Apostag and Kalocsa

 Apostag

I mentioned earlier in this series that at least that at least ten of the Bauers in Kunszentmiklos had been born in Apostag and there are quite a few Bauer records there. So I figured we should have a look at the ~400 graves there, just to see what shows up.

That became our Sunday project, partly because the cemetery in Apostag has a coded lock and there is no need to bother anyone about a key on a Sunday. We began Sunday a bit later than usual as the Steelers played Saturday night and I stayed up for that.

This was definitely a fishing expedition. We did not know which Bauers are buried there. We did not know the condition of the tombstones - certainly the older ones.

We let ourselves in and walked around for a couple of hours, seeing some families we recognized but no Bauers. A lot of stones in poor condition but many of which were easily legible. Just not of interest.

Gaspar Bauer

And as we had already discovered, many Hungarian tombstones do not reveal the father's name. So even if we were to find Bauer graves, they might not tell us anything useful. It made for a frustrating way to start the week.

In the end, we did find one Bauer - Gaspar/Tanhum, who died 9 August 1930 at age 69. Which tells us exactly nothing.

Apostag

Kalocsa

I was ready to go back to Dunaujvaros but Rona wanted to get more of a feel for the places my ancestors had lived, so we went back to Kalocsa, the home of my third-great-grandparents Zelig and Bluma Stern. When we were there last week, I mentioned it to Linda - remember she and I had been here five years ago - and she said I should send her regards to Andrej from the Club Hotel, where we had stayed.

So Rona went looking for Andrej and found him with some effort. He definitely remembered Linda. (Linda is like that - memorable.) Andrej got into the car with us and directed us to the larger, newer, locked cemetery not far away and then took us to the shul. I took him home while Rona walked around and I actually managed to find her afterwards.

Then we went to the new cemetery. It was indeed locked, but the neighboring Hungarian cemetery was open and there was a breech in the wall between them and we pretty much walked right in.

And once into the Jewish cemetery, who is the first person we see? Ignacz Stern, the older  brother of my second-great-grandmother Fani Stern! Called Izak Leib after his paternal grandfather. We knew of Ignacz and his approximate age from his 1871 Kalocsa marriage record to Betti Schneider and now we know that he died at age 68 on 20 March 1905. According to the stone, this was "Esther Taynis," the way my grandmother always said it.

But there was one important bit of information that surprised me, on the very last line. "And his mother's name is Rivka." Not Bluma. We know that Fani (who was born maybe three-four years later) was the daughter of Bluma because it says so on her grave in Kunszentmiklos. And Fani herself is named for Bluma's mother.

Now it could be that there are errors on one or more of the tombstones. And it could be that Fani's mother was Rivka but Bluma brought her up so she was considered to be her mother by the family. And it could be that Bluma and Rivka are sisters, so Fani would be the mother of them both. But I am going to go with Occam's Razor here and say that Ignacz was the son of Rivka and the others were from Bluma. All of them, of course, the children of Zelig Stern.

Not all the stones in the new Kalocsa cemetery were in such pristine condition, but I was not able to identify and other Sterns. Nor did I see either of Fani's two younger married sisters.

But the Kalocsa cemetery had not yet given up all of its surprises. As I discussed earlier, Bluma is a Grunwald from Perkata. That's about seventy kilometers away today. Not very far but not close either.

There are a number of Grunwalds buried in this Kalocsa cemetery I cannot help but wonder if this is Blima's family. None that I can connect to Bluma, but it would not surprise me to know that there is a close connection. This will take some serious work in the Kalocsa records.

Grunwalds in the newer Kalocsa cemetery

Going Where Nana's Recent Ancestors Lived

My father's mother, Margaret/Miriam Rosenzweig, was born in Allegheny Pennsylvania - what is now Pittsburgh's North Side - in 1903. Her father, Moritz/Moshe Rosenzweig, arrived in the US first and her mother, Regina/Rivka, followed in 1902. With her came the five older children: Elvira (Aunt Ella) age 16, Siegfried (Uncle Fred) age 14, Sigmund age 11, Gyula (Uncle Julie) age 9 and Ilona (Aunt Helen) age 6. They were all born in Budapest.

In the 1910 census,  Moritz, Regina and their mothers and fathers are all listed as having been born in "(Hun) Magyar."

The first European document I ever ordered

But they came from two different areas. Moritz' father's Rosenzweigs and his mother's Zelinkas were from Trencin County in what is now northwest Slovakia. Both families were in Trencin County since at least the 1700s, in several towns.

Nana's grandparents are buried in Vag Bestercze. I want to visit them. This is the hundredth year since my great-great-grandfather died at ninety-six, but we do not have a date.

Moritz' wife Regina Bauer was born in Kunszentmiklos, south of Budapest, in 1870. I actually remember her. She used to give me M&Ms. I discussed her family at some length, here and here. There is a large set of Bauers who lived in Kunszentmiklos and who previously lived in Apostag. Regina's mother Feige Stern is from Kalocsa, a bit further south.

