Sub-Carpathia Vital Records

Background

The JewishGen Sub-Carpathia Research Division focuses on parts of the former Hungarian megye (counties) of Bereg, Máramaros, Ugocsa and Ung; which became the eastern-most part of the the newly-formed nation of Czechoslovakia after the First World War (via the 1920 Treaty of Trianon); and which are now located in Zakarpats’ka oblast  of southwestern Ukraine.

The concept of Civil Registration, which meant that everyone in a given town was registered by the government in the same book, regardless of their religion, began in the Kingdom of Hungary in October 1895.

With the help of a photographer in Ukraine, JewishGen is digitizing every Jewish record in these civil registration books; we estimate that there are 3,000 such books. 

These register books have not been microfilmed by the Mormons (LDS Church) yet, nor by the Ukrainian government.  Other than actually traveling to the archives in Ukraine, or hiring a researcher to go there, the only way for genealogists and historians to research these records is through this JewishGen project.

Information in the Original Data

Records from 1895 through the end of 1906 tend to have more information than those from 1906 on, as less information was requested beginning in 1907.  The pre-1906 records tend to have more information about towns of births for parents of a child being born or married.  Many children do not have fathers listed, because the parents were not legally married; this was quite common.

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.

These records are written in the Hungarian language from 1895 until around 1919, at which time they switch to Slovak up, until 1939, when they are in Ruthenian (written in the Cyrillic alphabet) for several months, before switching to Hungarian along with the border.  Some of the towns have random periods of Ruthenian-language entries during the Slovak era.

Registration books were kept in a single town, but generally covered vital events from that town and several surrounding villages as well.  Sometimes the responsible town was shifted at a specific point in time.                               

Current Statistics and Totals as of June 2022

• Photographed: 898 books have been digitally photographed and acquired by the project.
• Transcribed: 810 books, containing 145,601 records, have been completely transcribed by volunteers, and searchable via JewishGen.

Contents of the Database

Click here to view the current inventory of the database.

Click here to obtain original images for records in this dataset.

Acknowledgments

This database is a unique contribution, and would not be possible without the hard work, dedication, and perseverance of our volunteers.

If you have any questions or would like to learn more about volunteering for JewishGen’s Sub-Carpathia Research Division, please contact Lara Diamond (ldiamond@JewishGen.org).

Searching the Database

The Sub-Carpathia Vital Records database can be searched via the JewishGen Hungary Database, the JewishGen Ukraine Database, and the JewishGen Unified Search.