Map Hunt

I recently connected with a Batiz Cousin which sparked me into going thru my Batiz family research. I've been able to piece together quite a lot of info. Which is great considering my Great-Grandparents immigrated from the then Austro-Hungarian Empire in the early 1900's.

I had some help from a message board on Ancestry.com with translating my Great-Grandparents birth Abstracts (a form of a birth certificate like document) Luckily the person was able to tell me the village names that changed over the years. They also told me the modern day name that I could find on the map.

Great- Grandpa Lajos was from Nagy-Paczal, Szilagy County, Romania. Interestingly enough the family was Hungarian and spoke Hungarian but lived in what is now Romania. Nagy-Paczal, later called Erszollos, was in one of the out-lying areas of Transylvania. Erszollos under went another name change when it melded with Kis-Paczal to become Erkiszollos or Patalusu in Romanian. Now a days it's known as Viisoara, Romania.

I'm able to find Viisoara easy enough on the modern day maps but I wondered about the older maps and counties. I started looking around on the internet to see if I could find old maps for that area.

I found a few interesting things. I looked up old maps for Szilagy County. I found an old map that actually had Nagy Paczal listed on it. It was close to the Bihar County line which was kewl since Great-Grandma was born in Bihar County. They were neighbors of sorts.

Nagy-Paczal (in the Pink area) is NorthEast of Margita (listed in Bihar County). Look next to the I in Bihar. The river just above Margita run right into Nagy-Paczal. Kis-Paczal is just below Nagy-Paczal.

Szilagy County became Salaj County. And the county lines changed. Viisoara is not in Salaj County any more. It's in Bihar County.

Also on the baptism records for the Grey Stone Presbyterian Church in Leechburg, Armstrong, Pennsylvania, I found the birth places for the parents listed. No surprise that Great-Uncle Jim was from Erszollos. It was his wife's place of birth that stumped me. It was hard to make out some of the letters... I thought it was Csomakor or Esomakos in the county Szatm. None of that was correct. Just tonight I played with letters that were similar in looks when written in cursive. I came up with Csomakoz, which is also known as Ciumesti in the county of Szatmar. No wonder I couldn't find anything for the longest time. Interestly Szatmar became Satu Mare County. It wasn't too far from Bihar or Szilagy Counties.