A Hungarian ancestor who went to live in the US
Can someone advise me where to go for information about an ancestor of mine who emigrated from Hungary to the US. I'm British and I'm not familiar with US records - it all seems a bit overwhelming and general searches haven't yielded anything.
I only have family hearsay to go on but at some point between, I think, 1857 and 1869, Klara Bakos (nee Pinyigei) emigrated from the Abauj-Torna region of Hungary to the US. She was a widow but married again in the US, then for reasons unknown went back to live in Hungary.
I'd love to know more.
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When was she born? When and where did she marry to acquire the name Bakos?
FamilySearch has passenger lists from what would become Ellis Island in the collection "New York Passenger Lists, 1820-1891", but I'm not coming up with a Clara Bakos or anything Pinyigei in its index. However, the lists are often very hard to read, and they don't always record full or proper names: given names are often abbreviated or omitted, and the frequent use of "implied ditto marks" means that the index is also full of the other extreme, given names with no surnames.
It's also possible that she arrived at a different port, such as Baltimore or Philadelphia; FS has passenger lists from both of those, but again, I'm not turning up your Clara. (The infuriating new search interface isn't helping.)
As for her activities after she arrived, it all comes down to where: some places have records going back to the 1700s, while other places basically have nothing before the 1900s. With a clearer idea of her age and marital status, it may be possible to turn her up in the 1860 or 1870 census, which would give a starting place for looking for further records.
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Thanks for your help, Julia.
I believe she was born in November 1816 (I'm not able to be 100% sure due to the incomplete nature of the records in her village that far back). She married Jozsef Bakos in 1844.
She apparently married a second time out in the US so perhaps that would help me find her ...
When I went to her village, some older villagers (distant relatives) told us they'd grown up hearing about a Bakos girl who'd gone to America and so I'd love to be able to confirm it and get more details.
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This looks like Klara's baptism record--2 Nov 1816. https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:V578-BHR
Finding people in the states without knowing where they went can definitely be tricky. Do you know the name of her second husband?
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No, I don't know the name of her second husband sadly.
Yes, it's going to prove tricky to find anything about her stay in the US, I can tell. Shame ...
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The baptism that Mckenna found is attached in Family Tree to a woman who married a Bakos József in Fony in 1844:
https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:939K-R1XC-Z
1. 22 Jan. Regétzke resident Helvetic confession honest widower noble Jósef Bakos, entering into paired life with the young-wife daughter of the late noble Gábor Pinyigei, residing in Sz. András, Helvetic confession, after being announced on the lawful 3 days in the Reformed church of Fony, in the presence of noble András Nagy M, noble János Nagy M young man -- noble János Bakos's wife noble Juliánna Horvát -- and noble Juliánna Nagy M maiden, they were married by Gábor Balla, local pastor.
Other brides in this register are generally labeled "honest maiden" (becsületes hajadon) or "honest widow" (becsületes özvegy), so I'm pretty sure that the few like this one where the bride is called menyecske "young wife, newlywed woman" are being marked (in code) for something -- perhaps that the bride is visibly already pregnant, or already has a child? Except Klara had a baby the following October, so she can't have been already pregnant in January....
But leaving that mystery aside, I'm left wondering: why do you believe that Klara came to America? Is it an attempt at explaining why the entire family seems to fall off the map after the birth of their son János in 1857? (Someone who may be their eldest daughter turns up as a bride in 1869, but her age is off by six years, and the marriage record fails to name her parents.) If so, I think it would make sense to look for the entire family in the U.S., and also to consider that they could have gone to Canada.
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This was written by my relative about Klara's husband, Bakos Jozsef, and Klara:
'Sajnos, a dátumot sose tudtam csak azt hogy valamelyik Habsburg születése alkalmából különadót róttak ki Bécsből és ennek a beszedését csendőr-párosok végezték. Nemes Bakos János ősünk nem irodalmi kifejezést hallatott és a két csendőrt kidobta a kerítésen át az utcára és teljes vagyonelkobzást követően ezért vitték el Kufsteinbe. A felesége tudtommal Amerikába ment újra férjhez, de közelebbit Édesapa sose mondott.'
This may explain why she emigrated! But another relative told us she came back. Then, a third source, some previously unknown very distant relatives in Regec, told us that, yes, some of the Bakoses had gone to America and come back. It's apparently a well-known event in the village, even after all these years.
Klara is my g-g-g-grandmother and I have a pretty complete tree from her onwards. So the family certainly didn't decamp fully to the US. Her last (known) child was born in 1857, as you said, and then her eldest daughter, Julianna, who presumably went out with her mother originally, was back to marry my g-g-grandfather in Fony in 1869.
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