Can we connect Mickey Hargitay to his Hungarian roots?

Question

Miklos "Mickey" Hargitay, 1955 Mr. Universe, former husband of actress Jayne Mansfield and father of actress Mariska Hargitay, is unconnected to any of his family in Hungary. This seems like an excellent opportunity to add a few dozen, hundreds, or even thousands of Hungarians to the Tree. The descendants of Attila have languished too long!

(Ought we to have a Hungarian Roots Project? Don't get me wrong. I am by no means qualified to run such a project, not being Hungarian, speaking Hungarian, or even knowing any Hungarians. I am here only to stir the pot, so the speak.)

Comments

Jessica, great connection post. There is going to be a Hungary project very soon 

Answer 1

I've added the immigration and naturalization records I could find, but neither one names his parents. (1926 is too recent to be public/online, so I can't look up his birth registration.) If someone could track down one of his marriage (and/or divorce) records, or the full declaration and petition for his naturalization, then I could possibly find his parents and therefore have some hope of connecting him, but as it stands, I don't even know a surname, really: Hargitai/Hargitay was a popular choice for people Hungarianizing their names in the early 20th century. (Searching the Hungarian genealogy society's civil registration marriage index for "Hargita* Ferenc" [the name of the nearest relative/contact listed on his immigration] only yielded 4 results, but telling it to look for the surname in the remarks field as well -- where name changes are noted -- increased the number of hits to 50.)

Edited to add: how's this for chance encounters? I idly flipped through the funeral notices and encountered Jayne Mansfield as a mourner (daughter-in-law):

https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:S3HY-6SN6-7Q?i=744&wc=M6WK-D36%3A101521101%2C102116401&cc=1542666

It's one of those highly annoying ones that only gives the wife's married name ("Mrs. Frank Hargitay"), but I'll see if the civil registration of his death is available.

Comments

I've had no luck tracking down the civil registration of Ferenc's death. I'm hampered by having no clue which district of Budapest to look in. (There were/are over 20.) He's not in district IX (where the funeral notice was issued) or XXI (Csepel Island, where Mickey's last permanent residence was), and he's not in any of the places that have already been indexed (either by MACSE or by FamilySearch).

Mickey's profile on FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/tree/person/details/LTPY-779) has his mother's name as "Maria Rothsischer", but no source for it (or for anything else, really).

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quote> no clue which district of Budapest to look in. (There were/are over 20.) Not knowing Hungary, does this help ? Ferenc died 1962 Balatonkenese, Balatonalmádi, Veszprém, Hungary

A photo of Ferenc is available on the internet.

Before leaving Hungary Mickey Hagarity was part of an acrobatic act with his brothers. His siblings names include, Ferenc Hargitai, Ede Hargitai, Éva Németh Gyuláné  

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His death was not registered in Kenese or Almádi. I had already checked Kenese, as it's listed on Mickey's immigration as the address of Ferenc. I doubt Almádi actually has anything to do with the family, but I checked it anyway, and nothing there, either. What's the source for this semi-mangled location?

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A bunch of online biographies and obituaries repeat the "Rothsischer" nonsense, but a few of them have it as the more plausible "Róth Fischer". No sources either way, of course.

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location was from online trees.

I have added a source for his parents name to the profile.

Answer 2

I am not a member of MyHeritage but if someone is, perhaps you could follow up on a family tree there that was created by Róbert Hargitay ... same surname. He is possibly related because he has added pictures of Mickey's parents, Ference & Maria. Not sure if this web link will work because it takes me (a nonsubscriber) to a signup page ...

http://www.myheritage.com/research/collection-1/myheritage-family-trees?action=showRecord&itemId=17092471-2-2&groupId=&indId=externalindividual-3868cc611d4926bb0f03bfe0e29a6b76&trn=partner_Geni&trp=logged_out_matches_module

Comments

Geni's summaries of MyHeritage can piece things together: https://www.geni.com/people/Ferenc-Hargitai/6000000031771691041

The tree by Róbert has Róth Fischer for Mária's surname; I think the various one-word versions are based on misreadings or other errors in U.S. records.

The Geni/MyHeritage trees all repeat Balatonkenese for Ferenc's death location, but he's definitely not registered there. (It's a relatively small place, so I checked the entire years of 1962 and 1963.)

I think Mickey's brother Ede was naturalized in 1977 (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:KXQ3-LZ5) and died in 2009 (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:JTK4-J4C).

Answer 3

Why was the privacy setting changed so that we can no longer see his deceased wife ??? Can we please change it back ?

I just went to the trouble of adding his other deceased wife and now she is not showing up. If I had known this was going to happen, I wouldn't have wasted my time entering in her line.

Comments

Sometimes that just seems to happen .. the privacy level changing, I mean.

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Mickey's profile has somehow been made uneditable, too. It's an orphaned profile, so there's no profile manager to contact to get this fixed. Help??

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OK, this is a major snafu and catch-22: it's not public, so it can't be adopted; there's no PM, so nobody can get on the trusted list, it's not public, so I can't even see the change log to try to figure out who changed the privacy. Now what? Do we give up on this profile and make a new one?

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For lack of any better ideas, I just submitted an "unresponsive profile manager" request. Nonexistent means totally unresponsive, right?

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I wrote Scott Fulkerson of Notables about it and he said there is an outstanding technical problem when you add a relationship on wikitree, it changes the privacy automatically. I just added his other wife. Scott said he will contact admin to reset the profile.