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

Email Address Bounces For Our Newsletter Notification: As of the past month, we switched to using sender.net as our bulk email mailer. One feature it has is that it provides a list of bounced emails, that is, emails we sent but did not get to the intended recipients and, in most cases, why the email bounced. In total, 216 messages bounced, with most of them (140) because the destination email server considered the message to be spam. Another 53 bounced because the destination account was disabled and 4 because the destination mailbox was full (over quota). An additional 19 messages bounced but no explanation was provided as to why.

You are able to do something about those bounces only when the account was disabled (you should provide us with a functional account) or where the mailbox was over quota (you should delete messages, especially those in any junk, trash, or deleted items folders). You might also look at accounts where no explanation was given. Perhaps it is disabled or over quota. As a reminder, deleting emails in most email programs does not permanently delete the email, rather they move them to a special folder (like deleted items or trash). You must empty these folders to permanently delete their contents. Until then, their contents count against the space quota your mail system provides to you.

The biggest group, spam, is something we at the BB must address (if we can). We can do this by getting functional DNS (Domain Name System) records in place, specifically the SPF (Sender Policy Framework) and DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail) records.

These records identify which mail servers (such as sender.net) are permitted to send email on behalf of the BB. Adding an SPF record can help detect and prevent spammers from sending email messages with forged From addresses and the DKIM helps verify email addresses, fights spam and protects against spoofing and identity theft.

Working with our ISP (Internet Service Provider), I have added both such records, and the SPF record appears to be working, but the DKIM is not. I will reach out again to our ISP to get this fixed (but, having been sick for a few weeks, I put this off and need to rebuild motivation before I attempt this again!). I assume many of the spam bounces are because of this defective DKIM. However, some receiving email systems are lazy and just look at how many messages from a specific server are coming in. If too many arrive in a short time frame, they tag the mail server as a spammer, even when it is not, and there is not much we can do about this. This is one of the problems with using a bulk mail sender.

From the notices for the previous newsletter, I have gathered all bounced email addresses into an Excel file and placed them in columns by the type of bounce. I'll ask that you look at this file to see if your address is present. Each column is a type of bounce and the entries in the columns are the part of a target email address before the @ symbol (sorted alphabetically) for those bounced messages. I didn't want to include all parts of the email address, but I think this part is sufficient for you to recognize your address, if it is there. Here is the file: Bounces.xlsx. If you see your address therein, please fix the problem (if it is something you can fix).



Burgenland Record Transcriptions: I want to point out a couple of transcription projects that are currently underway and that should soon appear on the BB website in our Records section.

BB member Edward Schraith has provided a complete transcription of the Jennersdorf (Gyanafalva) Catholic parish birth and marriage records for 1828-1885, as well as some selected pages in the 1886-1895 era. The Jennersdorf parish was also the official recorder for Grieselstein (Kristyan), Ober-Henndorf (Felsö Ercsenye) and Rax-Bergen (Felsö Raks). At the time of this writing, these records were being converted to the BB online format and the remaining pages in the 1886-1895 era were being transcribed (by me).

The birth records now available online in BB Records and the marriages will follow once I complete the transcription of records that Edward had not done and I convert all of the transcribed records to our online format.

Also, BB member Rebecca Chamberlain is actively transcribing early records for the Apetlon ([Moson-] Bánfalva) Catholic parish. Those records will be added to the BB website when the project is completed. The current effort includes births in 1771-1802 and marriages in 1746-1826.

What was interesting about Edward's Jennersdorf project is that he apparently started in in 2002... at least, there is a note in his Excel file saying that he copied the microfilm in January of that year. Also, in his note to me when he sent his file, he said (in part):

"I have been working on transcribing the Gyanafalva, Hungary films 0700669 and 0700670 for many years... So far, I have only completed transcribing Births and Marriages from 1828 to 1886.  As I am now 91 years old, I may never complete my goal of finishing these films through 1895. Therefore I am attaching my Excel spreadsheet, as is, for your use in the Burgenland Bunch." 

Thus it appears that this has been an effort of 20+ years.

Now wouldn't it be terrible if someone else had decided to transcribe these records and made irrelevant all of Edward's hard work by publishing first? I think so. Thus, I've decided to start adding "pending" notes in our BB Records section for every transcription project that I become aware of. This will not speed the publication of such data but should alert others that a project is already underway for a particular record collection. If you have an interest in transcribing the same collection, you could then contact (through me) the individual already working on it and perhaps collaborate.

