "thematic" agreements.

Another fallout from the election is that FPÖ party leader, Johann Tschürtz, resigned and Alexander Petschnig was elected to succeed him as its Burgenland party leader. You may have met Alexander during the 2017 Burgenland government visit to the US (he is also mentioned in the following tidbit, though he will certainly lose his Tourism Minister status in the new government).

Late additions: It was announced on the 30th that Astrid Eisenkopf will become the new (and first-ever female) Deputy Governor (Landeshauptmannstellvertreterin) of Burgenland (replacing Tschürtz). Astrid was also part of the government delegation during the most recent Burgenland government visit to the US.

Further, Governor Doskozil announced that the Tourism Minister post previously held by Alexander Petsching will be added to his own duties.



New Burgenland Tourism Record: The Burgenland Tourism organization held a gala event in January in the Hayden Hall at the Esterházy Palace in Eisenstadt to celebrate setting new records in "overnight stays" and "guest arrivals."



In the picture above, we see (left to right) Burgenland Tourism Director Hannes Anton; Tourism Minister Alexander Petschnig; Head of Statistics, Manfred Dreiszker; Landtag President Verena Dunst; and Alfons Haider, an entertainer and actor who was moderator for the evening, at the moment the "big reveal" of the new numbers was done.

The number of guest arrivals in Burgenland climbed to a record 1,114,120 in 2019, an increase of five percent over 2018, resulting in 3,144,232 overnight stays, a 3.1% increase over 2018 and also exceeding the previous record from 2017.

Tourism Minister Alexander Petschnig talked about the government programs that supported tourism: "We changed the structure, adapted the strategy; there were many investments" and how the "many small accommodation businesses, the winegrowers, the cultural businesses all worked."

Hannes Anton, the Burgenland Tourism Director, talked about turning Burgenland into a year-round destination: "Burgenland used to be known primarily for summer holidays by the lake. Of course that changed a lot with the construction of the thermal baths - but also with the variety of the range of offers: the theme of wine can be used all year round; the topic of cycling basically from March to late autumn; then there is the culinary arts and culture.”

Landtag President Verena Dunst spoke on behalf of Governor Hans Peter Doskozil: “There were times 30 years ago with just 20,000 overnight stays... I am proud of Lake Neusiedl, but we need jobs and tourists everywhere. In tourism, just like in business, you must never stand still - you always have to be innovative and creative."

Results from a 2017 study on tourism by Statistics Austria were also touted as the study reported that 1.602 billion euros were generated from tourism and leisure in 2017, being 18.3% of the Burgenland regional gross product. Further, every fifth Burgenland job was determined to be directly or indirectly dependent on the tourism and leisure industry.

Without a doubt, tourism has been an integral part in changing the affluence and character of Burgenland; I wish them continued success!



The Facebook Bunch (from Vanessa Sandhu):

Greetings Burgenland Bunch!

We have had our busiest month ever in our Facebook group! We gained 32 new members, so our membership count currently stands at 1,193. We had 121 posts, which is phenomenal!

Many members received help deciphering scans from the recently-released Eisenstadt archives. Some of us are waiting patiently for our ancestral villages to be released, but quite a few members have been able to access their villages. Many questions have been answered, resulting in many happy genealogists!

Facebook BB member Roman Matz passed along some very important information. Until March 31, 2020, access to the Eisenstadt archive will be free. However, on April 1, 2020, a 15 day pass will cost you 10 Euros (app. $11). A 3 month subscription will cost 20 Euros (app. $22), and a 1 year subscription will cost 50 Euros (app. $55). The website address is https://matriken.at/ if you'd like to check it out.

BB Facebook member Ingrid Schuster of Austria is spearheading an exciting new DNA Ancestor Project on GEDmatch. It will be called the Burgenland Bunch Ancestor Group. To register the project, she needs 50 kits. As of right now, she has 25 submitted. If you'd like to join, please email Ingrid at pipsi1206@gmail.com.

For our Chicago-area BB members, The Jolly Burgenlander Club is holding a meeting on March 8, 2020 at 1:30 pm. It will be held at the German American Heritage Center, located at 25249 Center Street, Frankfort, IL.

BB staff member Patrick Kovacs shared an interesting link pertaining to the social hierarchy of Hungary's Ethnic-German Farmers in the 1800's. lookaside.fbsbx.com/file/sociallevels.pdf

We are looking forward to helping you find your family! If you haven't joined us yet, please consider joining us! We have a very fun, supportive group. facebook.com/groups/TheBurgenlandBunchOFFICIAL

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 1492 copies, as interested people purchased 25 more books during this past month (the largest monthly increase for many months past!).

