The Maramures Jewish Records Indexing Project

Data Extraction by volunteers of the JewishGen Hungarian Research Division
Introduction by Brooke Schreier Ganz, updated by Sandra L. Malek

Background

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 beginning 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.

This project initially focused only on the Jewish community vital records, which were the official records from 1851 to October 1895. These records have now been fully transcribed in this database (other than some late-found registers which are awaiting fo transcription.) In 2014, we began extracting Jewish records from the Civil Registers, which begin in October 1895.

The surviving birth, marriage, and death register books for the Jewish communities of Máramaros County are currently stored at a regional branch of the Romanian National Archives (Arhivele Naţionale ale României), located in the city of Baia Mare, Romania.

We continue to obtain digital photographs of the Jewish community record books as they become available. The cost of obtaining the records is supported by generous contributions from our interested donors. Other than actually traveling to the archives in Baia Mare, or hiring a researcher to go there, the only way for genealogists and historians to research these records is through this project which is managed through the JewishGen Hungarian Research Division (formerly H-SIG). Currently, the coordinator of the project is Sandy Malek, under the leadership of the Hungarian Research Division Director, Vivian Kahn. Dena Whitman has been assisting the effort.

Project Statistics and Updates

Prior to October 2014:

125 Vital Records Register Books had been fully transcribed. This included a total of 125 books, including 113 Jewish register books, through 1895, and 12 Civil Register books. A total of 54,425 records from these books were uploaded to the database.

Since December 2014, including this upload:

An additional 8,288 records from 116 register books have been added to the database. Additional books remain to be indexed by volunteers.

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 (possibly with street address of birth and/or residence)
• 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 clearly indicates whether the record lists the woman’s maiden name or married name.

Post-1906 records from the larger towns, such as Sighet, also include information such as the address of residence (valuable in the event of a planned visit to ancestral towns) as well as occupations and causes of death. Some records include information from the 1930s through the 1960s, which are included in the notes made regarding later events.

The Database

Contents of the Online Database – as of June, 2018

All locations above listed in Romania are currently in Maramureş county (Maramureş judeţ); and all locations in Ukraine are currently in Zakarpats'ka oblast (Закарпатська область), unless otherwise specified.

For the pre-WWI Hungarian names of these places, search the JewishGen Communities Database. For the JewishGen Communities Database's list of all the Jewish communities in former Máramaros megye click here.

Records uploaded in through June 2018 include vital records from

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 JewishGen’s Hungarian Research Division, 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. The volunteers whose work was included in the uploads through fall 2014 are 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, and Stephen Zivin.

The volunteers whose work is included in uploads through June 2018 are Lara Diamond, Ed Feder, Shlomo Katz, Emil Lax, Sandy Malek, Ari Tesler, and Dena Whitman.

New volunteers are always welcome! Contact Sandy Malek at sandymalek@gmail.com if you would like to help out. Donors of more than $100 to the project and transcribers who have completed 500 or more records are given early access to spreadsheets of transcribed records as they are completed. To donate to the project go to the Hungarian SIG JewishGen-erosity page at http://www.jewishgen.org/JewishGen-erosity/v_projectslist.asp?project_cat=15 and scroll down to Máramaros Record Transcription.

Lastly, we thank the team from JewishGen: Logan Kleinwaks, Avrami Groll, Warren Blatt, and Michael Tobias.

Searching the Database

The Máramaros County Jewish Vital Records database can be searched via the JewishGen Hungary Database.

Data from the northern portion can also be searched via the JewishGen Ukraine Database, and data from the southern portion can also be searched via the JewishGen Romania Database.