You may recall that last month I wrote about Rebecca Chamberlain's Apetlon project, and that she is looking for collaborators. However, if you did not read that, now there will also be a pending note about it in our Records section. Perhaps that will help avoid duplicative and thus wasteful transcription work!

Given I've decided to do this, I'll ask that you notify me about any Burgenland transcription project you have underway or are aware of... or any project you or someone else has completed but have not yet contributed to the BB. In addition, tell our BB Facebook page about the project. I'll become aware of it and add a pending status.

For example, I am aware that Bernhard Antal has shared on our affiliated Facebook page a transcription (index) of deaths in 1794-1827 for the Sankt Michael parish. Bernhard has shared his previous transcriptions with us but hasn't yet offered this one to the BB. I've marked it as pending in our Records section and will be contacting Bernhard about contributing it.



Jennersdorf Vital Records: As noted above, BB member Edward Schraith has provided a complete transcription of the Jennersdorf (Gyanafalva) Catholic parish birth records for 1828-1885, as well as some selected pages in the 1886-1895 era. I have transcribed the missing pages in the 1886-1895 era, so we now have the complete record set. This was FamilySearch microfilm 700669 and the images can be found here: Jennersdorf (Gyanafalva) RC Births, 1828-1895 (should you wish to check our work).

The Jennersdorf parish was also the official recorder for Grieselstein (Kristyan), Ober-Henndorf (Felsö Ercsenye) and Rax-Bergen (Felsö Raks). In total there are 8,850 birth records in the collection, with Edward being responsible for all but maybe a thousand of them. Copyright for the transcription remains with Edward and myself. You can find our transcription here: Jennersdorf Catholic Births.



350th Newsletter: Well, here it is: BB Newsletter # 350 ...another "round-number" (sort-of) milestone! I'm not sure I understand why these kind of milestones attract our attention—but they do—so I'll give in and talk about this one.

Our first edition, edited (and distributed via email) by BB founder Gerry Berghold, came out in January 1997... with just 13 readers!

It took only to October 2001 to reach the 100th edition, now with 750 readers. That short elapsed time (4 years, 10 months) was because the first 87 editions were published bi-weekly. However, in September 2000, Gerry switched to the monthly format that we have sustained since.

Our 200th edition was published in June 2010, with 1,852 BB members receiving the newsletter (we stopped counting readers somewhere along the way). Gerry was editor of 176 of those editions, but his failing health forced him to give up his editorship after the July 2008 edition. I stepped in as interim editor of newsletter 177 and then Hannes Graf became our new continuing editor with number 178 and would publish 24 newsletters.

This was also the period we changed the format and distribution of the newsletter. Editions 1-147 were strictly via email. From February 2006 through December 2009, newsletters were simultaneously formatted and distributed as an email and an online document (#s 148-194, 47 editions). Being online meant we could add images to that version of the newsletter, which we started doing with edition 183. Since January 2010, newsletters are formatted and distributed solely as online documents (#s 195-350, 156 editions). This was done both because of the added flexibility of images in articles and the nicer formatting, as well as to cope with the increasing problems of trying to distribute large documents to many people via email... overly-sensitive spam checkers and ISP blockers were monthly problems that plagued the distribution process (and drove Gerry crazy!). So our only email distribution was (and still is) a short, bland note saying the monthly newsletter is available online... and we still have blocking problems (but fewer)!

We had our 300th edition in August 2019, going to some 2,885 members. Coincidentally, this was also my 100th edition as editor (another round number). Hannes would publish edition 201 but I became editor in August 2010, and would publish a further 99 editions along with my earlier interim edition to push my editorial count to 100 newsletters at that time.

Now, with edition 350, January 2024, going to over 3,200 members, I'm up to 150 newsletters edited... and still trail Gerry's 176!



Making Matriken.at Payments: I received an email in early January from Richard Potetz concerning making payment to matriken.at to enable access to the record images held there. If you go on the matriken site, you will see that the only acceptable current payment method is a bank transfer (payment via PayPal has been discontinued) and that the payment is made to the Győri Egyházmegyei Gyűjteményi Központ (Győr Diocese Collection Center), which is in Hungary.

