Membership Dues Reminder
2015 ZVA annual membership dues of $10 are based on the calendar year. Please check your dues status on the web site. Go to Your Profile in the user menu and look at the last item in the column on the right side of the page where it says “Dues paid to the end of: ____” If you have not yet paid for 2015, please remit your dues using one of the options described on the Membership page. From September on, I will credit new members for the following year. I will downgrade unrenewed members on the web site in April of each year to give you plenty of grace. We are continually adding new content to the Members Only parts of the site. If you are not connected to the Internet, just drop me a line at the address below and I will update you. Thanks for contributing to our common cause.
ZVA Web Site Upgrade
Our web site at http://zichydorfonline.org was experiencing a high level of spam registrations, leading to a lot of maintenance work and some inconvenience to users as the spammers cluttered up the user profiles. This and other issues led to the decision to upgrade our site from its base of five years ago. A seemingly simple process grew more complicated as one thing led to another. Many page s and functions had to be redesigned. Our old host site could not accommodate the requirements of the new software and we had to move to a new host. At long last, we are almost there. The new site should be fully functional, although there are still cases where things need a tweak to be more user-friendly. Please check us out and let me know through the site if you find anything that needs attention.
Copious thank yous to Mike O’Brien, who spent many hours configuring everything, coaching me through my role, and troubleshooting throughout the process.
Mailing List Duplication
When we upgraded our web site a few years ago to include registration, I used to send our newsletter to everyone registered on the site as well as to my old mailing list. For the last several letters I have sent it to only those registered on our site. This has the advantage of avoiding duplication for many of those who are registered, but the disadvantage of missing many people from the old list who have not seen fit to register. I am sending this letter to everyone on my old lists as well as those registered on our site. I apologize for any duplication. If you are not registered, but wish to continue receiving our news, please register on our site now (address below).
Saskatchewan Genealogical Society
The Saskatchewan Genealogical Society (SGS) is a leader in genealogy and family history in Saskatchewan and in Canada. It has the largest genealogical lending library in the country and provides many valuable resources that are not available anywhere else. In addition, it hosts our ZVA library.
The Society has run small deficits in recent years, accumulating a $40,000 debt that now requires urgent attention. The rise of online genealogy and the erosion of an aging membership has constrained revenue. The Society is working on a reorganization and other operational issues to match costs to revenues. However, interest on the debt remains an obstacle to breakeven operations. The Society has launched a campaign to Demolish the Deficit over the next four years or less. You can make a contribution to the Demolish the Deficit campaign by cash, cheque or credit card. And if you find it difficult to make a lump sum payment, you can use monthly post-dated cheques or pre-authorized monthly payments on your credit card. Contributions are tax deductible in Canada. For example a $20 per month pre-authorized withdrawal beginning now will get you an $80 tax receipt (in Canada) in 2015 and $240 tax receipt in 2016, etc. See the attachment below for a donation form.
Hungarian Cultural Heritage Portal
Follow this link – http://hungaricana.hu/en/ – to a database of Hungarian historical documents. Instructions are in English, but, of course, the documents are in Hungarian. Nonetheless, names and dates will be recognizable. And, there is a great collection of historical maps.
New in the Library
Familienbuch der katholischen Pfarrgemeinde Bethausen im Banat 1883-1990 by Josef Michels. Bethausen was a newer Banat village, only founded in 1883 about 60 km (40 mi) east of Temesvar by settlers from other Banat villages. Zichydorf was a major contributor to the settlement of this village. From a rough scan of the index of place names, Zichydorf was comparable only to Lugosch as a source of settlers with about 125 entries representing more than 300 people and was far ahead of most villages in the index. The book is full of familiar Zichydorf names such as Schönherr, Borschowa, Schneider, Debert, Fritz, Singer, Anwender, Wingert, Niessner, Froh, Pavle, Loos, Hadesbeck, Hornsberger, Krottenthaler, Herold, Stöber, Kleckner, Poling (Bolen), Zopf, Rambold, Keiner, Singer, and many, many more. A few nearby villages are also represented. As usual for these types of books, there are several indices, a map, and a village history, although it is in German.
