George's Endeavors
When George began researching his genealogy, he began with family trees handed down from both parents as well as several other family members. However, as his roots and those of his family are ENTIRELY within Hungary (or more accurately, within the old Austro-Hungarian Empire), he wasn't sure how much he could accomplish from such a distance.
Luckily, he has made so many contacts both within his family and outside it, both within Hungary and here in the states, that his research has flourished. On several trips made to Hungary with the express purpose of meeting members of the extended families, establishing contact with those willing to correspond, etc., he has been able to add literally thousands of members to his family tree and has established relationships between and among many more than his original eight (8) great-grandparents' families. (Actually, he has only seven (7) great-grandparental families, as 2 of his great-grandmothers were sisters!)
George was also helped by the fact that most of his ancestors were of old Hungarian nobility, whose family trees were published in several book of genealogy. Moreover, in order to keep the land and other privileges, inter-marriages among noble families in the same regions were fairly frequent, and hence he could check various details about each family by consulting family trees of related families.
Moreover, George benefited from the enforced research done by many members of his social class during the late 1930s, when all holders of even slightly important offices in the government and military had to prove their Christian origins going back to their grandparents. The resulting copies of certificates of birth, marriage and death were still around in many families in spite of the devastations of WWII and the crushing of the Hungarian Revolution of 1956.
Finally, he learned a lot from Death Announcements that are still used extensively in Hungary, giving fairly accurate information about the relationship of each member of the grieving family to the deceased.
Just recently George has begun giving his children the first installments of the book he eventually intends to write, detailing family history, family stories, vignettes of family members, maps, family trees, etc., etc..
George, too, hopes to add family trees to Ancestry.com, or MyHeritage.com once he has verified the information found in his trees, so that others may provide input, too. George's Ancestor Tree, shows himself to his great-grandparents. Note that in Hungarian last names appear first and without a comma. He has also provided links to his parents names; at those links are write-ups about each of them.
It should be noted that George was born Vargha György Sándor in Budapest, Hungary. Upon arriving to the United States in 1957, he Americanized his name to George de Vargha, and changed his last name officially to his mother’s family name in 1961. He became a USA citizen in 1963, and married Lillas Kay Markey in Dallas, Texas in 1965.
Kay's Endeavors
Upon beginning to research one's genealogy, it's really necessary to decide what your aims are so that you'll know if and when you accomplish them. While it's nice to be able to say you have 1000 or 2000 or even more people in your family tree, Kay decided that she'd really like to know more about her parents, grandparents and great-grandparents, their lives, their families, etc.
With this in mind, she set out to learn what she could about the eight (8) families shown in the right-most column of the table below, her eight (8) great-grandparents. At the time she began her research, she knew only six (6) of their names, so just being able to name all eight (8) is somewhat of an accomplishment. As time goes on, Kay will be 'cleaning up' her family tree data and will be uploading whatever family tree information she has collected to 'World Connect', in the hopes that other family members will contact her to add to or correct her information.
Thus, eventually, Kay's aim is to publish family trees for the Markey, Crorkan, Proctor, Campbell, Joslin, Hindman, Lass and Olmstead families. Actually, several Olmstead family trees may be found on the web, listing Lillis Olmstead and her ancestors, so Kay will probably try to 'flesh out' Emma's (Lillis Olmstead's) family by continuing with her siblings, their families, etc.
Kay has three (3) significant challenges at the moment: 1) locating John Markey's family history in Ireland, 2) locating Mary Crorkan's family history in Ireland and 3) locating more information about Hester Hindman (whose father died when she was only 1 year old and whose mother remarried).
The relationship among these families is as shown. John Markey and Mary Crorkan were born in Ireland of Irish parents and Margaret Campbell was born in Ireland, but is likely of Scottish descent. Paul Lass was German. Thus, Kay is 3/8 Irish and 1/8 German, based on her Great-grandparents nationalities. It is said that the Joslins and the Olmsteds originated in England, which would make her 1/4 English. Time will tell where her 'other' 1/4 originates.
As time allows, links to each member in the following tree will be added. Some are already active. Go to Kay's tree!