Well, if you live in the US and have ever attempted a bank transfer, you know it is both difficult and expensive to accomplish. You must do it in person at your bank and, if your local branch is typical, they will not know how to do it. Once they waste a bunch of your time finding someone in their system who can lead them through the process, it will culminate in a significant fee (especially so given the small size of the payment you are actually trying to make). This is why most people use various online payment systems (like PayPal) to transfer money internationally.

Anyway, Richard tells me he created a Western Union account to make the payment. He reports that the Western Union online system makes payments to Hungary in US dollars ($) or Hungarian forints (HUF)... but not euros (EUR). This is significant because the matriken site states: We ask you to transfer the exact amount and only in EUR, otherwise the user account cannot be activated.

This led Richard to ask me: "Have you ever used matriken.at? If so how did you get the exact amount in euros to them?"

My answer was that "I have never activated a paid account at matriken.at (because my two ancestral villages are not there yet!). I would suggest you pose your question on the BB Facebook page. I know that many members there are active on matriken. They should have an answer for you."

Richard reports that his BB Facebook inquiry led to advice to pay for matriken access though the Wise payment site, and he tried to send exactly 50 euros to the Győr bank account. However, his actual payment turned out to be 50.46 euros, despite Wise saying it was making exactly a 50 euro payment. I suspect this was because exchange rates vary constantly and Richard's dollars bought more euros even a few seconds later... and that might be a problem if the rates change in the opposite direction ...and even a positive movement might be a problem given matriken's statement that you should "...transfer the exact amount ...otherwise the user account cannot be activated."

The one last bit I'll report concerns the cost of this. Richard shared an image of the Wise payment calculation page and it showed the costs involved. First, Richard had options on how to send money to Wise, and these are the costs:

Credit card: $3.71 (and your bank may charge a cash-advance fee)
Debit card: $1.83
ACH transfer: $1.01 (direct connect your bank account with Wise)
Wire transfer: $4.44

Second, there was the cost of buying 50 euros: $54.86. Wise reported the then-current conversion rate was 0.911500 euros/dollar and that the rate was good for 7 hours. That calculates to a euro yield of 50.00489 for $54.86 (had they converted just $54.85 at that rate, it would have yielded slightly less than 50 euros). Richard chose to use his credit card, so his total cost was $58.57.

I also asked Richard to tell us if his overpayment caused problems and he says the extra 0.46 euros caused no problem at all. He did have to pay a $10 cash advance fee to his credit card company, increasing his total cost to $68.57, but he notes he could have avoided that by using a debit card. He also told me that his local bank would have charged $40 for an international wire transfer (a total cost of ~$94.86), and he would have had to sign a release allowing international wire transfer payments from his account (something he did not wish to do).

So, it appears using a debit card and Wise is the best way to go ($56.59 total cost).



The Facebook Bunch (from Vanessa Sandhu):

Greetings, Burgenland Bunch!

And happy New Year! I wish you all a healthy, happy year full of lots of blessings and Burgenland-related genealogical discoveries! If you need help, please join our Facebook group. There are lots of great people who can help you very quickly. We gained lots of new members this month and are excited to have them in our community of now 2,148 members! facebook.com/groups/TheBurgenlandBunchOFFICIAL/.

Member Franz Stangl shared many great photos and videos of the Sternsingers in Güssing, as well as ice skating fun on the Güssinger fish pond.

Member Daniel Weber shared a great interview of this wonderful Burgenländerin, who is 99 years young. She talks about her two aunts and an uncle who emigrated from Burgenland to Chicago about 100 years ago. Here she talks about her childhood on the country farm in Burgenland: youtube.com/watch?v=N_-2a0JNFcs

Member Steve Huber shared some great photos and memories from his days touring with his band, Steve Huber’s Happy Austrians.

Member Steve Schmidt posed a great question about where to find a link listing WW-II Burgenland fatalities that appeared in a Burgenland Bunch newsletter in the past. He got lots of great answers:
   Member Tim Stein suggested a military grave-search website:
      http://www.volksbund.de/en/graebersuche.html 
   He also suggested looking at the denkmal (monument) project:
      http://www.denkmalprojekt.org/en_search.htm
These may be of assistance to other members who are looking for this information!

