My Great-Grandfather, Martin Hevezi came to the United States from Hungary on April 16, 1906. Although I can’t find any passenger records for him, I was able to pull the date off his naturalization card. According to the record, his port of arrival was New York.

– We have a good idea of what he did after he got to the New York. See: “Martin and Margaret Hevezi-The Beginning” – for more detail 

But what Martin’s life was like BEFORE he immigrated is something that has proven to be a tough nut to crack. So, I’m going to start with what I know……

          (Martin’s Birthday, written by his wife in the family Bible.)

Martin Hevezi was born on October 27, 1878 in Csongrad County, Hungary, about 200km southwest of Budapest. How do I know????!!! Well, that’s an exciting story to tell! And that’s exactly what this post is about!

Since I started my ancestry journey I have learned how “clues” fit together and how sometimes you need more than one piece of the puzzle to figure out the whole picture, and sometimes you need to look at a document or photo over and over again to really pick up on what it’s really telling you.

From the beginning, I have always had Martin’s death certificate. Now, there’s a lot of information that can be told just from this one document. One, we know his Birthday (although the year is wrong, and I’m not sure why)- and we know the names of his parents!!! “Marton Hevezi and Julia Szuics”! – These are the names that were given at the time of death but I believe that Szuics was misspelled and is actually “Szucs”.

Believe it or not there are more than one Marton Hevezi and Julia Szucs listed in Hungary so narrowing down which one could be the right one, took a little effort. I found this baptism record that lined up with the correct dates.

According to the record, he was baptized in Kiszombor, Hungary. This gave me a location to narrow down my search! After I found Martin, I was able to find 4 more son’s of Julianna and Marton who were baptized in the same city and within the same date range to be brothers.

Janos, Lajos, Mihaly and Pal.

So, let me backtrack for a second now. I had found these baptism records about a year ago. I hadn’t really began to dig into them until Endre. Now just as a disclaimer, I have no idea how Endre fits into any of this. I know that the theory is that his Dad and Martin were brothers. So I started to dig a little to see. According to Endre’s daughter, his Dad’s name was “Andreas”, and so was his Grandfather’s. I can not for the life of me find Martin having another brother by that name….. so for now the Endre mystery remains just that….

So I had this info on these four Hevezi’s with parents of the same name, born “around” the same time as Martin so I figured there’s a descent chance that this could be his family. So now I could assume that since he and his brothers were all Baptized in Kiszombor, that that’s where they lived as well. Until it was pointed out to me (by my amazing cousin Mary) that his Draft Registration card had his place of birth listed as “Jevenscallas”. Huh? So of course I looked it up, and there is no such place which really confused me. I tried every spelling interpretation I could think of trying to find this place, and I had absolutely nothing!

So, I don’t know. I was kind of at a loss, because Hungarian records are all over the place and…. well…. in Hungarian. And according to the 1930 census, Martin and Margaret were both born in Yugoslavia which we all know isn’t true (although with the boarders changing during this time period, this gets a little tricky… but I’m saving this for another post) so I figured there must be some sort of error here.

UNTIL!!!!!…….. The genius that is my cousin Mary, handed me another gift that just tied it all together for me!!!! The missing piece of my “Where in the world was Martin born puzzle!”

…… She found a passenger list.

It was a passenger list that I had looked at from the Ellis Island passenger page probably a million times. (It’s one of only two when you search “Hevezi”) that comes up. – But like I said before, sometimes you have to look at something a hundred times before you find what you’re looking for, and in this case, I needed another set of eyes! (Mary gets full credit for this find!!!)

1907- Passenger list: Istvan and Ilona Hevezi- So who were they? When you pull up the details for the list in a search, nothing comes up other than the date, their names, the ship name and the port and since I didn’t have any reason to look at it any further before I never really took the time to look at it….BUT if you look closer…….

Istvan and Ilona were on their way to visit his brother Martin in Philadelphia! Eureka!!!

Thanks Mary!!!!!!!

