Hungary Emigration and Immigration

From FamilySearch Wiki


Hungary Wiki Topics
Flag of Hungary
Hungary Beginning Research
Record Types
Hungary Background
Hungary Genealogical Word Lists
Local Research Resources

Online Resources[edit | edit source]

British Overseas Records in Hungary[edit | edit source]

Finding the Town of Origin in Hungary[edit | edit source]

If you are using emigration/immigration records to find the name of your ancestors' town in Hungary, see Hungary Finding Town of Origin for additional research strategies.

Hungary Emigration and Immigration[edit | edit source]

"Emigration" means moving out of a country. "Immigration" means moving into a country.
Emigration and immigration sources list the names of people leaving (emigrating) or arriving (immigrating) in the country. These sources may be passenger lists, permissions to emigrate, or records of passports issued. The information in these records may include the emigrants’ names, ages, occupations, destinations, and places of origin or birthplaces. Sometimes they also show family groups.

Immigration to Hungary[edit | edit source]

  • After WWII. a major population exchange with Czechoslovakia was carried out: 71,787 or 73,200 Slovaks from Hungary were transferred to Slovakia – the exact number depends on source consulted – were resettled in South Slovakia in exhange for, according to different estimations, 45,000 or 120,000 Hungarians.
  • From the 14th century, escaping from the Ottoman threat, a large number of Serbs migrated to the Hungarian Kingdom. In the 17th century, many Serb, and other Southern Slavic immigrants settled in Hungary. A new wave of Serb refugees migrated to the area around 1690, as a consequence of the Habsburg-Ottoman war. In the first half of the 18th century, Serbs and South Slavs were ethnic majority in several cities in Hungary.
  • Between 1711 and 1780, German-speaking settlers immigrated to the regions of Southern Hungary, mostly region of Bánát, Bács-Bodrog, Baranya and Tolna counties, which had been depopulated by the Ottoman wars. At the end of the 18th century, the Kingdom of Hungary contained over one million German-speaking residents (collectively known as Danube Swabians). In 2011, 131,951 people declared to be German in Hungary.
  • Greeksmigrated to Kingdom of Hungary from the 15th and 16th centuries. Mass migrations did not occur until the 17th century, the largest waves being in 1718 and 1760–1770. They were primarily connected to the economic conditions of the period. It is estimated that 10,000 Greeks emigrated to Hungary in the second half of the 18th century. A number of Greek Communists escaped to Hungary after the Greek Civil War.
  • The town of Szentendre and the surrounding villages were inhabited by Bulgarians since the Middle Ages. However, present day Bulgarians are largely descended from gardeners who migrated to Hungary from the 18th century.[1]

Hungarian Diaspora (Emigration From Hungary)[edit | edit source]

  • Hungarian diaspora is a term that encompasses the total ethnic Hungarian population located outside current-day Hungary.
  • There are two main groups of the diaspora.
  • The first group includes those who are indigenous rather than descended from migrants or colonists to their homeland and live outside Hungary since the border changes of the post-World War I Treaty of Trianon of 1920. The victorious forces redrew the borders of Hungary so that it runs through Hungarian majority areas. As a consequence, 3.3 million Hungarians found themselves outside the new borders.
  • The other main group is the emigrants who left Hungary at various times (such as the Hungarian Revolution of 1956).
  • Hungarian immigration patterns to Western Europe increased in the 1990s and especially since 2004, after Hungary's admission in the European Union. Thousands of Hungarians from Hungary sought available work through guest-worker contracts in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Finland, Sweden, Spain and Portugal.[2]

Distribution by Country[2][edit | edit source]

Neighbor countries of Hungary--Hungarians who live outside Hungary since the 1920 border changes

  • Romania 1,227,623
  • Slovakia 458,467
  • Serbia 253,899
  • Ukraine 156,600
  • Austria 90,000
  • Croatia 14,048
  • Slovenia 10,500

Other Countries (with links to more detailed Wikipedia articles)

For information on many other countries with smaller Hungarian populations, see Hungarian Diaspora, in Wikipedia.

Records of Hungarian Emigrants in Their Destination Nations[edit | edit source]

Dark thin font green pin Version 4.png One option is to look for records about the ancestor in the country of destination, the country they immigrated into. See links to Wiki articles about immigration records for major destination countries below. Additional Wiki articles for other destinations can be found at Category:Emigration and Immigration Records.


For links to Wiki Emigration and Immigration articles for additional countries with smaller Hungarian populations, see Category:Emigration and Immigration Records.

References[edit | edit source]

  1. ↑ "Demographics of Hungary", in Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Hungary#Ethnic_groups_and_language, accessed 16 July 2021.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 "Hungarian Diaspora", in Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hungarian_diaspora, accessed 16 July 2021.

To access available information, first log into FamilySearch.

This website requires a paid subscription for full access. Some subscription websites are available for free at your local FamilySearch Center or Affiliate Library.

Retrieved from "https://integration-ru.familysearch.org/en/wiki/index.php?title=Hungary_Emigration_and_Immigration&oldid=5671253"