Nana's maternal grandparents and at least one uncle are in Kunszentmiklos and visiting them is particularly important. I'll explain why after I've been there.

So a year or so ago, I decided I was going and I asked my first cousin Linda to come with. Our fifth cousin Cyndi - on the Zelinka side - decided to join us and all of a sudden it's time to go. We are meeting Thursday in Prague.

But before that, on the way, I am going to Germany, a country I never expected to set foot in. As I reported here three short months ago, we just found the entire family of my maternal grandmother's older sister. The one who stayed behind in Moscow. ("We found" means my friend and colleague Galit Aviv Sisto in New Jersey, whose first language is Russian.) One of my newfound second cousins lives in Nuremberg, three and a half hours by bus from Prague. So I am starting there, with my second cousin Inna, her daughter and son-in-law Anna and Viktor, and their daughter Julia who is the only English-speaker among them. Julia's brother Ilya may or may not be able to come down from Frankfort, where he is studying. I have a DNA kit with me and of course photographs.

The idea of going to Germany is horrifying. But I have to swallow this frog. 

I hope to report on all of this as we go along. In the meantime, here is the plan.

Wednesday - Nuremberg
Thursday - bus to Prague
We may meet a Zelinka relative who lives in Prague. I am reading the Torah on Shabbat.
Sunday - pick up the rental car and head for Zilina, Slovakia, our headquarters for four days.
Thursday - Budapest. Three family graves in the city with Karesz Vandor, but mostly being tourists.

FANI STERN'S PARENTS

Nana had this photo on
display forever. My grand-
daughter knows it will be hers.

Click to enlarge

This is not about my grandmother's mother, Regina Bauer Rosenzweig, who appears here on the right. Or as we call her - "Nana's mother."

It isn't even about her parents Simon/Shemaya Bauer and Fani Stern.

It's about her grandparents, and in particular, her mother's parents.

But first a bit of background. The Bauers had seven children, all of whom lived to adulthood. The children were born and raised in Kunszentmiklos Hungary, where the Bauers lived. The Sterns were from Kalosca. All this I knew from Nana.

The map on the left shows a section of Hungary directly south of Budapest, including the towns I will be discussing here.

Some years ago, I acquired copies of all the Bauer records from Kunszentmiklos and organized them into a rudimentary outline. It was clear from those records that earlier Bauers had lived in Apostag, not far away and the whole lot of them seem to have moved in the same period, perhaps because of legal restrictions on where Jews could live. I have a set of Bauer records from Apostag, but have not done anything with them.

At the same time, I acquired the marriage record of Simon Bauer and Fani Stern.

The marriage in Kalosca on 29 January 1862, 19 Shevat 5612 of Simon son of Lasar Bauer, age 28, of Kunszentmiklos
and Fani daughter of Salomon Stern, age 21, of Kalosca. (Click to enlarge - it's the second  record on the page.)

This document gave me both the ages of the bride and groom and the names of their fathers. In the case of Simon's father Lasar, we have a Lazar Bauer in Kunszentmiklos, married to a Roza Lowenstein. Lazar was born in 1791 and died in 1867. They may be Simon's parents - or not. I have not recorded them as such, but have recorded that Simon's father is Lasar.

I searched Kalosca records for any Salomon Stern and I found a death and two births.

This Salomon Stern died in Kalosca in May 1862 at age 57. That was a few months after Fani's wedding. Fifty-seven is within the norm for Fani's father's age, but who knows if this is actually the right person! As I say in one of my lectures, even if I am quite sure this is the right person, once I record him as such, I won't re-examine it later. Nor will my research heirs, should I be so fortunate as to have any.

I also found two births for children of Salomon Stern, a daughter Sali in 1851 and a son Wilhelm in 1853. The earlier record is very poor quality, so I bring the one from 1853 here.

Wilhelm Stern, born in Kalosca, 2 February 1853 to Salomon Stern and Beti Grunwald

Now obviously it is tempting to say that our Fani Stern is the daughter of this same Salomon Stern and Beti Grunwald. But the truth is, even if we know that this is her father, we have no idea if Beti Grunwald - whose children were born nine and eleven years after Fani - is Fani's mother. Problem is, the Hungarian National Archives and LDS have Kalosca Jewish records only for the period 1850-1895, so we have no idea if there were children between Fani and the later two.

In preparing this blog, I had a discussion with Beth Long, a professional researcher in Budapest, and she explains that after 1895, all the records are part of the civil record, rather than the Jewish record. These records exist for Kalosca (as well as Kunszentmiklos) and can be searched. There are certainly deaths after 1895 for people born in the 1830s and 1840s, so perhaps we can find more there.

I'll get back to this a bit later. Meantime, here are some Jewish population numbers. In Kalosca, the Jews were 4-6% of the total population. These numbers are from Yad Vashem's Pinkas Kehillot.