It was my privilege to go to the archives at Timișoara, Romania last week and look at the Reformed Hungarian Church records from Igazfalva and photograph some of them. I would not have been able to write even one word of this post had I not seen those records and learned that the members of the Betkó family were Lutherans who had previously lived in Békéscsaba. I am grateful to the archive for allowing me to share the photos I took. The FamilySearch catalog of Békéscsaba Lutheran records helped me find more information about this family. It contains christening (Kereszteltek), marriage (Házasultak), and death (Halottak) records. The christening records from 1832 to 1895 are also indexed in the links labeled névmutatója. Those indexes save a tremendous amount of time especially when more than a thousand children a year were christened.
Békéscsaba is the largest city whose records I’ve searched. Igazfalva was just a little village so I was able to find most of what I wanted there in just a few hours. Igazfalva can be translated as “Truth Village” in English.
Note: for Hungarian name order the surname is first, followed by the given name. The records use that name order, so I’ve used it as well. It may be necessary to register for a free FamilySearch account to look at the records in the given links.
1879-02-21 Betkó Mátyás married Kerepeczki Mária in a city called Békéscsaba in Békés county, Hungary. Both of them listed their ages as 21, so they were both born about 1858. Here is a list of their children that I’ve found mostly in the church records in Békéscsaba.
- Their first child was Mária born 1879-05-30. See Line 423 Unfortunately, Mária was too weak to survive and died two months later on 1879-08-01. See Line 409
- 1881-11-17 They had another daughter that they also name Mária. See Line 950
- 1883-08-25, a daughter, Ilona. See line 655
- About 1887, a son Mátyás
- 1889-04-20, a son, György. See line 249
Sadly, Kerepeczki Mária died that same day, 1889-04-20. Line 266 of the record listed her cause of death as Szülésbeni elvérzés, which means she bled excessively after giving birth. She was only 32 years old (born about 1857). Mátyás and Mária had been married 10 years.
Their daughter, Ilona, married Strbán Mihály on 1900-11-27 in Igazfalva. Her marriage record states that she was the daughter of Betkó Mátyás and the late Kerepeczki Mária. She was 17 when she married making her birth about 1883, so she is the daughter listed above. Click on the photo to see it better. (My husband’s grandparents’ marriage is also on this page: Sallai István and Finta Mária married 27 December 1900.)
Although I did not find a christening record for their son, Mátyás, born about 1887, I placed him on the list of children based on his marriage record below. He was married in Igazfalva on 1911-12-05 to Tóth Rozália. He was 24 years old (born about 1887) and was the son of Betkó Mátyás and Kerepeczki Mária. My husband’s great-grandfather, Sallai Miklós, was a witness of the marriage.
A month and a half after the death of Mária, the widower Mátyás married Kerepeczki Ilona on 1889-06-04. See line 76. Note that the house number for Mátyás on the marriage record is the same as his house number when Mária died. I have not been able to determine yet if Ilona was any relation to Mária, but they were from the same town and they had the same surname. His age on this marriage record is 30 suggesting he was born about 1859 while Ilona age was 20 suggesting she was born about 1869. Unfortunately, the marriage records from 1853 to 1895 in Békéscsaba do not list even the father’s names for the bride or the groom, so going back to the next generation will be difficult. For example, there were three girls named Kerepeczki Ilona who were born in Békéscsaba in 1869. Two are on this page and the other one appears on the next page with a twin brother.
Mátyás and Ilona did not have any children christened in Békéscsaba, but they had children born in other places. Were they one of the 69 families from Békés county and surrounding areas in 1893 who formed the village, Igazfalva? I don’t know, but I know that they lived there.
The oldest child of Mátyás and Ilona that I found is Zsófia who was born about 1891 in Medgyesegyháza, wherever that is. I know about her because of her marriage record in Igazfalva. On 1910-12-06, Sallai Imre age 23 (born in Gyoma about 1887) wed Betkó Zsófia, age 19. He was the son of my husband’s great-grandparents, Sallai Miklós and Szalóki Juliánna. She was the daughter of Betkó Mátyás and Kerepecski Ilona.
I went through the records very quickly because we also wanted to visit with my husband’s second cousins later the same day. It is possible I missed some records, perhaps all the records from before 1900. It is also possible the family didn’t move to Igazfalva until then. Here is the 1900-09-04 birth of their daughter, Juliánna. Note that the record states that both Betkó Mátyás and Kerepeczki Ilona are from B.Csaba (Békéscsaba). The next two records also show little Juliánna’s death on 1901-08-26. She was too weak to live more than 3 months 14 days.
