----- Original Message -----
From: "alex p miller" <alex-miller@juno.com>
To: "H-SIG" <h-sig@lyris.jewishgen.org>
Sent: Thursday, July 10, 2003 2:44 AM
Subject: [h-sig] Research idea

Hello Friends,

When we get to the beginning of 1800's, most of us reach that thick brick
wall where the records seem to dissolve into the mist of bygone times.
Any breach in this wall is worth gold.

One ray of light seems to come >from death records. Here is a case:

My Müller gggfather was born in village 'X" in Zemplen county in 1826. I
have been trying to determine how long had his family been in this
village. The census of 1812 shows no Müllers, but there are 2 listings of
first names that could be candidates. He married and moved to another
village where he spent the rest of his life and where I have done a lot
of research. Here among some records I found the death certificate of a
certain Hani Heimlich who was born as Hani Müller, in village 'X' in
1816. That seems to prove with high level of certainty that the Müllers
were indeed in that village at the time of the 1812 census and I can
safely consider the two 'wild card' candidates as ancestors.

Creating county wide death databases would be a great tool to break
through the brick wall. I welcome an comments

Best regards,

Alex Miller, Reading, PA


Moderator VK: Alex has identified the problem that I consider to be the

biggest brick wall facing most of us who are researching Hungarian roots.
Based on census data collected by those very precise Austrians, we know that the substantial increases in the Hungarian Jewish population that took place during the late 18th and early to mid-19th century were the result of
in-migration. Many of our ancestors came >from Galicia during that period.
Thanks to Henry Wellisch, we now know that it is possible to trace our roots back to the late 18th century. How should we organize our resources to make this leap back in the history of Hungarian Jewry? Please give me your thoughts because this is clearly a matter worth discussion at the H-SIG business meeting in Washington. I hope to include input >from the many landsmen (and landswomen!) who participate in our discussions but can't join us in Washington. How shall we proceed?