Celebrating Blogiversary #2

It has been two years since I started this blog and I have learned a tremendous amount about my husband's ancestry. I would like to share some of the resources I have discovered and/or rediscovered during these past two years.

Hungarian records are relatively easy to find, with civil records from October 1895 forward online at FamilySearch.org and Jewish records before October 1895 on microfilm at the Family History Library (click here to search the catalog). I have learned how to rent these microfilms and have learned a great deal about the family of Bubbie Lena, my husband's paternal grandmother. Among other records, I have shared the March 10, 1909 marriage record for my husband's grandparents, my husband's Bubbie Lena's birth record from Bonyhád, found her siblings born in Bonyhád, and in upcoming blog posts, I will continue to share what I have found out about Bubbie Lena's mother's family in Hőgyész, Tolna, Hungary.

JewishGen is a tremendous resource for Jewish genealogists. I'm sure I have only taken advantage of a few of its resources. The JewishGen Gazetteer contains the names of one million localities in 54 countries in Europe, North Africa, the Middle East, and Central Asia. I blogged about looking for Erdevick and Illok, Hungary at JewishGen. More recently I learned about JewishGen's ViewMate, which I explained in detail how to use to request translations for family gravestones.

JewishGen also has an online Worldwide Burial Registry which has helped me find burial locations for a few family members. This works with FindAGrave, where I can enter a memorial and request that a volunteer take a photograph of a gravestone for me. (See my Handler memorials at FindAGrave.)

I also recommend JewishGen's Reading Hebrew Tombstones to anyone trying to decipher the Hebrew on a tombstone.

I have met some fellow bloggers and Jewish genealogy researchers on Facebook, where I have found a Jewish genealogy group and a Hungarian genealogy group. These friends have been very helpful in translating handwritten records that I have found in my microfilm searching. Being able to share electronic images is great. I am also grateful for cousins who have contacted me and shared information - one second cousin on the Handler side, and another second cousin on the Segel / Siegel side.

I have also enjoyed sharing other information - newspaper articles, census records, naturalization records, passenger lists - from a variety of other websites.

Thanks for reading!