Family Microhistory: Genealogical Research in Szentes, Hungary

Abstract

This paper provides an account of the author’s family history in the context of her microhistorical research into the lives of her mostly peasant ancestors living in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Szentes, a small agricultural town in the middle of the Great Hungarian Plain. After becoming a recognized branch of historical research, in the past decade microhistory has made its way into genealogical research, offering an approach and methodology that allows for the piecing together of information about ancestors even when detailed accounts or documents are missing – either because they were lost or because they never existed in the first place. Such microhistories then offer insight into and provide important details for local social history, results that take family history work well beyond the personal scope.