I also thought I'd throw in a little analysis this month...

As I write this paragraph on Jan 30th, the breakdown of sales among the Lulu regions (Lulu is the book's printer and sole source) is: 2 via the United Kingdom website, 3 via the Australian website, 31 via the Canadian site, 112 via the German site, and 1343 via the US site, for a total of 1491 books sold by that date. While nothing stops a purchaser from using another region's website, using your local one causes the price to be reported in local currency, which is usually easier. Clearly, the large majority of sales is via the US site (but then the large majority of BB members are in the US, so that is expected). The seemingly high German sales are driven by two bulk purchases by the Burgenländisches Auswanderermuseum in Güssing, 100 books total (the books displayed there sold quickly! ...and probably mostly to US or Canadian tourists! I also believe they purchased a third batch of 50 books, but it was via the US site). That really means that the Canadian site sold more books directly to individuals, but it was the second largest (and most recent) destination for Burgenland emigrants.

I'll also note that Lulu is a print-on-demand service, making it particularly appropriate for "self-published" small-volume books and for small order sizes. Given that, over years 2014 through 2018 (the Burgenland book was released for public sale in January 2014) there have been over 300,000 books published on Lulu (and even more if we add in 2019... but 2019 stats have not been released). Still, our Burgenland book ranks as #566, meaning only 565 books currently on Lulu have sold more copies. That is pretty impressive. It was also #7 this past month in its "History" category.

A last bit of analysis: I noted that Lulu is appropriate for "small order sizes." Our data shows that about 64% of our sales were single-book orders, about 10% were two-book orders and 5% were three-book orders. The remainder were for orders of 4-12 books, which accounted for about 11% of sales in total, plus the 3 orders of 50 books (the final 10% of sales).

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: During the early 1970s, member Joan McGrath's parents operated an Austrian-German restaurant in Wheaton, MD, called The Schnitzelbank. Her mom's family came from the Steiermark and Burgenland regions. The restaurant made a name for itself based on one dish in particular, Sauerbraten. She warns to never consider a gingersnap-based recipe or a bottled marinade for true Sauerbraten! (see embedded search links below for the less-common ingredients)

Trudy's Sauerbraten

Ingredients:
4 lbs. beef roast (do not use Filet or London Broil cuts; best: Top Round, Bottom Round, Eye Roast)
salt
pepper

2 large Spanish onions
1 Tbsp. pickling spice (optional to use more)
8 oz. wine vinegar
8 oz. water

1/4 - 1/2 cup brown sugar (diabetic version, use Truvia)
1/4 cup Maggi seasoning
1/2 oz. Kitchen Bouquet seasoning
pepper (dash)
1/2 cup flour in 1 cup water (thickening agent)

Preparation, day 1:
Salt and pepper the beef generously on all sides. Place in a covered crock, covered Corning Ware or Clay baker and set aside.

Slice onions, then cook with pickling spice, vinegar, and water to make a marinade. Pour hot marinade over beef (must cover beef completely). Let marinade cool down, then refrigerate for 2-3 days. The longer it sits, the better.

Preparation, day 3:
Remove the roast beef from the marinade and save the marinade for later. Dry-roast it to medium rare in a 300° oven. Use a meat thermometer (120-125°F deep internal). Pour the strained marinade over the beef, cook 45 more minutes. Take the beef out, then let it rest, dry, on cutting board.

Add brown sugar, Maggi seasoning, Kitchen Bouquet seasoning, and a dash of pepper to the strained marinade and bring it to a boil.

Mix flour and water to make a thickening agent. Add it to the marinade via a slow-stream-pour while stirring until it is a smooth gravy with a glassy gloss. If the thickening agent dilutes the color from dark, dark brown to a lighter color, keep adding Maggi seasoning until dark color returns.

Slice the roast and serve with gravy.

Serving suggestion: Sauerbraten is best served with red cabbage, potato pancakes, or potato dumplings.

Note: Don't let this recipe intimidate you. I once made the full gravy, without the thickening, as a marinade, let the beef sit in it for 4 days, and there was no discernable difference. The only steadfast rule is to keep the ratio of vinegar and water to sugar. Don't be surprised when the cooked roast shrinks in size.



Note: We have updated the recipes sortable list with links directly to the recipes or food-related articles published in our past newsletters. You can access the list by clicking our recipe box (to the right). Thanks to the contributions of our members over the years, we have quite a collection of Burgenland recipes, some with several variations.

