Finding Your Donauschwaben Roots

How to Research Your Donauschwaben Family Tree

Genealogical Aids - Essentials for your research

Creating a Name Authority File for Family History Research [A short essay on "how to decide on the correct notation of names in family trees by Dolores Jungheim Barber]

Village Reference Books - Are published resources relating to a villages & its families (for research & lookups).

Village Family Books, known as Ortssippenbuch, Familienbuch or Ortsfamilienbuch:  Ort means place; Sippe means kinship or tribe; Buch means book. Should list all of the families of that particular village with their genealogical data in alphabetical order. All genealogical connections known to the author should be given.

Heimatbuch: Tells the history of the village and only a few of them provide all of the names of inhabitants in former times.

Bildband: Mostly pictures but may contain village information. 

General Volunteer Look-up Request- This section is for non-region specific lookups.

What's a Lookup? & Manners for Requesting Lookups - Please read prior to requesting a lookup.

Emigrant Reference Books

Alsace-Lorraine / Elsaß-Lothringen

Austria-Hungary - including a collection of Maps & Atlases

Emigration & Immigration Records

Census Records

Surname changes in Hungary 1800-1893

Totenbuch der Donauschwaben (Death Roll)

Guidelines for the compilation & layout of Family Books

Affiliate Programs

External Links

Emigration & Immigration

For the Donauschwaben researcher, both "emigrate" and "immigrate" apply to both movements of our ancestors.  It just depends on how you are discussing the process.  Even though our ancestors left one place within the Austro-Hungarian Empire, they were still emigrating from their native homeland, to a new home in the Banat or Batschka.  On their arrival, they were immigrating to a new place.  These two words are often used interchangeably, but they have different meanings:

Emigrate - to leave one country or region to settle in another.  Example: they emigrated from Lorraine and immigrated to the Banat.

Emigrant Reference Books

Immigrate - to enter and settle in a land to which one is not native.  Example: they emigrated from the Batschka and immigrated to the US.

Immigration & Passenger Records

Einwanderungszentralstelle (EWZ) Anträge: records of ethnic Germans applying for German citizenship during the period 1939-45

Ausland Institut Index Cards: Index card compilations by the Ausland Institut in Germany in the 1930's are also available on numerous microfilm rolls from the FHL. Some examples:

  • Ansiedlerorte (settlements) Batschka-Ungarn circa 1686-1830: Films 1326491, 1326493
  • Emigrants to Hungary: 1750-1945: Films: 1552795
  • German Emigrants to Hungary and Russia: 1755-1805: Films 1340060, 1340061
  • Kartei der Auswanderer in den Ostgebieten (Archive of Settlements in the East): 1750-1943: Films 539248

US Citizens & Immigration Services - The official INS provides instructions on "How to Make a FOIA or PA Request"

About Ethnicity [The DVHH does not necessarily endorse findings at the following external links, but merely providing our readers optional theories and reading.]:

Race, Ethnicity and Administration in Early 18th-Century Habsburg Hungary (PDF) by William O’Reilly, National University of Ireland, Galway

"Double Identity: Being German and Hungarian at the Same Time" by Györgyi-Elisabeth Bindorffer www.mek.iif.hu/porta/szint/tarsad/szocio/identity/identity.htm  

Migration, identity and loyalty. The changes in the identity structures of Germans living in Hungary by Györgyi-Elisabeth Bindorffer www.mtaki.hu/docs/ter_es_terep_04/t_e_t_04_bindorffer_gyorgyi_summary.htm  

NO LANGUAGE, NO ETHNICITY? Ethnic Identity, Language & Cultural Representation among Hungarian Germans by Györgyi-Elisabeth Bindorffer- http://www.mtaki.hu/docs/bindorffer_gyorgyi_no_language_no_ethnicity.pdf

Transmission and preservation of memory in ethnic minority context Traditions, oral history and cultural memory by Györgyi-Elisabeth Bindorffer www.mtaki.hu/docs/bindorffer_gyorgyi_transmission_preservation.pdf

Surname changes in Hungary 1800-1893 -

KlimoTheca digital library has now made the pages of Zoltán Szentiványi's Hungarian surname change book (that was used for compiling this database) available online.
http://kt.lib.pte.hu/cgi-bin/kt.cgi?konyvtar/kt04112203/index.html
Click on Tartalomjegyzék and the starting letter of the surname to start browsing.

