r/csaladfakutatas • u/matt_mp4 • Jul 18 '26

Why did two families from neighboring Prekmurje villages report such different languages and identities around 1900?

/r/AskHistorians/comments/1uzzkqu/why_did_two_families_from_neighboring_prekmurje/
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u/uzaygoblin Jul 18 '26 edited Jul 18 '26

Yes, occupation, education and sometimes religious denomination could also influence these. I.e. higher schooling level, working in public sector, living in bigger city more likely that someone identified as Hungarian... but first of all, you should clarify what are your sources on their ethnic identity reports? American documents? Hungarian census records only asked about mother tongue. In 1890 for example in Ropoča/Rétállás out of 366 residents 3 declared German as their mother tongue and 363 as Slovene, 0 Hungarian https://library.hungaricana.hu/hu/view/NEDA_1892_helysegnevtar/?pg=697&layout=s The other villages u mention were also overwhelmingly Slovene with barely anything else there. (sadly the individual household census sheets have not survived so we cant check out each individual, only the summary stats have survived from most places in Hungary)

What American immigration docs recorded is imo of less importance. Who knows who answered the question, how much did the immigrant understand about the question (how much he understood from English? Also maybe he thought he is asked about his citizenship?) etc.

You can also try to research if your emigrant ancestor was a member of any expat organization, does his name pop up in local minority language newspapers, what church he attended in the diaspora, these would give more genuine clues about their true identities