The Maramaros/Maramures Jewish Records Indexing Project

The Máramaros/Maramureş County Jewish Records Indexing Project www.MaramarosJewishRecords.com This slidedeck was originally presented at the IAJGS conference, July 2010; last updated in December, 2011 Brooke Schreier Ganz [email_address] @Asparagirl

The previous status of Romanian vital records access (pre-2005)

The current status of Romanian vital records access (post-2005)

The current status of Romanian vital records access (post-2005)
Open to everybody.
No prior permission needed from Bucharest.
You can request up to five record books per day, per person. Bring a friend, get more records!
You can photograph as many pages as you like within those five books, for free (but you bring the camera).
You can Xerox as much as you like, too, but you’ll pay a few cents per copy.
You cannot post the images on the Internet.
Access has not been granted to the Mormons (LDS) to microfilm or scan the records. Private researchers only.

History of Máramaros megye (county)
Pre-1920: Part of NE Hungary, sometimes considered to be part of Transylvania.
1920-WWII: Southern half became Maramureş county (note the new spelling!), Romania; northern half became part of Czechoslovakia
1939: Part of northern section extremely briefly declared its independence as the Republic of Carpatho-Ukraine
WWII: Both halves (Czechoslovakia and Romania) occupied by Hungary, briefly re-creating the county, with slightly different borders
Today: half of old territory in sub-Carpathian Ukraine (Zakarpattia oblast), half in NW Romania (Maramureş county)

Máramaros megye (county) (Kingdom of Hungary)

Maramureş judeţ (county) (Romania)

Maramureş local region

Where are the records kept?
41 local branches of the Romanian National Archives.
Baia Mare (formerly called Nagybánya ) is the local archive branch for Maramureş county, Romania…
… even though Baia Mare didn’t use to be part of the old Máramaros county, Hungary. (County lines shifted slightly, too.)
Baia Mare also holds records for some small Ukrainian towns that used to be in Máramaros county, Hungary…
… but not all of them, mainly just the little ones that are close to Sighet, which all shared a rabbi in charge of their records.
No records in Baia Mare for the city of Khust (Huszt), Ukraine, for example.

What kinds of records exist?
Before October 1895: each religious community kept its own vital records.
Jewish records are kept by a rabbi who manages several towns in a district.
After October 1895: civil registration starts.
Everybody in a given town is recorded in the same civil records book, regardless of religion.
Some religious communities continue to keep their own records anyway, but they ’re not considered official.

What kinds of records exist?
Privacy laws in Romania: civil records are only open to the public after 100 years have passed (similar to Poland).
Therefore, civil records are currently open for research in Romania from 1896-1911, because 2011 – 100 years = 1911.
But this project is only going to look at the exclusively-Jewish records (for now), so we ’re only concerned with the old pre-1896 record books, not the post-1896 civil records.

Do they have my town’s records?
There is no central repository, no index, and no database that has this answer!
No, it’s not in Miriam Weiner’s “Routes to Roots” database or books, and no, it’s not on JewishGen.
The Romanian National Archives website can tell you where your local archive branch is (41 local branches in all), but their lists of archive holdings do not include much detail about their vital records.
The individual local archive branches can often provide an index list of their vital records holdings, but those lists are often out-of-date and incomplete.

The existing finding aids stink
The Baia Mare archives has a list of (mostly) pre-1896 religious records, which was apparently typed up by archivists in 1972.
They also have two lists of their civil vital records holdings from 1896-1906, which was presumably typed up in 2006.
You or a researcher can telephone the local archives branch and they can tell you what they have over the phone, but they’ll just be working off of the incomplete index list they have.

The 1972 religious records index list at the Baia Mare archives
You can search by town name, or search in numerical order of register book number.
Records in the list are grouped by town name, then by religion, then by type of record, then by years covered.
Often only the largest town ’s name is listed and smaller towns may NOT have their records recorded in the index, although they’re in the book. But you have to check yourself to make sure.
Several misspellings of formerly-Hungarian-but-now-Ukrainian towns ’ names show up – it can be confusing!
The story of Ruscova (Ruszkova) vs. Repedea (Ruskirva)

Here’s what that 1972 religious records index list looks like ( “Israel.” = Jewish records; “Ref.” = Reformed Church records, “Gr. Cat.” = Greek Catholic records, etc.)

Don’t judge a book by its cover Here’s an example of a book that the 1972 index says contains “ Berbesti ” records. But when you look inside, you find about 20 more small towns ’ records that weren ’ t listed in the index!

So I made my own index, part 1
I had to keep all the names straight – main column was modern-day town name, which could be either Romanian or Ukrainian
I used the official Google Maps version of the Ukrainian names, since you can transcribe Cyrillic multiple ways
I added one or two alternate town names, usually the old Hungarian version(s).
Then I added the Yiddish town names (written in the Hebrew alphabet) and/or the transliterated-from-Yiddish town names.
Example: Giuleşti = Gyulafalu = Gyulafalva = ז ' יולשט

So I made my own index, part 2
I added the name of the jaras (district) the town was in as of 1882.
I added the modern-day country name.
I added the individual book information: the book number, the record type (birth, marriage, death, census/other), and the years covered.
I created entries for book acquisition status (photographed yet?), book transcription status (transcribed yet?) and database status (online yet?).

Warning: this part is geeky
I exported my spreadsheet to a CSV and turned it into a MySQL database, which I put online.
I pulled the MySQL data into a PHP file on a simple website, and wrapped the generated table in a free javascript add-on called DataTables that handles automatic pagination (to make the page easier to read).
The plugin also lets you search on designated columns, so I made hidden fields that had the town name text in them, but stripped of accent marks, so it can be searchable without accents.

And I put it online!

