Day 9 - The Last Day

One of the things that I've thought about since I've been writing this blog, is that I am absolutely certain that everyone involved in this trip who is reading this, Zora, Erzsi, Zsolti and Renata, Diane and Marton, will have seen things very differently than I have. I know that for a fact because when we get back to the flat each day, Diane and I briefly discuss what we did, and at times we've come up with different things. And the way I remember what happened along the way, and how it happened, is different than what she remembers. So I'm sure that this will began the expected family fights about what happened, and why someone did this and didn't do that, and why did you say that, and why did you turn right when you should have turned left, and why did you let them pay for this, etc. Ahhhh, family! :-)

We Begin to End
Today is our last day here in Budapest as tomorrow we get on a flight at 7am for home. Ugh. Can't wait to get up at about 3am - not. I am writing this at several times throughout the day so I don't have to stay up until 12am or 1am trying to craft something that others might find interesting enough to read, and maybe laugh about, or cry about, or look dumbfounded, as the case may be.

I needed to meet Erzsi at the Jewish Archives on Sip utca at 8am to see the vital records for Budapest. Diane wasn't going with me - she's on her own today to do some shopping by herself - surprise, surprise. But we would travel together to the same neighborhood where she would be starting her shopping exercise and where I would be gazing at family records (Diane might call it grazing.) So we got up early, did our thing, and left together. I only had half a cup of tea before we left (I miss the strudel,) so when we got to the Deak ter station, we stopped for coffee.

One thing that they do slightly different here in the downtown area is that they make pretty sure that the WC is used only for customers. Some places have a person guarding the bathrooms asking to see a copy of the purchase receipt (well, at least it's a job), but this place had an electronic door lock. You get your receipt, and at the bottom, literally, is a toilet code. And that's the security code you enter to get into the bathroom. Ours was "Toilet code: 1987#." Of course, that means that you can't just walk in to the store and go to the WC before you make your purchase. So you have to stand on line, wiggling and jiggling doing the "I gotta go" dance, while making a decision on what to purchase. Then, you have to find a spot to sit, and put all of your stuff down; purse, shopping bags, coffee, cake, etc, and then get up again to go to the toalett (like all of the ways they describe the bathroom here?) Not sure how the ladies do it who have a ton of packages and travel alone? It's gotta be a painful experience.

We finished our coffee, kissed goodbye, and headed in opposite directions. We made sure that Diane had everyone's contact information, just in case. Up until now, she was depending upon me for traveling and calling when necessary.

I get to the address on Sip utca and Erzsi is already there waiting for me. We check in with security and head upstairs to where the records are kept. It's a small office with 2 middle-aged ladies sitting and chatting. One of them could have been my mother several years ago. However, mom never spoke Hungarian, nor was she as lazy as these 2 seemed to be. In any case, I don't think they spoke a lick of English, so Erzsi did her thing. Although I don't speak Hungarian, I could tell that these ladies seemed to be annoyed that we were there asking them to do their job. And when they left the room for a moment, Erzsi confirmed my suspicion by telling me the same thing I was thinking.

Now being the idiot that I am on occasion, this being one of them, I didn't do much preparation with names and dates, etc. I was just going to wing it. Erzsi, on the other hand, is an experienced, methodical, professional, research scientist in particle physics, and so she took me to task for not being prepared - through giving me a motherly glance, you know, the kind the says "you have been a bad boy!"  In all honesty, I really didn't know what to expect, so I brought my laptop that has all of the family data. So I was prepared, sort of. But Erzsi came to the rescue because she had some of the basic info already written down on paper. This room in the Sip utca archives is not bogged down by computer servers or electronic search engines, databases, or iPads or iPhones, only people and paper - and I believe there was a typewriter there as well.

After some additional discussion, the ladies told us that all of the information they have has already been photographed by the Mormons for the Family History Library, and is freely available. In that case, I already have all of it - ugh. But Erzsi suggested that we should see the original books since we are already there, so I wrote down a few names and dates, and the ladies went into the back room to take the books out of one of the two large, old, heavy wooden cabinets.

They invited us into the room that is pretty small, but has enough space for the cabinets housing the original record books, a table and a desk. So the ladies opened several books to the pages that had our family names. We asked if there was a cost to photograph the pages, when one of the ladies said something to Erzsi, and the other shook an old plastic soup container at me that had a few coins on the bottom - like the containers that you get in the Chinese restaurant for takeout, but with a slot on the top for coins. Obviously, it would be ok to just donate a small amount to the archive. I can live with that.

