Jews emigrated to the Maramaros county, mainly from Galicia, throughout the 1700s, when they were still using patronymic names. In 1787, the Hapsburg monarchy decreed that all people in the empire had to adopt a fixed, hereditary surname.

The Jewish population of Maramaros in 1787 was relatively small with just around 380 Jewish householders but in the subsequent decades the population grew exponentially and by 1830 there were already around 1,730 Jewish householders. The population continued multiplying at a fast clip and 100 years later, in 1930, there were over 70,000 Jews in the region. This led to an interesting phenomenon where much of the Jewish population in the 19th and 20th centuries were part of afew dozen very large and extended families.

Our project hopes to untangle the origin and structure of these families as well as trying to identify the patriarchs of each family/surname.

Our methods of research are mainly focused on Y-DNA testing coupled with archival research. For the DNA testing we have created the Jewish Maramaros DNA project at FamilyTreeDNA, located here: FamilyTreeDNA - Jewish Maramaros. For archival research we utilize records such as censuses, tax lists, metrical records etc.

In this blog we publish short essays & synopses of our research.