1902-10-25 another Juliánna was born. Her death wasn’t listed on her christening record, and I didn’t see one in the death records, but …
1904-07-14 a third Juliánna was born. Her birth and her 1905-04-11 death are listed on the next two records. She was 8 months, 28 days old when she died from kanyaró, the measles.
I did not see the christening record for this fourth Juliánna who died 1910-11-13. Perhaps I missed the record or perhaps she wasn’t able to be baptized in her short 10-day life. The record states that she had been weak from birth.
Sometime between 1910 and 1916, Kerepeczki Ilona must have died, and I was too rushed to see her death record. Betkó Mátyás married a girl who may have been from another town because I did not see their marriage record. They had one little girl together, but she died before she could be christened.
1917-01-15 Birth of Betkó Mátyás and Filye Erzsébet’s unnamed daughter who died three days later on 1917-01-18. Her death is listed on the next two records.
1930-06-03 Death of Betkó Mátyás, the widower of the late Filye Mária. He was 72 years old. (Born about 1858 in Békéscsaba.)
My husband’s great-grandmother, Szalóki Juliánna, is also listed on that page.
Betkó Mátyás’s death record and his two marriage records suggest that Mátyás was born around 1857, 1858 or 1859. I checked the index of baptisms from 1855 to 1861 in Békéscsaba of children whose surname began with B. There was only one child who was named Betkó Mátyas during that time. Then I found that christening record. 1859-05-28 Line 444, Mátyás born to Betko Mátyás and Szombathy Maria. But as I’ve already demonstrated, not all births make it into the town’s records. I suppose the only way to know for sure that this baptism record belongs to him is to check the civil registration records that were made after 1895 in Hungary, assuming the clerk was given his parents’ information. I suppose I would have to return to the archive in Romania to view those records, but they might have Kerepeczki Ilona’s parents’ names as well.
Nevertheless, his likely parents, Betkó Mátyás and Szombathy Mária, were married 1857-11-10. See Line 97. That’s after 1853, so it will be necessary to figure out who they were, too. He was 21 (born about 1836) and she was 18 (born about 1839).
Mátyás was able to enjoy some grandchildren when he lived in Igazfalva. Here are some records that support that statement:
It is very likely that János born 1900-01-16, the son of Dryenyovszky János and Betkó Mária from B.csaba was one of his grandsons.
As well as their son Mátyás, born 1901-08-02. Sadly, this son died 1906-02-10.
1902-05-05 Ilona, the daughter of Strbán Mihály and Betkó Ilona was definitely Mátyás’s granddaughter.
This next granddaughter was born 1911-07-09. Her name was Sallai Zsófia, the daughter of Sallai Imre and Betkó Zsófia. Her godfather was her uncle, Sallai Antal. Was her godmother, Betkó Judith, also an aunt?
1911-09-03 birth of Strbán János, the son of Strbán Mihály and Betkó Ila (Ilona):
1913-01-12 Sallai Margit, the daughter of Sallai Imre and Betkó Zsófia:
1913-05-11 Strbán Mátyás son of Strbán Mihály and Betkó Ilona. He died 1913-10-31:
1914-01-04 Betkó Róza, daughter of Betkó Mátyás and Tóth Róza:
I was only able to look at christening records that were at least 100 years old, so I don’t know if he knew any other grandchildren than these that I’ve listed.
Since this is my 1112th post, I’ll now write a little bit about the number 1112:
- 1112 is a composite number.
- Prime factorization: 1112 = 2 × 2 × 2 × 139, which can be written 1112 = 2³ × 139
- The exponents in the prime factorization are 3 and 1. Adding one to each and multiplying we get (3 + 1)(1 + 1) = 4 × 2 = 8. Therefore 1112 has exactly 8 factors.
- Factors of 1112: 1, 2, 4, 8, 139, 278, 556, 1112
- Factor pairs: 1112 = 1 × 1112, 2 × 556, 4 × 278, or 8 × 139
- Taking the factor pair with the largest square number factor, we get √1112 = (√4)(√278) = 2√278 ≈ 33.346664
1112 is also the sum of four consecutive prime numbers:
271 + 277 + 281 + 283