So I take pictures of the entries for my family with the help of the ladies - some births of a few Zeisler children, and the one for the baroness, Caroline Melanie Weiner, born in 1865. About 9 photos in total. Then we are done and I ask Erzsi how much should I donate? She replied to me that they normally charge so much for a page when they do it (I don't recall the exact amount,) and therefore I should donate about 20,000 HUF - about $100!!! Ahem, choke, gag, and other throat-clearing sounds...I'm not so sure that I want to "donate" $100 for something I already had, and didn't really need. On top of that, I didn't have that much money with me. After giving Diane some money this morning, I only had about $50 left over, about 10,000 forints. So after asking Erzsi again if that was the right amount to "donate," I agreed and Erzsi loaned me the difference. The ladies thanked us, laughed hysterically behind our backs as to the success of their con game, and we left. I really don't have a problem donating money to the archives as it is a very good cause, but I would have liked to have known ahead of time what I was getting myself into. Well, that's what you get when you are 1) unprepared 2) don't know the language. Sheesh. We then sat down outside the room for a few minutes to discuss our next foray into the deep, dark, and confusing land of Hungarian genealogy. Next up, the archives at the Dohany synagogue to check out the burial records for Gyongyos. But that's not until 2pm and it was only 10:30, so I headed back to the flat where I am writing this now.

Birth records from 1881. Bottom listing is for Jeno Zeisler, my grandfather's older brother who died before my grandfather was born in 1884. Of course, most of the photos came out blurry - at least for the names I'm interested in. Can't win.

At 2pm I met Erzsi at the Dohany synagogue to see if we could locate and look through the death records for Gyongyos. Heading into the synagogue grounds, we asked where we needed to go. The girl pointed us in the direction, and we went through the gate and straight ahead. Wherever she thought we wanted to go, wasn't where we wanted to go. So we headed back and asked again. This time she pointed us towards the museum part of the synagogue, a 90 degree left turn from the previous one, and we headed that way.  

Erzsi spoke with the guards at the museum entrance, and after a somewhat lengthy discussion in Hungarian, they pointed us upstairs. One of the guards joined us to make sure we got to where we wanted to go. It was a good thing because the upstairs is a catacombs of twists and turns and going up some stairs and going down some stairs. It was really cool because I got to see the temple from behind the upstairs balcony, not a place they usually take the tourists, like me. We found the archive squirreled away way in the far back corner, and told one of the archivists what we were looking for - the burial records for Gyongyos. We settled in while one of them brought us the record books.

The records start in 1846, but I glanced at the one they gave me and it was the birth records. I hadn't really thought about researching the births for Gyongyos, but that was cool. I asked about the burial records and they brought those down as well. Again, they begin in 1846. 

I had really hoped to photograph all of the records, but seeing as it was my last day in Budapest, and we only had two hours at most, and the birth records are huge, that wasn't going to happen. 

So Erzsi started researching the death records while I went through the birth records. I was looking for any Ungar or Zeisler. Several people who subscribe to H-Sig (the Hungarian special interest group - a part of JewishGen - a Jewish genealogy organization) had asked me to tell them if I came across this name or that name. Unfortunately, since time was so short, I wasn't able to do that at all. I barely had time to look for my own family records. Of course, this had to happen on my last day here - and for only 2 hours!

I found no solid information that would link any of the Ungar births to my family, but there are numerous Ungar births between 1846 and 1875 when this record book ended. There was only 1 Zeisler birth, and there may be a connection. But that will require a bit more research when I get home.

With regards to burials, there were no Ungar burials at all. None. It's a bit funny because my gg-grandmother, Josephine Ungar Zeisler, was born in Gyongyos in 1827, so one would think that someone from the family, either her mother or father or a sibling, would have died there. Not between 1846 and 1876. I ran out of time (only had 2 hours) and therefore wasn't able to go any further, but I did complete the books that I had been given. Erzsi had to leave early, about 30 minutes prior to closing, so we said our final goodbyes for this trip. She was a lot of fun and hugely helpful for a third-cousin once removed. She even paid for half the "donation" from our trip this morning. What more can one ask? 

However, there is one bright light to all of this. As I mentioned previously, one of my goals was to photograph the record books. I confirmed that the Mormons have not gotten their hands on these books, and in speaking with one of the archivists who had previously lived in Washington, DC for several years, he suggested that it might be possible, with the 90 year exception, to photograph the records. So that's something to consider for another time.

It's about 7:30pm here now, I'm very tired, and have to catch the bus at 4:20am. Since we've just completed a great dinner created by Zora, I am going to pack, and then go to bed.

Not sure if I'll be able to blog tomorrow as it'll be a very long day, and I'm sure I'll be exhausted by the time I get home. However, I do plan on writing again once or twice to tell about our trip home,  to summarize it all, and to remind you of all the fun we've had along the way with our friends the strudel and palinka and shopping and Erzsi and Zora, one last time. 

Jó éjt, boldog álmok. (Good night and happy dreams.)