Deciphering Kophaza, Hungary Roman Catholic baptism handwriting and translating help please
A lead on a FS search found Catholic Baptisms for my wife's gg grandmother & TWELVE siblings in Kophaza, Hungary between 1858 and 1881!!! FS offers only partial transcriptions & the spellings in the originals and transcriptions vary somewhat. Would anyone like to help transcribe and translate from the Latin plus one in Hungarian?
I downloaded the images which I could upload or could supply the urls if those work better for you.
Also, any advice on how to find the marriage record c. 1855-1860 for the parents, Joseph Lovranits and Elisabeth Egretsits (both spelled variously).
TYVMIA (Thank You Very Much In Advance)
John Albertini
Answers
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John - in regards to your question about the marriage record, here is the FamilySearch catalog entry page for church records from Kophaza, Hungary.
It looks like just part of the records have been indexed, but the rest are available as digital images. It looks like marriage records from about 1789-1895 would be on the film entitled "Házasultak 1789-1895" - FHL microfilm 630740. If you have a FamilySearch account, it looks like these images are viewable online. They are not indexed, so you would have to browse through the records page by page to see if you could find the marriage record.
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And were you able to get the records you mentioned translated? I think I saw a few requests last week, but let us know if you have more.
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Hi Ellie,
Thank you, yes I got several responses with translations. Are you in Hungary, wondering what would be the most likely correct spelling of the surname. I've seen it as:
Lovranits
Lovranich
Lowranich
Lowranits
Lovaranich
Lovranic
Any thoughts?
Thanks again.
John
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In a time and place where more people were illiterate than not, it was the sound of a name that counted, and surnames did not have a single correct spelling.
Depending on where and when he learned to write, a Hungarian scribe could have written Lovranits or Lovranics, while a German scribe would've gone for something like Lowranitsch. A Croatian or Serbian-influenced scribe would have used Lovranić or Lovranič. (I can't tell those sounds apart; they both sound like /ch/ to me.) Any of these scribes may have used a Latin-style -ch for the final consonant.
"Which spelling to use" is a common question in genealogy, with as many answers as there are possibilities. You could look at the person's descendants, who presumably settled on one way of writing their name, once literacy became expected. You could also go the other direction, and look for the earliest recorded spelling. If there was one spelling that was used more often than the others, then it becomes a good candidate. Or you can pick a language and choose the spelling that best follows the orthography rules of that language.
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Julia gives very good advice. Might I add that you should include all the spellings that you find in the 'other names' (or whatever it's called) section in your family tree or in the notes so that people who are looking at that person later will know that there are many possible spelling variations.
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