HUNGARY-L Archives

From: hobnail <>
Subject: [HUNGARY-L] Godparents and their genealogical importance
Date: Thu, 02 Apr 1998 22:12:39 -0500

Hi everyone,

Today using Felix's thoughts on families using the same godparents for
all their children, I was able to sort out families of similiar
surnames. There were spelling variationa due to changes in priests and
changes from the German language to Hungarian language in the records. I
had not paid too much attention to godparents in the past. This was
quite a help. Thanks

Janice Danks

Felix G. Game wrote:
>
> The original question, whether godparents are, or are not relatives of the
> child cannot be answered categorically because not all families followed the
> same traditions. Remember that many different ethnic and religious
> back-grounds were involved.
>
> In terms of genealogical research there is, however, one other, very
> important aspect to godfathers that Hungarian researchers should be aware
> of. Again, it is not carved in stone, and not always the case, but it has
> often helped me over the years to identify which of two people with the same
> name was the correct one. It goes something like this:
>
> A young man starting up a family will pick his "koma" - his best buddy - to
> be the godfather for his children. Often they reciprocate and be each
> other's "koma", but not always. The fact that the same man will normally act
> as godfather for all the children, is already a big help when trying to
> place a child into the correct family. The big bonus is that the godfather
> has an important privilege: he must be the first one asked to be a witness
> at his godchild's marriage. If you have seen situations (and who hasn't),
> where two or three men exist in the same village, and two of them marry
> girls with the same names, and then you find that two of the fathers also
> have the same first names, then you know how important it is to have some
> other dependable way to sort out these people. Look for the name of the
> witness on the baptism record, you should find him as the godfather.
>
> This is a valuable aid, but not always available, so do not draw negative
> clonclusions if it is not. Consider that during the approximately 20 years
> between birth and marriage, some godparents would have died, or moved. The
> family of a deceased godfather may be able to, and want to provide a
> substitute male to be the witness, in which case the same name still show up
> as predicted. But do consider this as an aid only without blindly relying on
> it.
>
> <felix>
>

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• [HUNGARY-L] Godparents and their genealogical importance by hobnail <>