Craftsmen and shopkeepers in Hungary in 1891, according to the national census

In the second half of 1998 I started entering data of craftsmen and shopkeepers in Hungary in 1891. The source of data is a book, total of some 2000 pages, published in the 1890s. The book is based on the national census, accomplished in 1891, covering every settlement of the old Hungarian Kingdom. This means that data for territories that went to successor states in 1920:
parts of Austria, known as Burgenland
today's Slovakia
Sub-Carpathia
the western part of today's Romania, i.e. the historical Hungarian territory Transylvania
the Banat area (now in Romania and Yugoslavia)
the Bacska (partly in Yugoslavia)
parts of old Hungary's Zala County, now partly in Croatia and Slovenia
parts of old Hungary's Vas County, now partly in Slovenia and in the above mentioned Burgenland

and of course, the mother country, today's Hungary.

This is a really valuable resource, because genealogy research materials in some of the successor states are either non extant, destroyed, damaged or simply non accessible because of lack of archival control or because of restrictions on use.

The book gives its names in the alphabetical order of professions, then by settlements names. Thus, even if somebody knows the place of origin of his researched person, now knowing his profession would force him to check all the professions. This is due to the fact that the book does not have a personal name index.

Click here to see a sample page from the book.

When complete, I expect to have some 380,000 records in the database.

What data do the records cover? One record consists of person's name, place of residence and occupation. In case of a city, street and house number is usually given, as well.

This is not a par excellence genealogical database, since it mirrors the situation at one point in time, and does not have information on family members. Still, this can be a very good resource for genealogists.

I plan to complete entering the data by the end of August 1999. Since the same surname might be written in a couple of ways, clearing these alternative spellings need considerable work, too. The database will probably be fully available in September or October 1999.

Update, mid-December 1999: practically, all data has been entered, now I am working hard to set up the search interface and infrastructure. The database should be available for research in late December 1999 or early January 2000. I am sorry for the delay.

When complete, I plan to put all the data to the web, in a form of a database. To accomplish this, many and many hours have been / will be devoted to this project. Therefore, those who would like to utilize the full power of the database will be asked to send some modest reimbursement to my address. I am thinking of about 20 US Dollars, pricing policy has not been set up yet.

To get a taste what surnames are available already, I have created pages listing all the names. Please consider those naming alternatives. Until I come up with a soundex system or with some other solution, you should check all the alternative spellings you know of. Or, send me an email and I will try to find out the surnames that might meet your researched name. I do this for free.

New feature! Put your researched name(s) here and see on map what counties they were located in 1891            Hints for successful searches: - Use alternative spellings of the name, separated by spaces (e.g. Kovats Kovacs Kovach etc.)

And now please see the surnames that have been entered. I provide names in two forms: showing them with Hungarian accented letters, and, showing them without them. Numbers in parantheses show the numbers of occurences of individual surnames. This version covers 80% of the data. The remaining 20% is being added.