And I put it online!
I bought my own domain name: www.MaramarosJewishRecords.com
This helped me gain PageRank for key terms associated with the project that people might be searching. Also looks nice on flyers to donors.
Want a copy of my code for your own indexing project? No problem, just let me know.
You need: web hosting that supports PHP, MySQL hosting, and a very basic knowledge of phpMyAdmin or other MySQL data importing capabilities to upload your CSV. Nothing crazy.

Show me the books!

Birth record: Example #1 Register Book #270 – multiple towns’ BMD records from 1851-1853 (Label on the front cover of the book)

Birth record: Example #1 Register Book #270 – multiple towns ’ BMD records from 1851-1853 (Full-size view)

Birth record: Example #1 Register Book #270 – multiple towns’ BMD records from 1851-1853 (Zoomed-in view of the headings, which are in German)

Birth record: Example #1 Register Book #270 – multiple towns’ BMD records from 1851-1853 (Zoomed-in view of the data, left side of page)

Baby ’s first name is listed, followed by a surname if it’s a boy and no surname if it’s a girl
The surname is usually, but not always, the same as the father ’s surname
Some fathers don ’t have surnames yet!
Baby ’s exact date of birth is listed
Baby ’s gender is listed
Baby ’s parents’ marital status is listed (but it’s often a meaningless distinction – civil marriages were rare)
Baby ’s father’s name is listed

Birth record: Example #1 Register Book #270 – multiple towns’ BMD records from 1851-1853 (Zoomed-in view of the data, right side of page)

Baby ’s mother’s first name is listed, but almost never with a surname in these early records
Baby ’s town of birth is listed
The midwife ’s name is listed (but usually no surname is given in early records)
The date of the Brit Milah is given for boys, and the date of the official naming is given for girls
Baby boy ’s “Godfather” (we presume they mean the Sendak at the Brit Milah) is listed – can be genealogically useful!
Baby girl ’s “Godfather” not listed in early records – but often is listed later on
Sometimes the name of the Rabbi who performed the Brit Milah is listed

Birth record: Example #2 Register Book #1519 – Sacel’s birth records from 1886-1895 (Full-size view)

Birth record: Example #2 Register Book #1519 – Sacel’s birth records from 1886-1895 (Zoomed-in view of the headings, which are in Hungarian, and left side of page)

Birth record: Example #2 Register Book #1519 – Sacel’s birth records from 1886-1895 (Zoomed-in view of the headings, which are in Hungarian, and right side of page)

Birth record: Example #2 Register Book #1519 – Sacel’s birth records from 1886-1895 (Note the parents’ town names!)

Towns aren’t everything!
People moved around A LOT. Much more than you think.
Judging from the marriage records that have been transcribed so far, the normal thing to do was to marry someone from outside the village – in which case your relative may show up in that other town ’s marriage records book.
So if “your” town’s book can’t be located…don’t worry!
The same surnames show up all over the place. Not a lot of variety…

Birth record: Example #3 Register Book #39 – Baia Mare ’s birth records from 1886-1915

Birth record: Example #3 Register Book #39 – Baia Mare ’s birth records from 1886-1915 Yup, that ’s a mix of Hungarian and Hebrew in the official book headings!

Birth record: Example #3 Register Book #39 – Baia Mare ’s birth records from 1886-1915 Beila (in Hebrew) = Izabella (in Hungarian); Leah = Lili; Hebrew and Hungarian dates, etc.

Marriage record: Example #1 Register Book #1231 – Moisei’s marriage records from 1886-1895

Marriage record: Example #2 Register Book #270 – Sighet area marriage records from 1851-1853

Marriage record: Example #2 Register Book #270 – Sighet area marriage records from 1851-1853 Some grooms have surnames and some don ’t. Brides do not have surnames listed. Often time, bride’s fathers do not have surnames listed either. Groom’s mother’s name and bride’s mother’s name not listed. Very frustrating.

Death record: Example #1 Register Book #429 – Borsa death records from 1886-1896

Death record: Example #1 Register Book #429 – Borsa death records from 1886-1896 Married women are often listed by their MAIDEN name, which is annoying. But some records, like this one, give their spouse ’s surname also. The names of the deceased’s parents are sometimes given, too.

Census: Example #1 Register Book #1597 – Seini ’s census/index of Jewish households, 1784 – 1885 (probably collated in the mid-1800’s)

Census: Example #1 Register Book #1597 – Seini ’s census/index of Jewish households, 1784 – 1885 (probably collated in the mid-1800’s) Berger, Emanuel  Beregi, Emil

Current project status
Approximately fifty volunteer transcribers
Found through JewishGen, through word of mouth, through web searches for town names
Chunks of the books are doled out and spreadsheets sent back to me for review
31 books completed so far, 43 books in progress
Completed books will go online on JewishGen’s Hungary and Romania databases…
… but not yet. Need a critical mass of records first.
People who transcribe >500 records or who donate $100 (or more) to project through JewishGen will get copies of every spreadsheet, even before they go online!

Number the stars
Estimated total number of records in these 113 pre-1896 Jewish record books, once completed:
53,000 records
Estimated total number of (non-unique) names in records – keeping in mind that some, like the later birth and marriage records, have more info.:
200,000 names
(maybe more)

Bang for your genealogical buck
~53,000 records divided by ~$2,500.00 =
~21 records for every dollar spent
In contrast, some other genealogy projects may assume costs of a dollar or more per record!

What ’s next – for you?
Start an indexing project for YOUR town or county in Romania!
(Szatmar / Satu Mare researchers, are you listening?)
Pool resources with other researchers!
Do it NOW before the laws change again!
Set these records free!

THANKS.

The Maramaros/Maramures Jewish Records Indexing Project

by Brooke Ganz on Aug 14, 2010

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