Relatives of the Virág family (the mother's name is Rozália Virág)
Dear All,
I am looking for my lost relatives, and I hope I can find the way to them via this forum.
My grandfather, János (Ioan) Virág was born in Vezendiu (in Hungarian: Vezend) in Satmar county (Szatmár vármegye; which today belongs to Romania and then formed part of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy) in August 1908. It is said that he had three sisters (the exact birth order is unknown). Out of them, we know only one, Erzsébet Virág, who was also born also in Vezendiu, in November 1909. The mother (my great-grandmother) was Rozália (Rosalia) Virág, roman catholic (sometimes wrongly indicated as a greek-gatholic). Unfortunately, the father is not known. It is also said that all the children were placed at an orphanage after their birth; at least, that had been the case with my grandfather and Erzsébet, who later found their families in Hungary. As an adult, it was Erzsébet who, owing to her research, succeeded to find my grandfather, and then they would remain in close contact until their death. What we also know is that my great-grandmother had at least one sister, named Borbála Virág, who must have lived in the neighborhood of Vezendiu, maybe in Carei (Nagykároly).
I am keen on finding information on the two other sisters whose names might have been Rozália and Ilona, and on getting in contact with their descendants. One of the siblings might have lived in Bucharest, the other in Hungary, not far from the Hungarian-Romanian border (these information have not been confirmed, though). Of course, I would love the most to find out the father (my great-grandfather), who might have been a landlord, but no information has been revealed concerning this.
So, if anyone feels his or her family roots correspond to the above, please do not hesitate to answer to this post.
Thank you so much!
Best wishes,
Szabolcs Taba
Answers
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The Romanian National Archives is in the process of scanning their vital registers and putting them online: https://descopera.arhivelenationale.ro/noutati/. Neither my web browser nor I know any Romanian, however, so I was unable to figure out whether they have anything from Vezend, and if so, whether any of it is recent enough for your purposes. Unfortunately, privacy laws mean that you're pretty unlikely to find anything about the people's descendants, but depending on how they do things in Romania, you may be able to research deaths at least, and maybe marriages.
Note that the consensus on the Hungarian genealogy forums and lists is that the cataloging on the Romanian site is highly non-standardized and therefore very difficult to navigate, especially for those of us with no familiarity with the language.
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Thank you for your answer.
I have just been to Satu Mare (Szatmárnémeti), and my experiences in the archives there induced me to write the post. Though all the colleagues working there were very helpful and a Hungarian-speaking archivist significantly easened my research, the existing certificates are incomplete due to historical reasons and the place of their storage might also be diverse. A man explained me how to use their online platform, which is although in Romanian (perhaps there is an English version, too), if once understood, is easily applicable. The issue is that only those certificates have already been digitised which were issued by the State (after 1895) and were handed over to the archives, that is, the platform encompasses just a very short period of time (though the work done is accurate). All these do not mean that one cannot find what is searched for in the system, but if it is not there, one still should look it up in place, that is at local municipalities or churches. This makes the research extremely time-consuming - still, if the document exists at all, which fact cannot be told in advance based on the registers of the archives.
For all the above, I have high hopes in fora like this.
Also, if anyone knows any other platforms, especially those popular in Romania, I would highly appreciate to share.
Thank you!
Szabolcs
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