Ok, So…… He has another brother. (6 boys whoa!) But then I’m looking at this document…really zooming in AND!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! THERE IT IS!

Istvan’s place of birth: Ferencszallas!!! What??!!!!!!!  Look kinda familiar??? This whole time I was looking for Jevenscallas!!! And there is was, right in front of me! So, where is Ferencszallas??…. and was I wrong about the baptism records since they were located in Kszombor??

NOPE!!!! I wasn’t wrong at all!!! Martin’s family and location confirmed!!!!

The village of Ferenczallas is just 7km northwest of Kiszombor!!! If you zoom in on Google Earth, you’ll see that it’s just one street of houses (and yes, Google street view is available so you can “drive” down the road where Martin grew up!!! Click here!….you blink, you miss it. I can’t even imagine what it would have been 130 years ago, so it only makes sense that the church was located in the larger town of Kiszombor! – I know there was also stories of Martin working in parts of Romania so being so close to the border makes a lot of sense!!!

And then I was able to find Istvan’s baptism record too!

So now that I had his location and his parents, I was able to located baptism records for both his parents too! So we know that Martin’s Grandparents were: Paulus Hevezi & Elizabetha Ratz and Michael Szucs & Maria Toth! ( I had Marton Sr.’s parent’s incorrect as Istvan Hevezi and Teresa Samu before this)

• Martin’s name was listed as “Martinus” on James Hevezi’s marriage record so I’m assuming that both him and his father were born “Martinus” and shortened to Martin.

A little about Ferenczallas:

(The village’s coat of arms)

According to The National and Historical symbols of Hungary:

FERENCSZÁLLÁS

(The County of Csongrád)

The settlement’s coat-of-arms is a Renaissance shield erect, couped en pointe, the base curved to a point, in the chief parti per fess gules and azure.

In the upper field gules three tobacco leaves erect vert, transfixed by an arrow argent, headed to the dexter.

In the lower field azure, on water vert wavy argent a boat sable proceeding to the dexter; in front of it, issuing from the water an oat plant or, surmounted by a Latin cross rayonnant, alaisé, or. Above the boat three eight-pointed stars or.

Across the top of the shield a five-pointed (three verdures with two pearls in between) open coronet verdured or, adorned by rubies, emeralds and sapphires.

The scarves are gules and or on the dexter, azure and argent on the sinister.

The settlement’s coat-of-arms uses symbols to tell its history. The motif of the three tobacco leaves transfixed by an arrow symbolises the fact that the village was founded by tobacco planters, who had arrived with equal rights and duties from Szeged, Makó and Deszk. The three golden stars, apart from symbolising the “golden sands” of the River Maros, are a reminder of the founding Gerliczy family as well, since they also appeared as an important charge borne in a blue field in the inescutcheon of their coat-of-arms.

At the turn of the 19-20th centuries, many families made their living from the growing of tobacco. It was at Ferencszállás that they picked the tobacco leaves and loaded them into barges, later to be sold in Szeged. The black boat in the shield refers to this notable period. Based on their places of origin and traditions, the settlers were faithful Catholics, which is shown by the golden cross in the shield. Part of Ferencszállás is a farmstead called Kukutyin puszta, which gained a nationwide reputation at the end of the 19th century when, because of the floods of the River Maros, oat had to be harvested from boats. This event is the origin of the Hungarian proverb Kukutyinban zabot hegyezni (literally meaning to pick oat grain), in figurative meaning ‘to save that can be saved’. That is the reason for the oat plant to be borne in the shield.

The village gained independence in 1873, which is represented by the coronet across the top of the shield.

Now that I have that straightened out I can narrow my search from there! So this is:

To be continued……. 

But until then, I leave you with a few photos of Martin to enjoy!!

According to the uniform he’s wearing in this picture( the two stars on his collar) and time frame. He was a Tizedes or (Corporal) rank in the Austro-Hungarian Army. His artillery would have been “Geschütz-Vormeister” and the rifle he would have used would have been an “Unterjäger”.

 

(curious about the man standing next him….. any ideas???)