Thanks to a Google ad on my site I was surprised to realize that one of the popular genealogical social networking sites, MyHeritage has launched their Hungarian language site, MyHeritage.hu. Looks like every bit of the interface has been translated to Hungarian. MyHeritage has been available in more than a dozen languages, and now, besides Hungarian, they offer the service in Ukrainian, Czech and Polish, too.

It was only a couple of months ago that Őseim.hu (MyAncestors.hu), an online Hungarian genealogy application started and it was only a couple of weeks ago that Családfalu, a genealogy and social networking service, came out with their beta. Családfalu is operated by Budapest-based professional genealogist, Péter Bárdossy.

Unfortunately none of these two Hungarian sites has proven to be an instant hit. Those Hungarians with experience in genealogy research (e. g. this post on the Csaladtortenet mailing list) haven't been bitten by the social networking bug enough and for those web savvies pampered with feature rich English language sites getting their feet wet in genealogy these two Hungarian sites were not juicy enough. At least this is the bottom line of the comments posted on the dot hu web2.0 cheerleader blog, Webisztán.

Is this the momentum for MyHeritage and similar sites? Paul Allen and others are enthusiastic. Here in Hungary there seems to be a burnout of iWiW users. iWiW is the Hungarian Facebook, an almost monopoly in social networking. Having collected all the possible friends and family users now start to wonder what the further real use of this site would be. Niche social networking activities might be the way go, including, of course, family (history). (Paul Allen's post about MyFamily's lost opportunity.)

The great thing about MyHeritage is the multilingual feature of their site. Thinking of all those gazillions of families with roots in Hungary now spread all over the world, this service has the potential of becoming a success.

Could MyHeritage and the Hungarian sites leave RadixForum in the dust? I don't know. With all the VC coming to MyHeritage, a brute force campaign on their side might be a real bash.

With blogging becoming a popular way to keep genealogy research "logs" I would like to collect the list of blogs relating to ancestry research in the "Hungarian" part of former Austria-Hungary. Wouldn't it be a nice addition to the blogroll on the right?

For a start here is a list of blogs that I know of, in no particular order:
- Descobrindo : The adventures of my ancestors in Hungary - Julian Hallai's new blog.
- 100 Years of America - the proud American descendant of a family from Legrad, Meďimurje, Croatia (Hungary's Zala County in the past), Lisa writes the family memory on both sides of the pond.
- Vereczki on Squidoo - JaguarJulie's stake, an almost blog about her Vereczki ancestry.
- Gen365 - renowned genealogy author and instructor Lisa Alzo, as an item on her New Year's resolutions list, ventured to document her own research by adding "a bit of genealogy every day".
- Megan's Roots World - beyond the focus on genetic genealogy, Roots Television and Ancestry.com Megan Smolenyak Smolenyak sometimes adds bits and pieces about her own Rusyn heritage, like this one: Did I marry my cousin?

Whose blog could be added? Your suggestions are welcome at my email, janos ..a..t.. bogardi.com! Thank you in advance.

Just sent off this to the Hungary-L @ Rootsweb. Great news for Zakarpattia buffs!

Hello folks,

Following the discovery of the appearance of the Greek Catholic Diocese in Uzhhorod (Ungvar) BMD microfilms in the Family History Library catalog back in Oct 2007 (wrote a blog entry about it that time), today's serendipious find is the continuation of the BMD records with the Reformed Church in former NE Hungary, Karpatalja.

These catalog items are really fresh, must not be older than one month. In some instances the microfilms must have been taken of the original registers (kept by the state archives), because the covered years often go back prior to the 1820s (when copy series were established).

To see the list of available films, check out this URL (and should it break into more than one line, paste it into one):
http://www.familysearch.org/Eng/Library/fhlcatalog/supermainframeset.asp? display=titlehitlist&keyword=Berehove Church records

My blog item from Oct 2007:
http://www.radixlog.com/archives/200710/2.htm

Happy researching,

Janos Bogardi / Radix.

Just saw the message by Jim L. on RootsWeb's Hungary-L. WorldVitalRecords.com (Ancestry.com founder's, Paul Allen's company) launched their World Collection today. One of the titles they offer is "Germans and Hungarians 1828 Land Census". According to the short info available on the site this database contains 400,000 record transcriptions from 25 counties. This is certainly the fruit of Martha Remer Connor's work.

There is a one-day 33% off from the price of the World Collection: $99.95 instead of $149.95. The census volumes in their original printed form cost between $15 and $35 each. I'd expect WorldVitalRecords.com them to lower the pricing in a few month's time, just in case the thirst for these Hungarian genealogy records could wait: After leaving Ancestry.com, Allen still felt the need to bring families together and to do it in a way that was affordable to families.