Nearly Wordless Wednesday - Immigrant Identification Card

Issued in 1929 in Bucharest, Romania, this is our Great-Grandmother Maria Stoss's Immigrant Identification Card. 

 Her signature appears in two places - once on the card and again on the photo which is stapled to the card.

After 1928, all immigrants admitted with a visa were issued an Immigrant Identification Card with a photograph of the immigrant. The scan of the reverse side more closely captured the true color of the card.

The Village Church of Segenthau

Established in 1771, this Roman Catholic Church in the Banat village of Segenthau, located in Romania, 15km S of Arad, is the place where the majority of my maternal grandmother’s ancestors worshipped.

Some of the Family Surnames from Segenthau that we are related to are:  Stoss, Rauner, Ballner, Menrath, Wild, Leilech, Dissler, Balthasar, Czimerin, Mayer, Bernath, Kraft, Brunner, Brischler, Welsch, Kottig, Matz , Krebs, Morgenthaler, Tenzler , Lambert

For genealogical records:
· Village name in FHL records: Segenthau, Sagu, Nemetsag
· Church records available at FHL: Christenings 1772-1812, Marriages 1772-1849, Deaths 1771-1848
· FHL Microfilm Nr. 0858425, 1271607
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Madness Monday - Place Names

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Place of Birth?   - A simple question but depending on the document or person the answer was always different....

One town - so many different names:

Segenthau, Hungary (German)
Dreispitz, Romania (German)
Németsag / Nemetsag, Hungary (Hungarian)

Segentau, Romania (Other)
Sag/Arad, Romania (Other)

Sagu, Romania (Official)
Segenthau, Austria-Hungary

Kirchweih

Elisabeth Rauner with Nikolaus Feisthammel wearing traditional costumes at Kirchweih (church dedication festival) in the Banat village of Segenthau, located in Romania.

Fact meets Fiction

In the category of current events - I read this short piece in our local newspaper this morning and smiled knowing that my mother would get a kick out of reading this article. Our ancestry on her maternal side comes from the historic region of Transylvania located in Romania. She loves to point this out whenever our nocturnal activities come to her attention. Needless to say, my mother enjoys old-fashioned horror flicks, and Friday the 13th is a holiday for her.

'Vampire Unearthed in Italy' was the eye-catching title of the short article. Taken from "News Services" reports : An archaeological dig near Venice has unearthed the 16th-century remains of a woman with a brick between her jaws - evidence that she was believed to be a vampire. This unusual burial suggests the legend of bloodsucking creatures was tied to medieval ignorance of how diseases were spread and what happens to bodies after death. Considered to be a "shroud-eater" the brick was forced into the corpse's mouth causing the so called vampire to starve to death and thus preventing the vampire from increasing it's numbers - such superstitions were a way of explaining the waves of plague epidemics that killed millions during the Middle Ages.

".....That ought to do the trick....."
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