Point of Origin

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Ancestry.com, Ellis Island, genealogy, Hungary, immigration, journey, manifest, origin, Sabados, ship, Szabados, Transylvania, US Census, Zselyk

Where do my ancestors come from?  It was a question I had asked myself many times, and I’m sure others have too.  I personally don’t know the exact makeup of my own family.  I have been told I have Native American ancestors on both sides, but as to those that came from other countries I am not certain.  The names of my own ancestors suggest that I likely have roots in England and Scotland.  At this point, I can’t pinpoint an exact location for my family, a specific point of origin from whence they came.

We had just found a possible match for Bill’s side of the family for his grandfather and great-grandmother, and in the ship’s manifest, it offered the information for the point of origin for these two travellers.

From the Alien Passenger Manifest of the S. S. Vaderland, sailing from Antwerp, June 27, 1908.

The name of the town these two came from was Zselyk, Hungary.  Now, the strange thing was, this somehow seemed familiar.  It seemed to me I had seen this name somewhere before.

From time to time, I go over records that I have looked at before, hoping to see if there is any other bit of information I can glean from them.  I was looking again at a copy of the 1920 US Census for the family:

1920 US Census data for my husband's great-grandparents and his grandfather. Joseph is the name that is cut off.

In looking at the columns showing nativity and mother tongue, I noticed the census taker had been extremely thorough (thankfully!) in his job, not only entering the country, but the city as well.

The name of the city is listed on the census as Tselyk and the country as Austria-Hungary.

Zselyk/Tselyk, Hungary/Austria-Hungary; I realized they were a match!  I couldn’t wait to find out where this city was, and so I typed Zselyk, Hungary as a search on Google Maps.  I got nothing back.  I tried Tselyk, Hungary.  Still nothing.

I was missing something.  I had forgotten that a lot had changed in the Hungary that Bill’s ancestors had left and the Hungary of today.  Hungary was a much larger country prior to World War I, as older maps will show.  After World War I, the country was divided up among several other countries, so it was possible that the city I was looking for was in another country altogether.

I decided to try another tactic and typed into my Google search engine “Where is the city of Zselyk, Hungary currently located?”  I started scrolling through the beginnings of the 386 hits I received, and one name popped up over and over again:  Jeica, Romania.  Now, searching for Jeica, I was able to find the town.  It lies on the western side of the Carpathian Mountains in the region known as Transylvania.

So, in this case, some of the family lore turned out to be true!  The family’s point of origin was a small village in Transylvania.  As to the part about vampires, Bill doesn’t mind garlic at all; it’s onions he can’t stand.

So, now the only person whose ship we needed to locate was Bill’s great-grandfather, the other Mihály Szabados.  The only trouble was, I was getting a lot of hits for the name, and nothing I was finding was making sense.  The point of origin was off, or the destination wasn’t right.  I thought perhaps I would need to put several possibilities in the Shoe Box for a while.

Then, I started to think about what Mihály’s most immediate destination would have been.  While ultimately, he was bound for Columbus, Ohio, his ship would likely dock somewhere on the East Coast.  The most likely destination?  Ellis Island.

Over 12 million immigrants started their journey into the United States through Ellis Island.  Through the ship manifests for the Mauretania and the Vaderland, I knew that the ships that had brought the rest of the family to the US had docked in New York; would I be fortunate enough to find my final ship had done so also?

So, I went to the Ellis Island web site and did a passenger search.  The information they asked for was simple:  (optional) first name, last name, approximate year of birth, and gender.  The 1910 US Census estimated the birth year as 1875; I asked it to search within two years before and after that date.  I received a total of five hits.  Most I dismissed right away because the year of arrival was way off.  In the response information though, they gave the point of origin, and for one, the place listed was “Zsalik”, which seemed a likely misspelling for Zselyk.

Alien Passenger Manifest for the S. S. Cedric, sailing from Liverpool on March 14, 1906, arriving in New York March 24, 1906.

When I saw the destination was Columbus, Ohio, I knew that I had found the right person.  In glancing just below Bill’s great-grandfather though, I noticed the name of another Szabados (Yanos, or Janos) that was crossed out.  I wondered why this had happened.  Had this other person died on the trip over?  Had he been turned away and returned to his own country?  Who was this person, and was there a connection between him and Bill’s great-grandfather?  For now, those questions remain unanswered.

