Help with translation of a Hungarian birth record

LuciaV

Hello, could anyone translate this birth record of Margit Zemko (no. 1712)? There's no father, am I reading it correctly? How about the looong note at the end? Something about the biological father? Or maybe a future marriage? As far as I know, Margit married a man named Alfred Hammerstein in 1922. That's what the 1930 Czechoslovak census said. Thanks in advance!

Julia Szent-Györgyi

1712/VIII. Entered 29 March 1897, born 28 March 1897.

Child: Margit, girl, R.Cath.

Parents: Margit Zemkó, servant, born: Nagy Tapolcsány (Nyitra county), residence Budapest VII. Csengery street 12. Religion R.Cath., age 21.

Place of birth: Budapest royal Hungarian science university I. obstetric ward.

Pre-signature remarks: the birth was reported by the Budapest royal Hungarian science university's I. obstetric ward.

Addenda and corrections: József Huber adopted the child, her family name is henceforth Huber. Ministry of Justice decree number 19?8.I.2285. 5 Dec 19?8, Gusztáv Varsányi assistant registrar.

Per revolutionary governing council decree number VII it is entered that according to capital city orphan's court decision number 102051/1.-1919, the child's father is Dr. Viktor Strelinger, 23-year-old physician, resident of Budapest (VIII. Rákóczi road 12, number II. 8.) 18 May 1919, Béla Ádám assistant registrar. The addendum concerning paternity is stricken in its entirety. (Capital city mayor number 11879/1921.XI.) 18 Feb 1921 Gyula Fridrich assistant registrar.

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Wow, that's a bit of world history having rather personal effect.

"Decree VII of the revolutionary governing council" has proven annoyingly elusive online; the best I can come up with is a newspaper article commemorating the 100-year anniversary of the events with some notes about the new laws, among them the abolition of illegitimacy. I would guess that the addendum was caused by that law, and the notation was stricken because the post-revolutionary government wanted to restore everything -- including illegitimacy -- to the previous status quo. What all this means about the actual identity of Margit's father, I haven't a clue.

Edited to add: the year for the adoption looks like 1928 to me, but it would make more sense for it to be 1918 (else why is that addendum before the 1919 one?), and the digit could be a particularly curvy 1... (It's a very skinny 2, if it is a 2.)

LuciaV

@Julia Szent-Györgyi Whoa Julia, I knew I could count on you but this was super fast!

To be honest... I'm still a bit lost. So Margit was adopted by József Huber but then it (the adoption or only the name change??) was canceled because apparently her father was Dr. Strelinger? Margit was already like 22 y.o. in 1919???

Also in the 1940 Slovak census she reported her maiden name as ZEMKO, so she was using her mother's name (the record is blacked out (I'm working on getting a proper copy from the archives) but you can see her at No. 2 as Margita Hammersteinova, rod. Zemko).

Another question... What exactly does "abolition of illegitimacy" mean? If a child is born to a single mother, would there ALWAYS have to be a father noted?

You mentioned an orphan's court. Could I, therefore, assume Margit's mother died sometime in this confusing process? This theory would work with my research - can't find her anywhere back in Slovakia where all her sisters returned to from Budapest and also where her daughter was living during the censuses. Her mother (Margit's grandma) also seems to be including her among her deceased children in one of the census questions (she reports 12 born children out of which 7 died - which would mean 5 are alive - I counted 5 alive children, Margit's mom would make a 6th one)

Was Margit adopted because she was an orphan or was Mr. Huber her "step-father"? Is there a way to find out? Maybe I could look for a marriage between Margit Zemko and Mr. Huber...

Julia Szent-Györgyi

The "stricken" comment applies only to the paternity addendum, not to the adoption. And as I said, it's possible the adoption hadn't happened yet when they named that other guy as the father. (I've encountered quite a few adult adoptions at this point. I haven't found a very satisfactory explanation yet, but there seems to have been a law or loophole or something that people used as a form of old-age-caregiver contract.)

I'm not sure how the "no illegitimacy" thing was supposed to work, but the underlying idea was to somehow legislatively remove the social stigma from the child. Yeah, um, that was gonna work So Well, right?

They called it the orphan's court but it dealt with all types of guardianship-type questions, not just orphans, so its involvement unfortunately doesn't really tell us anything about her mother.

Oh, and it occurs to me that the order that the addenda are written in may have nothing to do with the actual chronology: this is one of the registers that was re-copied in the 1950s or 60s. Notice the hammer and sickle in the paper. (Also, in 1897 it was still the one-per-side format, not the six-up tabular one.)

LuciaV

@Julia Szent-Györgyi Oh, good job, spotting the hammer and sickle! I didn't even see it there at first!

Thanks for explaining the orphan court. I think I'm still going to go with the theory of her mother dying (at least before 1930) until proven otherwise. Maybe she magically appears in some record, who knows!

This is the first time that I'm dealing with a situation like this. These three Zemko sisters (Margareta, Veronika and Žofia) have been a mystery to me for ages but some good soul started a project of indexing Slovak censuses and that helped me tremendously. Somehow all 3 of these sisters were sent to Budapest as young ladies, got married there, and/or had children but then returned home (except Margareta). So a lot of new research for me. Yay!

Thanks again for your help!