However, we have or will soon use up the few remaining unpublished recipes we have... and when those are gone, this recipe section will become dormant. Nonetheless, we are always on the lookout for fresh ideas, so, if you have a favorite family recipe, please consider sharing it with us. We will be happy to publish it. 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:

Since 2020 is a census year, I thought I'd start us off with this:



Yes, but, dare I ask, what about your citizenship status?

Once you fill out the form and add a tic mark indicating acceptance of the terms and conditions (they are inoffensive), you click Neues Benutzerkonto erstellen (Create a New User Account) to send in the registration. You will receive an email asking you to click a link to reset your temporary password with a double-entered new password. The email and webpage will not be in English but it should be obvious enough that you can proceed without help (I don't want to create another account to verify the current procedure).

Once you complete that you should be able to login and logout.



To actually examine some records, go to E-Forschung Start (E-research Start), which will give you a list of the parishes that currently have records. Hovering your cursor over a parish name will show that it is an active link, which you can click to go to the actual collection.

[Note: if you do not know the parish for your village, go to the BB FamilySearch pages at LDS/LDS.htm or our Villages pages at Villages/Villages.htm to find it.]

As an example, I'll select parish Deutsch Schützen and click its link. This gives me a (partial) page that looks much like this:



I said "much like this" because I had already clicked the + (plus sign) before the first sub-collection. Doing so revealed the "Bilder" (Pictures) button, which will take you to the images for that sub-collection. Clicking the - (minus sign) will close that sub-collection.

In a past message in the BB newsletter, I mentioned that the sub-collection names were rather obscure, with only the date ranges being obvious. I repeat here the sub-collection (book) names for Deutsch Schützen (presented in the order they appear on the website):

Deutsch_Schuetzen_St_III_1875-1924_DE_Deutsch_Schuetzen_03
Deutsch_Schuetzen_St_II_1861-1874_DE_Deutsch_Schuetzen_02
Deutsch_Schuetzen_St_I_1741-1860_DE_Deutsch_Schuetzen_01
Deutsch_Schuetzen_St_Rapulare_IV_1924-1952_DE_Deutsch_Schuetzen_04
Deutsch_Schuetzen_Ta_II_1827-1896_DE_Deutsch_Schuetzen_06
Deutsch_Schuetzen_Ta_I_1742-1827_DE_Deutsch_Schuetzen_05
Deutsch_Schuetzen_Tr_III_1888-1923_DE_Deutsch_Schuetzen_07
Deutsch_Schuetzen_Tr_Rapulare_IV_1924_DE_Deutsch_Schutzen_08
Deutsch_Schutzen_Tr_II_1775-1887_DE_Deutsch_Schutzen_07

A little examination suggests that the important naming bits are, in order:

* Deutsch_Schuetzen = village
* St, Ta, Tr = Sterben (deaths), Taufen (baptisms) and Trauungen (marriages)
* Rapulare = "writings created for the continuing use of the parish," in this case, an index of the vital events (of this type) is included; sometimes word Index is used.
* I, II, III, IV, etc. = sequential Roman numbers of the books of a type in village
* ####-#### = date range for the entries in the book
* DE = Diocese Eisenstadt
* Deutsch_Schuetzen_## = Parish Name and Arabic number for the books in the parish (all types combined)

Notes:
1) The reason Deutsch_Schuetzen appears twice in the collection name is that some parishes kept separate books for the daughter villages within their parish; the first use reflects the village name, the second the parish name, with the parish name used in both locations when the records for the daughter villages are not in separate books.

2) In some collections you will see that the St, Ta, and Tr notations are combined, for example: Ta_Tr_St, meaning the various types of vital events are interwoven in one book, in this case in triplicates by year. You may also see slight variations on these notations, for example, Tauf for Ta, Str for St, etc. Don't be surprised to find any combinations or variations of these codes, with or without Rapulare or Index added.

3) In other parishes you will also see some codes that do not appear in this one. For example, Liber, Matr, Pra, Prot, Def, Bapt, etc. These apparently are abbreviations for Latin terms: Liber = book; Matr(icula) = matrices; Pra ≈ Prot(ocollum) = register; Def(unctorum) = death; Bapt(isatorum) = baptism. (If you discover any notations like this, or have corrections for my speculations, let me know and I'll update this article to add them.)

4) The Roman numbers (I, II, III, IV, etc.) are not used for some parishes; if missing, you will need to determine book order by the date ranges.

Given this nomenclature, we see for Deutsch Schützen that we have:
- death books for time periods: 1741-1860 (I), 1861-1874 (II), 1875-1924 (III), and 1924-1952 (IV), with book IV also containing an index.
- baptism books for time periods: 1742-1827 (I) and 1827-1896 (II), with no index.
- marriage books for time periods: 1775-1887 (II), 1888-1923 (III) and 1924 (IV), with book IV also containing an index.