On Ancestry.com, I found out why I had been having such difficulty locating the record.  The name had been transcribed incorrectly.  Instead of Szabados, they had transcribed it as Szahados.  I was able to take advantage of a feature of Ancestry.com that allows you to suggest a correction for information on a record.  By submitting a correction suggestion, it makes it easier for someone else to find a record.

I was able to find the records for Bill’s great-grandmother and his grandfather through Ellis Island also, but not for his grandmother, Mary.  I found this a bit strange at first.  Since I knew which ship Mary travelled on, I did a search by ship as well.  The Mauretania had records of going through Ellis Island in 1921, but nothing in July when Mary came to the US.  In 1921, there were changes in the laws (specifically in the quota laws that were adopted), but why that might have meant that Mary’s boat did not go through Ellis Island, I am not sure.

 

Arrivals/Departures

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Ancestry.com, arrival, departure, genealogy, Hungary, immigration, information, Mauretania, ship, shoebox

Every time I have been at an airport, I watch the board that lists the arrival and departure times of the various flights.  When I am the traveller, it allows me to estimate the time I have before my flight leaves; if I have time to get that last cup or coffee, or make a last-minute pit stop before boarding.  When I am waiting for someone at the airport, it allows me to gauge the wait, and usually gets me more excited with the anticipation of their arrival.

In reviewing the census data, I now had the estimated time of arrival (ETA) of four of my husband’s relatives:

• Michael Sabados Sr. – 1906
• Anna Sabados and Michael Sabados Jr. – 1908
• Mary Sabados (née Bakai) – 1921

We had gotten Bill’s grandmother’s maiden name from one of his aunts.  We would not be able to find her arrival without it, as she had not been married to his Grandpa Mike when she came to this country.

I was very excited about this part of the investigation.  I’ve always had a certain amount of fascination about ships.  I’ve never been on a cruise before, but I have always wanted to travel on an ocean liner.  Growing up near the Great Lakes, I’ve seen my share of freighters and tankers.  Even smaller boats have held my fascination.  I can remember being young and going to Boblo Island with my school.  I don’t really remember much about the park or the rides, but I loved that cruise down the Detroit River.

Even ship wrecks capture my imagination.  I kept tabs on the recent events with the Costa Concordia for several days.  Growing up in Michigan, The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald was more than just a Gordon Lightfoot song.  And the first movie Bill and I went out to see on a date?  Titanic.

So, I was very excited to find out about the ships that brought them to the United States.  We found Mary’s ship first, and I was really excited, because I knew the name of the ship when I saw it.

Name of the ship from the alien passenger manifest - S. S. Mauretania

Picture of the Mauretania

The Mauretania was a ship on the Cunard Line.  In its heyday, it was one of the fastest ships crossing the Atlantic, and only its sister ship ever beat her record prior to 1929.  The Mauretania was the younger sibling of a ship made even more famous by historical event; the Lusitania.  In 1915, during World War I, the Lusitania was sunk by a German torpedo.  Of the 1,959 passengers and crew aboard, 1,153 drowned, among them 128 US citizens.  While the US did not enter the war until two years after this event, the sinking of the Lusitania did change public opinion regarding the war, and likely made it easier for the US to later become involved.

The Mauretania spent a portion of the war docked, as passenger service declined during the war.  Later, the “Maury” would see service as a troop transport ship and a hospital ship.  In 1919, she was put back into her duties as a passenger ship, and two years later, Bill’s grandmother would board her to come to America.

One piece of information I noted was that in July of 1921 (the same month and year Bill’s grandmother arrived), A fire broke out on the Mauretania in Southampton, and she was out of service from that time until March of 1922.  The date of the fire was July 15th, ten days after Mary arrived in the US!  Who knows how history for our family would have changed if the fire had happened a few weeks before!

