Hungary: Birthplace of grand-father, "Beshehars"

E.P.T.

Looking for the birthplace (ca. 1875) of grand-father Ferenez Horvath. Birthplace given on passenger list is the first place on image.

I think my spelling must be incorrect. Another record might be same place:

Hoping someone can help me. Searching for more than four decades.

EPT, Virginia Beach

LuciaV

Could it maybe be Berkeháza? Today called "Berkovci" in Slovenia.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berkovci

E.P.T.

Thanks much. I think it could be. In 1828 Census Berkehaza is given as part of Vas County. Haven't checked '69 Census. At one time I was thinking it could be Benkehazamajor to the north of Szombathely because of references to some in-laws of Salfa. My grandfather was said to be upset with the settlement that ended WWI because of territory transferred from Hungary. Again, I do appreciate your input very much.

Julia Szent-Györgyi

LuciaV is almost certainly correct, but if you could tell us the registration district for that civil registration (or better yet, give a link to it), we could verify.

By the way, his name was Ferencz (Frank, Francis). There's no such thing as "Ferenez", no matter how often indexers make that mistake.

E.P.T.

Hello Again

Frank’s father was Peter and mother Maria. Recently, I discovered a Hungarian marriage record for 1901 with a groom who may be my grandfather. I think it likely. I see the place of birth of this Frank Horvath is very much like the birthplace given on arrival. Also, the first names of the parents of the groom are the same. I think the name of the groom’s mother has been transcribed incorrectly. The bride’s birthplace was Tarodfa, not so far from Berkehaza,. The link is https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:33SQ-GR2Q-W17 (3 frames).

I have attached the passenger manifest as well.

Frank Horvath's Arrival.jpg

I am hoping that someone can help my find the village so that I can search for any records that might exist. I have been checking for evangelical parishes with no luck. Also, I am hoping that someone can give me their best guest about the spelling of the mother’s surname. Any, help with the documents would greatly appreciated.

Frank's person ID on Family Search is L6KG-RWQ.

Frank's second wife was Anna Steirer of Badersdorf. Frank may or may not have married Anna in Hungary before his departure for U.S. in 1907. They lived in Chicago. They married (again?) in Indiana. Many researchers have been interested in the Steirers of Badersdorf. The data is extensive with its own mysteries yet to be solved. Most perplexing the children (maybe a Joseph and Rosalia) and fate of Anna's sister Julia. Joseph and Rose's aunt was Anna.

My mother told me that Frank had two brothers. Imre Nemeth of Surany (son of Stephanus Nemeth and Rosalia Hegedus may have been Frank's cousin. Kalman Demko said he was Frank's brother-in-law (not at all sure about this relationships).

I am a long-standing contributor to Family Search and am thinking that someone will be able to help me solve the puzzle of the missing village. I would appreciate the opportunity to communicate further about my search.

EPT

Virginia Beach

Julia Szent-Györgyi

Baptism of groom in that 1901 marriage (line 30): https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3Q9M-CSMR-C34K-T?i=849&cat=685518 (Tótkeresztúr, Vas county, Lutheran).

I think his mother's surname is Kranetz or Krányecz. The Lutheran register appears to be at least partly using some sort of Slavic orthography: Kráńeč.

Do you need/want full translations?

E.P.T.

A full translation would very helpful. I might be able to learn something by identifying the witnesses. I might be able to track one of them down. I am interested, too, in the exact spelling of the brides surname. I think she traveled to the U.S. under the name Julianna Krezneric and gave her last place of residence as Tarodfa. She and Frank likely had divorced. Julia had a son John Horvath, b. 1896, probably out-of-wedlock. Interesting to me John Horvath worked at one time for a car dealership in Detroit owned by a guy from Tarodfa. Interesting to me, too, is that Julia and Frank likely remarried in Chicago in 1927 after the death of Anna. Odd story in more ways than one. Thanks to assistance you and the group I have some hope of making progress in the search for information about Frank. Of course, this all depends on whether the 1901 Frank is my grand-father. It would seem the number of matches in the marriage record of 1901 don't seem to be mere coincidence. Frank likely had relatives in Woppendorf, Rothenthurm and maybe Dozmat. He was quite proud of his Hungarian lineage.