Member Richard Potetz observed that to access the matriken.at site records, you are required to make a payment in exact-amount Euros only. PayPal is no longer accepted, so he reached out to the group to see how other members were accessing the site. The consensus is that Wise is inexpensive and quick, as it was recommended by many of our members.

Member Andrea Aminger shared many gorgeous photos of the ice formations she saw in Mörbisch, Podersdorf and Illmitz at Neusiedler See.

Member Fred Knarr shared some great photos and interesting information about the middle point stone of Burgenland. It is located to the east of Unterpullendorf.

Fred also shared information for travel to Austria in 2025 and beyond: “If you plan on traveling to Europe in 2025 or later, get ready for ETIAS. Here is a link to the current website with lots of details that might likely change over time. (Note that if you also hold a valid EU passport you won’t need to do this; nor will your close relative traveling companions.) Stay tuned! https://travel-europe.europa.eu/etias_en"

Member Rebecca Chamberlain finished transcribing the marriages from Matriken records for Apetlon for the years 1746-1826 and shared it with the group! Thank you for all of your hard work, Rebecca!

That’s all for now! Have a great month and stay safe and healthy!

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 1763 copies, as interested people purchased 6 books during this past month.

As always, the book is available for online purchase at a list price of $8.89 (which is the current production charge for the book, as we purposely choose not to make any profit 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!).

The book is an excellent read for the Burgenländers in your family... and an excellent belated Christmas gift... get theirs now!



Burgenland Recipes: (none this month... do you have one to share?)



Note: Our recipes sortable list has 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, whenever we use up our unpublished recipes, this recipe section will become dormant. 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:



Editorial note: While the above cartoon may seem inconsistent with the purposes of the BB and its newsletter, it was selected because it illustrates an interesting note I found attached to a birth in the Jennersdorf records. It seems the child was born less than 6 months after the parents' marriage. The husband refused to accept paternity, so the child was recorded as illegitimate... not a good start for the marriage!

4. Finally for Basisprodukt you need to select Auszüge Kataster und Verzeichnisse and Archivplan PDF, then click the red go button to commit to these selections.



5. Now click on the Suchen/Preis ermitteln button to initiate the search for products of this type and see the cost of each (see below).



Be aware that it may take some time to complete the search. When finished, a list of map sections will be generated (10 entries at a time). The number found (Anzahl gefundene) of map sections will be stated at the top of the list, and all sections will be pre-selected to be placed in the shopping cart (Warenkorb). There appears to be no way to identify which map section covers which part of the Gemeinde so you'll need to purchase all of them.

6. You can now put your map sections in the shopping cart by clicking button "nn selektierte Produkte in den Warenkorb legen" (where nn is the number of map sections). There is a minimum purchase price of 5 Euros, so if you’re interested in more than one village and your current order does not exceed this, you should order all together.

7. The final step is to click "Kreditkarten-Daten eingeben und Bestellung absenden" to enter your credit card data and submit your order.

Editorial note: I attempted this process for one of my ancestral villages. However, when I submitted my order, my card was rejected and BEV passed along the note they received. It read: "This card is unable to be used for this particular transaction, please contact Xxx Bank at 1-800-nnn-nnnn for further assistance." I then tried my debit card and received a similar error message. This may be a bank-specific limitation or a universal problem for US-based cards. If you attempt this, please let me know whether your card worked or not. However, I suspect the problem is universal for US-based banks (see the bit in Article 1 for making Matriken.at payments).

8. After payment you’ll receive a download link via e-mail a couple of hours later.

9. The maps will show you exactly who owned which house and plot in the survey year.

For example this is house #64 of my great grandparents Pumm Johann & Cäcilia in Kukmirn in 1936:



10. You can then use the plot number (in the above case it’s 214) to locate the plot on a current map by going to geodaten.bgld.gv.at/de/geodaten-suche/grundstuecke.html and entering the data (no login necessary):

As a result, everyone has two family trees: The first is your genealogical tree, which is every ancestor in history that had a child who had a child who had a child who ultimately led to you. We are each the product of every decision made by every person in our genealogical family tree.

