Hi Dave,
I usually make use of this site as a starting point:
http://geonames.nga.mil/namesgaz/
which often solves these problems.
However, it's not always that easy!
This database searches for locations based on their current country so you often you have to look at other countries where formerly Hungarian / governed by Hungary locations may now be (Croatia, Romania, Slovakia etc.)
The "Include Historic Records" checkbox is helpful but don't expect to find all former place names.
Searching for names ending in "CETIN" in Croatia just now gave me for example CETIN but also references to CETINGRAD etc. (as variants are often listed along with the search results) and also many others.
I believe there may be a database or index of Austro-Hungarian postmarks but I haven't seen one.
Postmarks will often be in a combination of languages and of course parts of postmarks may not refer to towns but to specific streets or locations or post office functions.
Nigelc,
That is a pretty impressive site. I looked up a town in Serbia that was once Hungarian and used the German name, and it came up with the location and nine name variants!
Geoff
As per a previous post, I have been looking through my hoard to find towns that have postmarks from towns with a significance to Antisemitism and The Holocaust, and then creating pages with the stamp and relevant history.
This was a project inspired by a donation to The Holocaust Stamps Project (Canada) from Steve Wilner ("cardstamp") when we spotted an odd name and looked up the town.
We are working towards making this a project for the students of our local Hebrew Day School, but first need to find a better way to search for towns based on fractions of names visible on the stamps.
For example, I found a pre-WW1 Hungary stamp with "...ETIN-GRA..." but Google didn't help. I think part of the problem is the post-war reallocation of territories and probably some name changes.
Does anyone have suggestions for a decent searchable database for this part of the project?
Many thanks, Dave.
re: Searchable site for old European town names?
Hi Dave,
I usually make use of this site as a starting point:
http://geonames.nga.mil/namesgaz/
which often solves these problems.
However, it's not always that easy!
This database searches for locations based on their current country so you often you have to look at other countries where formerly Hungarian / governed by Hungary locations may now be (Croatia, Romania, Slovakia etc.)
The "Include Historic Records" checkbox is helpful but don't expect to find all former place names.
Searching for names ending in "CETIN" in Croatia just now gave me for example CETIN but also references to CETINGRAD etc. (as variants are often listed along with the search results) and also many others.
I believe there may be a database or index of Austro-Hungarian postmarks but I haven't seen one.
Postmarks will often be in a combination of languages and of course parts of postmarks may not refer to towns but to specific streets or locations or post office functions.
re: Searchable site for old European town names?
Nigelc,
That is a pretty impressive site. I looked up a town in Serbia that was once Hungarian and used the German name, and it came up with the location and nine name variants!
Geoff