Julia Szent-Györgyi

Number 1. Dated in Horvát-Nádalla, 2nd January 1901.

Groom: Ferencz Horváth, Lutheran, miller's assistant, residence Taródfa, birthplace Berkeháza, 13 February 1875, known personally to registrar.

Father: Péter Horváth, smallholder, Berkeháza.

Mother: Mária Kranetz married name Mrs. Péter Horváth, homemaker, Berkeháza.

Bride: Juliánna Kreznerics, Roman Catholic, smallholder's family member, residence and birthplacee Taródfa, 8 March 1874, known personally to registrar.

Father: János Kreznerics, smallholder, Taródfa.

Mother: Terézia Gazsi married name was Mrs. János Kreznerics, homemaker, Taródfa.

Witness: Ignátz Mazalin(?), potter, Taródfa, age 38 years, known personally to registrar.

Witness: József Németh, smallholder's family member, Taródfa, age 33 years, known personally to registrar.

1875.

30. born 13, baptized 16 February.

Child: Ferencz, male, legitimate.

Parents: Péter Horváth, Kráńeč Mária, Luth., farm.

Residence: Berkeháza 16.

Godparents: Ferencz Horváth, Anna Krányeč, both of Berkeháza.

Officiant: the same (Berke János).

---

I'm using č for a letter that looks like a 'c' with a loopy thing on top. It might be better transcribed as ć -- whichever one is the /ts/ sound (like in "cats") in whichever Slavic language they're using.

E.P.T.

Julia,

Awesome. very important datum contained in translation. Frank gave "miller" as his occupation on his arrival in 1907. Also, when a John Horvath married in Indiana he gave his father as Frank Horvath and mother as Julia Krez.., and gave his father's occupation as "miller." He said they resided in Hungary, but I think he was might have been misleading his bride (not unknown in those years). So the marriage record of 1901 has still another match with what I know about my grandfather.

Was looking through the baptisms in the Totkeresztur link you sent me for other children of Peter and Maria or any Horvath of Berkehaza. (I see one of godparents is a Frank Horvath, and I assuming my grandfather's uncle) I will continue to look for baptisms and marriages

I wondering whether you might know what LDS film would contain the marriages of parishioners in Berkehaza.

You have been immensely helpful. Your help is much appreciated.

Julia Szent-Györgyi

Teach a person to fish...

To find out where the registry office or the church was, use gazetteers. Hungary's Central Statistics Office has the official ones: https://www.kshkonyvtar.hu/article/56/959/helysegnevtarak. (The 1913 is a 1770-page PDF. If you have Hungarian ancestors, just go ahead and save it to your computer. You'll be using it again.) You'll also want Dvorzsák's gazetteer; RadixHub had a very helpful English tabular version, but then they lost their domain, so now it's on the Wayback Machine: https://web.archive.org/web/20160327063819/http://www.radixhub.com/radixhub/gazetteers/1877. The page numbers link to the University of Pécs's scan, but you have to remove the archive.org stuff from the URL.

As you could probably predict based on that baptism, Berkeháza Lutherans were recorded in Tótkeresztúr. So next step: look that up in FS's Catalog. Dunno why, but the registers are in two separate entries for this church: 1828 to 1868, and 1868 to 1895. The latter is labeled "copy", but both are actually the bishop's/archive's copies.

So looking at the later group's catalog page (https://www.familysearch.org/search/catalog/685518), you can see that the marriages are in the same place as the baptisms, just probably later in the same item. And 1883 and 1888 may be missing. And browsing through a bit, yep, 1868 marriages start on image 218: https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3Q9M-CSMR-431J-T?i=217&cat=685518.

E.P.T.

Thanks to the existence of this LDS group and particularly Julia I have had some success. My gandfather's father was Peter. I have managed to track down many members of Peter's family along with the date of Peter's death. Actually, he lived a long life and died at the age of 70 in Bekeshaza. It appears that one of his sons Joseph moved to Szombathely and his family is still around today. One helpful hint I received from a LDS researcher is that many files are not indexed except by place and are under "Images." That's how I found the record of Peter's death.