The implication in marriages here is that there likely was a Book I for time period ~1741-1774, as the listed books are labeled starting with (II). Whether this book is missing because it was lost or destroyed, has not yet been digitized, or has not yet been added to the website, is unknown.

I am suspicious (but do not know for sure) that the differing time points where records end is due to the Austrian privacy laws, as the ordering of end-years, 1896 for baptisms, 1925 for marriages, and 1952 for deaths, correspond (approximately) to the legal limits for unrestricted access: currently, older than 1920, 1945 and 1990, respectively (that is, older than 100 years for baptismal books, 75 years for marriage books, and 30 years for death books). That the actual endpoints do not closely approach these legal limits suggests that the next book in each sequence contains some recent records that are legally blocked, therefore, the complete book is blocked.

You may note that there are two books with Arabic number 07 for Deutsch Schützen. I suspect this is an error and one book should be labeled 09. Likewise, the "Deutsch_Schutzen" spelling in the last sub-collection name is likely a typographical error.

I have not explored all the available parishes so I do not know if other naming formats are used; should you find one that differs greatly from this, please let me know so I can decipher and document it for the membership.



As noted above, Clicking the + (plus sign) beside a sub-collection name will reveal the "Bilder" button, and clicking it will take you to the Bildbetrachter (= Picture Viewer) page, which will first display a pageful of thumbnail images. Double-clicking a thumbnail will open the viewer with that image.

Below, I show the part of the page that has the Viewer controls:



You should note a number of things. First, a blow-up of the image for the selected thumbnail is shown, though it is not yet a full-size image (it appears to be about 12% of full size). Below it is a text string that identifies this image, showing the sub-collection name (without the underscores) along with the image number "0002" (I had clicked the second thumbnail) and its full size, "(5124 x 3838)," in pixels. Below that are the control buttons for the Viewer and below those is a ribbon of thumbnails with the currently-selected image centered and "lit up." This ribbon can be used to quickly select images surrounding the one you are currently looking at.

As for the control buttons, working from left to right, they are:

increase the image size
reduce the image size
blow the image up to full 1-to-1 size
return image to default/initial size (~12%)
show previous image
"play" all images in full-screen mode
show next image
rotate image 90 degrees left
download image (not currently functional)

I do not think much more needs to be said about these controls other than you can "kill" the "play images" mode by either clicking the displayed full-screen image or by using the escape (Esc) key (you may need to click twice).



A closing comment...

While developing this tutorial, I noted that the images are not fully in date order in the sub-collection of the Deutsch Schützen records I chose as my Viewer example. In fact, the pages are rather scrambled, with chunks of dates placed well out of order. Clearly, the Diocese did not intend this to happen. However, this is a beta site and the Diocese is asking for your help in debugging it. If you see something like this, please use the contact email address and gently describe the problem you found (and also express your thanks for the blessing of having this site!). If you would rather not do that, send the problem description to me and I will play the good-hearted bad guy! Whatever you do, I would not expect the problem to be fixed quickly... they are much too busy trying to get additional parishes loaded onto the website.

Having spent some time experimenting with the Deutsch Schützen records, I found a number of problems:

- Inconsistent naming of sub-collections
- A possibly missing book
- Images out of date order
- Behavior(s) of the Viewer that I would like to see changed
- Download button not working
- My user password failing multiple times, requiring it to be reset
- etc.

Clearly, the Diocese has much to fix, as other parishes have problems similar to this one or are affected by the same universal issues. Regardless, I urge you to be patient and thankful as they work their way to a fully functioning site.

NOTICE (Informal Terms and Conditions): The Burgenland Bunch (BB) was formed and exists to assist Burgenland descendants in their research into their heritage and, toward that end, reserves the right to use any communication you have with us (email, letter, phone conversation, data upload, etc.) as part of our information exchange and educational research efforts.
    ● If you do not want your communication to be used for this purpose, indicate that it is "confidential" and we will attempt to abide by that request.
    ● Correspondents who communicate with the BB without requesting confidentiality retain their copyright but give a non-exclusive license to the BB allowing us to forward to BB members, publish in our monthly newsletter or on our website, and/or subsequently and permanently archive all or parts of such communications.

The formal Burgenland Bunch Website Usage Agreement can be found here: Agreement

The Burgenland Bunch homepage (website) can be found at: the-burgenland-bunch.org

Burgenland Bunch Newsletter, copyright © 2020 by The Burgenland Bunch
All rights reserved. Permission to copy excerpts granted if credit is provided.