Hungary, Jewish Vital Records Index, 1800-1945

What is in This Collection?

This collection consists of vital records of Jewish individuals in Hungary for the years 1800 to 1945. The original records are held in county archives under the direction of the National Archives of Hungary (Országos Leveltár) in Budapest. Records that are not part of this collection may be accessible for research by correspondence, or researchers can get permission to research the records in person at the archives.

Beginning in 1788, Jews were required to keep records of births, marriages, and deaths in German under Catholic supervision. Because these records were required for conscription and taxation purposes, Jews often evaded registration. The law was reemphasized several times during the early 1800s. Most Jewish communities did not actually start keeping records until the practice was again codified into law in 1840. In 1885, the Hungarian Royal Ministry of Cults required Jewish vital births, marriages, and deaths to be recorded in vital registers that included several congregations in a sub-district rather than in registers for each individual congregation. Exceptions were allowed when individual congregations paid to have their own registrar. With the beginning of civil registration in 1895, Jewish registers ceased to be official state documents.

Some of the earliest Jewish records have not been preserved and, in many cases, have missing years. Often only the transcripts remain, and the originals are unaccounted for.

Additional records and/or images may be added to this collection in the future.

Reading These Records

These records are written in Hungarian. For help reading them see:

• Hungary Genealogical Word List
• Hungary Language and Languages

What Can These Records Tell Me?

The following information may be found in these records:

Collection Content

These records contains birth, marriage, and death records. Birth records are the most common in the collection, making up about half of the total records, followed by death records, with marriage records making up the smallest portion of the collection.

Digital Folder Number List

This table describes the content of the microfilm and digital folders that make up this collection. The link in the Catalog column is to the FamilySearch Catalog record for that film where more information may be available.