Background

The objective of the Maramures Vital Records Project is to acquire digital images of Jewish vital records from Maramures County, Romania, that are in the regional branch of the Romanian National Archives (Arhivele Naţionale ale României) in the city of Baia Mare, Romania.

The majority of the records are from areas that were in the former Hungarian county of Máramaros and includes adjacent parts of sub-Carpathian Ukraine as well as parts of Maramures County, Romania, that were previously in adjacent parts of Szatmar megye and other abutting Hungarian counties . The records are included in registers maintained by the Jewish community prior to October 1895 as well as Hungarian civil records created after that date.

This project does not include census records from this area that held by the Hungarian State Archives or burial records from this part of the Hungarian Kingdom.

As of January 2020, there are 76,810 records in the database, which can be searched by clicking here.

History

Máramaros County (in Yiddish: מאַרמעראָש, Marmerosh) is no longer in Hungary — After the First World War (via the 1920 Treaty of Trianon), the northern part of the county became part of newly formed nation of Czechoslovakia, and the southern part became part of Romania.  After WWII, the formerly Czechoslovak part of Máramaros became part of the Soviet Union.  Thus today, the former Máramaros County is split (by the Tisza River) between two countries — the southern half is in Maramureş judeţ (county) of northern Romania, and the northern half is in Zakarpats’ka oblast (Закарпатська область = Sub-Carpathian Province) of southwestern Ukraine.

Beginning in 1851, the government of the Kingdom of Hungary required each religious community to record vital records (i.e.: births, marriages, and deaths).  Thus most of the towns in Máramaros County recorded Jewish vital records begininng in the 1850s.  Civil Registration — meaning that everyone in a given town was registered in the same book, regardless of their religion — began in 1895.

Information in the Original Data

Generally speaking, early records in this data set — that is, records from the 1850s-1860s — have only bare minimum information available, whereas the later records from the very end of the 19th century have far more information available.  For example, a typical birth records set from the 1880s or 1890s would usually have all of these types of information available, and perhaps more:

• Child’s first name
• Child’s date of birth
• Child’s gender
• Father’s surname
• Father’s first name
• Father’s hometown
• Father’s occupation
• Mother’s maiden name
• Mother’s first name
• Mother’s hometown
• Sandek/Godfather’s name [who was quite often a relative, such as a grandfather or uncle]
• Sandek/Godfather’s hometown
• Town of birth
• Town of registration of birth (usually the same as “Town of Birth”, but not always).
• Notes found in the original record’s margins, and remarks by the transcriber about the condition of the record
• Other surnames mentioned in this record
• Other towns mentioned in this record

Important note: In the death records for this database, married women who died were sometimes recorded with their married surname, and sometimes with their maiden surname.  Not every record makes clear whether they are listing her maiden name or married name.

The Database

What do the records look like?

Here are some sample images.  You can click each image to see a larger version.

Sample Birth Record #1:
Săcel, Romania – 1880s.
Most of the birth register books look much like this one, with about seven records per page.

Sample Birth Record #2:
Săcel, Romania – 1880s.
A closer view of the previous image.

Sample Birth Record #3:
Various towns – 1850s.
Earlier birth register books look like this, with more records on the page, and often missing the mother’s maiden name.

Sample Birth Record #4:
Various towns – 1850s.
A closer view of the previous image.

Sample Birth Record #5:
Baia Mare, Romania – late 1800s to early 1900s.
Baia Mare’s records are unusual in that they have lots of Hebrew in them!

Sample Marriage Record #1:
Various towns – 1850s.
Early marriage register books look like this, and later ones have just a few marriages registered (since many people didn’t register their nuptials with the state).

Sample Death Record #1:
Săcel, Romania – 1880s.
An example of later death register books.

Sample Death Record #2:
Various towns (here showing Moisei, Romania) – 1860s.
An example of earlier death register books.

Acknowledgements

This project would not have been possible without the hard work and volunteered time of many different individuals.  Brooke Schreier Ganz initiated the project in 2010, and was greatly helped by the support of Vivian Kahn (Director of Hungarian Reserach) and Sandy Malek, co-administrator of the project.  (Coincidentally, both are descended from families from Máramaros County, Hungary).

We thank Romanian researcher and photographer extraordinaire Dan Jurca, who traveled to Baia Mare several times to digitally photograph all the books for us, and we thank exceedingly helpful Budapest-based researcher Beth Long for putting us in touch with Dan originally.

We also thank our terrific bunch of transcribers and volunteers.  Dena Whitman has been our most diligent and prolific volunteer, but many others have also contributed to this effort.  Many of them are still working on transcribing more register books right now, but here are the volunteers whose work is included in the first three data releases (in alphabetical order):

• Kamil Buchler
• Moshe Davis
• Lara Diamond
• Brooke Schreier Ganz
• Samuel Gill
• Leah Herz
• Lisa Hill
• Shlomo Katz
• Chaya Klein
• Miriam Korsinsky
• Ronnie Lebi
• Sandy Malek
• Joel Meisels
• Hershel Reisz
• Emoke Salzmann
• Eli Stark
• Tova Trebitsch
• Karen Weinberg
• Erica Wiesel
• Gil Wolf
• Stephen Zivin