There was more difficulty in trying to locate Anna and Michael on their arrival in the US.  I was looking under Sabados and under Szabados (the Hungarian spelling), and was finding some hits for Anna, but nothing for her son.  Then, I realized that I’m looking for a Hungarian using his anglicized name!  So, I went to a search engine and quickly typed in “What is the Hungarian equivalent of Michael?” and got the response:  Mihály.

Now looking for Anna and Mihály Szabados, I found a possible match!  I still wasn’t sure it was them, and I did store the passenger list in my Shoe Box for a time.  I would soon find I already had a piece of information in my possession that would confirm this match, and lead me not just to the port of call they had departed, but back to where their journey had begun.

Intersections and Mergers

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Ancestry.com, Hungary, immigration, information, intersection, investigation, journey, merge, merger, path

In our journeys through life, two paths can come together.  They will sometimes intersect, crossing one another for a brief time.  When a marriage occurs, that intersection becomes a merger, as the history of one life melds into another.

My husband Bill and I had our paths intersect at first in the late 90’s, and before the end of the millennium, our paths had merged.  Over our years together, he has shared with me some of his family stories, and, with parts of my own family history becoming blocked off for the time being, I took the opportunity to now turn my attention to Bill’s family history.

On my side of the family, I still didn’t know when my ancestors had arrived in the United States or even from where they came.  On Bill’s father’s side of the family though, while he didn’t know the when, he most certainly knew the where.  His grandparents had immigrated from Hungary and eventually settled near Columbus, Ohio.  Family lore stated that they came more specifically from Transylvania.  He would joke about being from the area where Vlad the Impaler  (also known by his patronymic Dracula) ruled.  Mainly, he would reference Dracula, the character in Bram Stoker’s novel.  My “Hungarian Bloodsucker” as I would teasingly call my husband, also had another potential tie-in with vampires on his mother’s side of the family.  His maternal grandfather’s name was Schreck (a shortened form of Schreckengost, and Bill often wondered if Max Schreck, the actor who had played Count Orlock in F. W. Murnau’s silent classic Nosferatu, could possibly be related.

Bill's Dad (also Bill) with his mother Mary and father Mike. Funny...none of them look like vampires to me.

So, for now, putting thoughts of ancestors that could possibly turn into bats or go off in search of a blood feast, I started looking for records that could lead me back to the time when Bill’s grandparents came to the US.  It didn’t take me long to find them in the 1930 US Census (names of the children have been blurred for privacy).

Grandpa Mike (as Bill calls him) is doing pretty good for himself.  He owns a home, valued at $2,100.00 and he has four children already.  He is a laborer and works at a boltworks.

When I looked at the rest of the fields for this census data, I found that all of the children were born in the US, and that Grandpa Mike and Grandma Mary had not become US citizens yet.  Both could speak English though.  We do know that Hungarian was spoken in the home; Bill said that he can remember his grandmother speaking Hungarian most of the time to his grandfather, especially when she got angry at something.

Bill’s Dad, who was the youngest, was pushed by his brothers and sisters to learn English before going to school; they didn’t want him to struggle the way some of them did.

One last thing I noted on this census was the years that each had come to the US. Mike arrived in 1908; Mary didn’t arrive until 1921.  This meant that I would not be able to find her in any other US census previous to this one.  My search would then need to focus on Mike and his family.

Joseph is the name of the youngest son.

As you can see, Grandpa Mike’s father’s name is also Michael.  That made for some interesting conversations when I was trying to explain some of the records to my husband.  Grandpa Mike is working at the boltworks on this census too, while his father, Michael Sr., works for a scrap iron and metal company.  Bill’s great-grandfather has done well enough since coming to the US to own his home free and clear.

I was really surprised by the gap in Grandpa Mike and his brother’s ages.  I wondered if they had tried to have other children in the 14-15 year span between the births of these two boys.

I did note that Bill’s great-grandparents had come to the US about two years apart.  Apparently, Mike Sr. came over about 1906, and two years later, wife Anna came over with Mike Jr.  So now I was going to be looking for three boats and not two.  I would be looking for the boat that brought Michael over to prepare the way for this wife and son, the boat that brought Anna and Michael over to reunite the family, and finally, the boat that would bring Bill’s grandmother to the US where her path would intersect and later merge, with that of his grandfather.