Totenbuch der Donauschwaben (Death Roll) -

The genocide of the Germans in Yugoslavia between 1944 and 1948 ... The Danube-Swabian Association (DAG) has published this documentation in the Internet for documentation in the Internet for making it accessible to all interested persons, particularly to our young generation.  Online Search Surname or Village: English | Deutsch

The German-Hungarian (Donauschwaben) Family Calendar Magazine -

Subscriber List for Mercer County, NJ (Deutsch-Ungarischer Familien Kalender, National Weeklies, Inc., Winona, MN, 1936 & 1942 Issues) Transcribed by Dennis J. Bauer, 23 February 1999 - There are 2 sections listed: Trenton, Roebling and other Mercer Co towns. [USGENWEB ARCHIVES]

Deutsch-Ungarisher Familien Kalenders -

Peter Schmidt subscription lists for the years 1932 though 1940, 1942, 1947 and 1948 are currently available on this web site and linked to the City Index and the Direct Links. Dave Dreyer's Extraction Database included.

Austrian State Archives -

Österreichisches Staatsarchiv (Kriegsarchiv) - Under the Bundesarchivgesetz 1999 (sec. 4,1) the Austrian State Archives are obliged to keep a “register of archives” available on the Internet “to improve possibilities for use”.  The Register of Archives is an overview of the Austrian Bundesarchive (federal archives), Landesarchive (archives of the provinces or Länder), Kommunalarchive (archives of cities or communities) and private archives, their holdings and conditions of use. Contacts are listed under the relevant entries.

Austrian National Library

Great Patriotic War 1941-1945, Prisoner of War / Forced Labor - Application Form for archival information, archival copies of the newsletter on the fact of abduction for forced labor during the Great Patriotic War. Site is in Russian www.statearchive.ru/401 but click here for the Google Translation of Link (Russian to English).  Below are translations of the application:

Full name (as in passport). The full name of the organization requesting the archival record

address of residence,
telephone number (office or home)

Reply

Where was (a) exported (a) (permanent residence at the time of exportation: region, district, village council, village (village), village or town of the former USSR)

Who was (a) exported (a) (close relatives). Give full names, middle name, date of birth

Where was (ACLs) (country, city, company name, organization or place of detention)

Where and when he returned (ACLs) (Data. area and the area of the former USSR)

In some archival institutions accessed

Census Records

Ungarische Urbarialtabellen von 1768 (Land Census) & 1768 Urberi Tabellak

Hungarian Property Tax 1828 Land Census

The Hungarian Property Tax 1828 Land Census Germans & Hungarians Extractions by Martha Remer Connor

Hungarian Names of Villages & Cities & LDS / Family History Center Microfilm Numbers: Temes County | Torontál County | Bács-Bodrog

1891 Taxable Census of Hungary: More information about the craftsmen and shopkeepers included in this census, including surnames - available at Radix.

Search all the DVHH hosted sites

http://www.dvhh.org WWW

Last updated: Friday August 19, 2011 

  
 
 

Region-specific Research:

Regional Village Indexes:

German to English Translations for Ordering from German Book Dealers

Find a Village Book

Antiquariat Dipl.-Ing.
Ralf Einhorn
Telefon: 03588203369
Fax: 03588200221
 Ordering (in English) / E-mail

Search Ralf's site by Village / Town / City:
 A B C D E F G H I J K L M
N O P Q R S T U V W Z

Search by Region:
Banat
Batschka
 Sathmar
Slawonien
Syrmien
Schwäbische Türkei

Inserting German characters: On a PC - Hold down the "Alt" key & punch in numbers on the numeric keypad on the right: 
ä = 132 | Ä= 142 | ö= 148 | Ö=153 | ü=129 | Ü=154 | ß=225

Pedigree Chart

Where to Look for Hard-To-Find German-Speaking Ancestors in Eastern Europe: Index to 19,720 Surnames in 13 Books, with Historical Background on Each Settlement -By Bruce Brandt, Edward Reimer Brandt; Compiled by Bruce Brandt, Edward Reimer Brandt.  Published by Genealogical Publishing Com, 1995.  ISBN 0806345306, 9780806345307. 148 pages

 

Last updated:
19 Aug 2011
 

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Last Updated: 04 Aug 2011
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