Family research
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The following information is intended to help users interested in family history research and wish to use the sources preserved in the National Archives of Hungary. These sources form an exceptionally rich collection which includes the precious material parish registers as well as census records. Nevertheless, we consider it necessary to emphasise that we, the staff members of the National Archives of Hungary, do not carry out genealogical research for users, as it forms no part of our duties. At the same time, it is our duty to inform users about the sources concerning the subject of their research, the system of the sources and the terms and conditions under which they can be used. The information below serves this purpose, too. However, the research work must be done by the user or his representative, and in case of a successful research, having found the appropriate reference code he/she may order for copies of the found records.
The appropriate reference code means such data which make possible that archivists can easily find the record in question. Let us see a few examples concerning research to be done in the parish registers:
- You just know that your ancestor was born in Fulek on 6 October 1892. We cannot help you, because we keep the microfilm of parish registers created in the present territory of Hungary, and Fulek (Filakovo) now belongs to Slovakia. You should apply to the Slovakian Archives.
- You just know that your ancestor was born in Szabolcs county in 1870. This is not enough to find the record, because there were more than one hundred parishes in that county at the end of the 19th century.
- You just know that your ancestor was born in Kistelek (Csongrad county) in the seventies or eighties of the last century. This means that we should look through the registers from 1870 to 1889 (20 years), and we cannot tackle it.
- You just know that your ancestor was born in Szekesfehervar in 1888. Szekesfehervar is a relatively big city in Hungary, at that time there were 11 parishes belonging to different churches. In order to find the record we should browse more than 100 pages, and we have no time to do it.
- You just know that your ancestor belonged to the Reformed Church, and died in Tata in 1911. We cannot help, because we keep the register up to 1895. You should apply to the church.
- You know that your Roman Catholic ancestor was born in Szabadbattyan (Fejer county) in 1892. Since we have to examine just a few pages, we can do the job.
Summing up: in order to find the data without a time consuming research work, we have to know the religion, the exact date and place of birth, marriage or death of the person looked for. The most important is the place-name. As regards the rest the necessity of accuracy also depends on the size of the locality: the bigger it was, the more precise data we need. What can you do if you are not local resident, so you are not in the position to visit the research room of the National Archives of Hungary? In such a case we recommend that you look for a genealogist (e.g. on the net), and charge him/her to do the job.
In this Home Page (under the menu Databases – Parish Registers) an on-line database is available. We have a large parish register collection on microfilm which contains 4 million frames, and you can have access to the data of this collection by the database. You cannot find personal names in the database, you can only see whether the locality you look for has registers or not, if yes, what kind of registers (e.g. Roman Catholic and reformed, birth and marriage registers) are available, the year range and the microfilm numbers.
The place of family register\'s research is our 3rd building at Óbuda, 3rd district, not in the castle area. You can register in each of our three buildings, but in case of registers\' research please register directly in Óbuda at our 3rd building.