The second is the genetic family tree, which is made up only of those ancestors who gave you DNA. Because you inherited DNA from only some of your genealogical ancestors in about the fifth to seventh generation and beyond, only some of your genealogical ancestors are in your genetic family tree. In the example genetic family tree shown to the right, ancestors who contributed DNA are shaded. The ancestors in white, while still genealogical ancestors, aren’t genetic ancestors. At each generation, the proportion of genetic ancestors to genealogical ancestors decreases. Thus the likelihood of inheriting a segment of DNA from a particular genealogical ancestor decreases with each generation.

Although siblings have the same genealogical tree, they’ll have different genetic trees (unless they’re identical twins). Similarly, you have a different genetic tree from each parent, although your genetic family tree is a subset of your parent’s genetic family tree.

In your case, it’s almost guaranteed that both you and Susan inherited DNA from your shared ancestors—fulfilling our first requirement above—because those ancestors are too recent to begin “falling off” your genetic family tree. The second requirement, however, still must be met for Susan to show up as your genetic match.

2. You and Susan must inherit at least one of the same segments of DNA from a shared ancestor to be identified as genetic cousins in a DNA test. For example, you might’ve both inherited DNA from your fourth-great-grandfather, but each of you received a different part of his DNA. As you can see in the table above, which shows each testing company’s estimated likelihood of inheriting the same DNA, the chances of sharing a detectable segment of DNA with a cousin drops drastically after the third cousin level. So there’s a 90 to 98 percent chance your uncle Jared will share a DNA segment with his third cousin Susan, and a smaller chance that you’ll share a DNA segment with Susan (your third cousin once-removed). Your chance of sharing DNA with Susan is halfway between third cousins and fourth cousins (45 to 71 percent).

It appears that your uncle Jared and your cousin Susan inherited at least one of the same segments of DNA from the same ancestor. In contrast, you and Susan didn’t inherit the same segment, even though you both likely inherited DNA from your shared ancestors. As long as your results show that your uncle Jared is actually your uncle, the fact that he shares DNA with his third cousin Susan, while you do not, isn’t surprising.

4) HISTORICAL BB NEWSLETTER ARTICLES

Editor: This is part of our series designed to recycle interesting articles from the BB Newsletter of 10 years ago. However, given that the newsletter of 10 years ago was a year-end newsletter, it simply summarized BB year 2013 and did not offer "new" content. So...



THE BURGENLAND BUNCH NEWS No. 239
January 31, 2014

BITS AND PIECES FROM TEN YEARS AGO

Hard to believe it, but it was 10 years ago that the BB published the English edition of the 3rd edition of Walter Dujmovits book, "Die Amerika-Wanderung Der Burgenländer" and announced it in the newsletter. Bob Strauch did the translation, I did the formatting and editing and eventually became the publisher (on the BB's behalf), and the BB staff reviewed our combined effort, adding to the quality of the book. In cooperation with Walter, we titled the English edition as "The Burgenländer Emigration to America" and first offered it for sale (at production cost) in January 2014. Then BB staff member, Ron Markland, offered to do a book review for it, which we also published in the January 2014 newsletter. The book has remained for sale at production cost, now $8.89, which is lower than the initial production cost of $10.45. Over these 10 years, more than 1750 copies have sold... and it still keeps selling 4 or 5 copies a month. Not bad!

Also 10 years ago, Wilhelm Schmidt joined the BB staff as a contributing editor. Since then, he has contributed a number of articles to the BB newsletter, has been active in transcribing old German Kurrentschrift handwriting font letters and cards for members, and provides research knowledge about Burgenland. Willi was born in Pernau/Pornóapáti, Hungary, but as a child was deported with his family after WW-II because of his German heritage. His research interests involve his heritage, deportation, and his lost ancestral village. We thank Willi for his 10 years of service.

The newsletter of 10 years ago also reported a few losses. Both Bob Unger (Western US Members / Research) and Maureen Tighe-Brown (Judaic Burgenland) retired from the BB staff, each after providing many years service to the BB and its members.

In addition, Frank Tantsits died. Frank was never a BB staff member but he was a personal friend and a BB brother-in-arms. Frank, along with brother Ed, originated what is now the FamilySearch pages on the BB website and was involved in the early days of the BH&R project, providing much information about deceased Burgenländers in the Lehigh Valley.

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

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All rights reserved. Permission to copy excerpts granted if credit is provided.