Resources from Szatmar
The family of my grandfather lived in Szatmar (Satu Mare), but I have only been able to find very few resources relating to them: one, I believe, exists on JewishGen, and several others exists in Szatmar.us. I contacted the creator of the latter website, whose research is certainly thorough, and was told that these are all the resources that exist regarding the Jewish community of Szatmar. Please note that he is himself originally from Hungary and accessed the resources physically.
I am aware that resources less than 120 years old may not be available, but many of the resources relevant to me are from the 19th century. Could this be all there is?
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"Could this be all there is?" -- Online, yes, unfortunately. The Romanian government is resistant to making things accessible electronically, so there is very little that one can do for records from places that are now in that country, short of showing up in person (or hiring someone to do so).
(My rather snide theory for the motivation behind this situation is that they don't want people to easily find out just how non-Romanian their relatives were.)
Oh, there is one more possible source: the Transylvanian Genealogy Society (Erdélyi Genealógiai Társaság) lists both Jewish and civil registers from Szatmárnémeti among its holdings (numbers 1029 and 1030: http://erdelygen.uw.hu/forrasok.php). I have not personally dealt with them, but it is my understanding that they can make things available electronically (though not for free). You could send an email to one of the addresses on the Introduction (Bevezető) page to ask for further guidance. (I suggest just writing in English. The recipient can apply a machine translator at need.)
(I looked it up in Fényes Elek: Szatmár and Németi were originally on opposite sides of the Szamos; they were joined into a single "free royal city" in 1715, and subsequent flood-control measures put the river entirely to the south of the combined city. For some reason, some people continued to refer to it as just Szatmár, but I think it's clearer to reserve that for the county and use Szatmárnémeti for the city.)
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Many of the records from individual communities and synagogues were transferred to the archives in Bucharest, Romania. My wife's Jewish ancestors came from Szatmar and I was able to locate 19th century birth records in Bucharest. It is difficult to get copies by mail so I ended up hiring someone to go to the archives and copy the appropriate records.
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Thank you for your replies, Julia and Robert. Loved your theory! I am so used to lurking around in exclusively-Jewish genealogy websites, that I neglected to mention my family’s Jewish roots, even more so due to Julia’s presence here, who’s been extremely helpful for me over on JewishGen.
I will look into the Transylvanian Society. As for the Bucharest archives, many of the records found on Szatmar.us are listed as originating in the National Archives of Romania, meaning these have already been looked into. To my understanding, records older than 120 years ago are transferred from local municipalities to the main archives in the capital. I initially offered Gyuri of Szatmar.us to hire his services to visit the archives, but was told this had already been done. This is the main reason I am afraid that all options have been exhausted.
I will note that my great grandfather was an officer in the Austro-Hungarian army in WWI and was held captive for seven years. Perhaps this will aid my research via military-specific sources.
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For WWI and prior military records, the Military History Institute and Museum (Hadtörténeti Intézet és Múzeum) has a detachment in Vienna that can provide some materials from the archive there. It's been a few years since I dealt with them, and it looks like the personnel have changed, but the email address hasn't: https://militaria.hu/hadtorteneti-intezet-es-muzeum/szervezeti-felepites/szf-hadtortenelmi-leveltar-es-terkeptar/becsi-kirendeltseg.
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Thank you, Julia! Your knowledge is infinite.
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