This page is about genealogical research pertaining to the names:
Köhler/Kehler/Kheller
Ritter
Koch
Musser/Müsser
Meisl/Meizli/Meißl/Meusl/Meußl
Benedek/Benedik/Benedektin

in the Burgenland Province of Austria, formerly a County in Hungary.

There's usually someone in any family who is more interested in family history than the rest and in this case it's me. Having an interest in photography motivated me to collect up most of my mom and dad's old negatives and many slides and digitize them. I bought a scanner quite a few years ago and digitized many old documents as well- actually quite a large archive.

I still have some left to do and am building a family tree from the information. The sad thing is that my father and mother are both gone now as are most of their closest relatives so there are very few people around to ask about information on distant cousins, aunts and uncles but my goal is to try. From my father's side there are old documents that go back many years as well as some historically interesting pictures from the Burgenland area of Austria- specifically Markt Allhau and Oberwart.

There is a strong connection with the Evangelical churches of the area which I need to research as the religious institutions of Europe in that part of Austria went through massive turmoil and I'm as yet not clear on much of it.

Regarding 'Wappen': while we find the idea of nobility either romantic and/or outdated it forms a strong thread within these documents and despite learning that many European countries have abolished noble titles for whatever reasons I fully intend to include information of this kind within this archive.

While some people may feel it is prudent (or not in their best interests) to post their lineage information that is not the case with others, which is fortunate. A lot of help for searching out new information has been gleaned from people who have put told of their family's noble ancestors which have been chronicled in other sources for verification which is important.

My mother's side is from Germany and I have much less to go on in that regard.

I welcome any information people may have regarding translations of language/old script, correct names of people and places, identification of localities in pictures, and descriptions of arms where the images are not clear.

Here is some copy/paste letters because I don't like using alt keys! I hope they display in your browser otherwise you will have to use a character map... Ä ä Ë ë Ö ö Ü ü
more:
À à Á á Â â Ã ã Ä ä Å å
Æ æ Ç ç Ð ð
È è É é Ê ê Ë ë
Ì ì Í í Î î Ï ï
µ Ñ ñ
Ò ò Ó ó Ô ô Õ õ Ö ö Ø ø
ß Þ þ
Ù ù Ú ú Û û Ü ü
Ý ý ÿ
...and here are some links:
Burgenland Bunch
is a site dedicated to looking up your Autro-Hungarian roots. (forewarning: somewhat annoying melody may play on the homepage)
GRIEP/GRIJP/GRIP Home Page
Jan has started a lot of work for Grieps.
Evangelische Kirche A.B. im Burgenland
towns are under 'Gemeinden' link. I am particularly interested in the history of the Oberwart and Markt Allhau churches of this area.