Banat Road Maps
A few years ago, Höfer Verlag publishers in Germany released a modern day 1:200,000 scale road map of northern Banat. It contained great detail of local roads and drainage canals, the tiniest settlements, some of which no longer exist, and, most importantly, current and historic German place names. Unfortunately, it only reached as far south as the line Stefansfeld/Detta/Moritzfeld. At the end of a long and painstaking process, they have finally released the complementary map extending further south called Westbanat-Banater Bergland. I must confess to a small disappointment in that this map extends further east into the sparsely populated and minimally German mountainous area (Banater Bergland) and does not show the area west of the Theiss River up to Novi Sad/Neusatz. However, I can’t really quarrel, as it covers the technical area of Banat and the area west of the Theiss is actually Batschka. In any event, I find the detail of these maps very useful in understanding the circumstances of my Banat ancestors. To order these maps, go to http://hoeferverlag.de/onlineshop/rumaenien/index.php
Ortsfamilienbuch Werschetz
Someone recently posted this link to a Werschetz Familienbuch on one of the email listservers: http://www.online-ofb.de/werschetz/ Werschetz was the nearest city to Zichydorf, about 15 miles away. This site has family groupings for Werschetz, plus lists of other birth and death places of some residents. There are 305 listings with their birthplace as Zichydorf and 195 with their place of death as Zichydorf. In a quick check of Zichydorf people of interest to me, I found that these records duplicated those already available for Zichydorf. However, you might find new links here to people for whom you are looking.
Josef Wüst
Herr Wüst was the author of the Georgshausen history book. His family has created a Wikipedia entry for him at the URL https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josef_W%C3%BCst
Sorin Fortiu
In the last newsletter I said that plans had fallen through to bring Sorin Fortiu to the Mt. Angel conference in Oregon. Subsequent to that the situation changed and he will be attending (Sept. 17-20). Unfortunately, when the changes were made, the time frame made it impossible to coordinate a side trip to Regina.
1828 Hungarian Census
Martha Remer Connors’ index to 1828 Hungarian census is now online at the Family History Library. Zichydorf is in volume 3 – Torontal. It is quite a large file. It is probably advisable to download it to your hard drive and view it there. Find it at this URL https://familysearch.org/search/catalog/450353?availability=Family%20History%20Library
Saskatchewan Genealogy Society Spring Conference
The SGS Spring conference has been postponed to April 15-17, 2016 in Regina. The organizing committee for 2015 got off to a bit of a late start. This, combined with the fact that SGS is undergoing an organizational review, caused a postponement of the planned 2015 event.
SGS has asked ZVA to help host its conference. This will give us the opportunity to raise our profile in Saskatchewan and possibly attract new members who can contribute new family information and become part of our family. I have agreed to be the Master of Ceremonies and give at least one talk. They will also need volunteers: pick up and drop off out-of-town speakers at the airport; introduce and thank speakers at each session; and miscellaneous other tasks. We will also have our own table that will need to be covered. If you are in the Regina area and you can help out, please contact me at the email address below or at 306-789-4481.
ZVA Regina Branch Meeting
Regina Branch will meet at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday, October 8, at Access Communications, 2250 Park St. (north door by the ball diamonds). Note that they are amending their security procedures. There will not be a security guard by the door. There will be a buzzer to notify an employee to come to the door. Appropriate signage will be in place. Please mark your calendar and bring along a Zichydorf friend.
Zichydorf Village Association Newsletter
edited by: Glenn Schwartz
2274 Baldwin Bay, Regina, SK, S4V 1H2
Internet: http://zichydorfonline.org
http://www.feefhs.org/members/zichydorf/frg-zva.html
http://www.facebook.com/ZichydorfVillageAssociation
email: gschwartz@accesscomm.ca