Fourth Generation

14. József PLANKENHORN/PALÁSTY^{98,99,100,101} was born in 1787 in Vienna, AUS. He died on 28 November 1851 at the age of 64 in Algyö, Csongrád m, HUN.^98,102

He claimed that he was born Josef Plankenhorn, the illegitimate son of an Austrian count. Documentation to this effect is yet to be found. He was born into the Evangelical (Lutheran) faith, and until his death was identified as an adherent of that confession. About 1807, he completed his education at the Theresian Academy. The "Empress Maria Theresa Military Academy" in Wiener Neustadt had been, since 1752, the principal training school for the Austrian officer corps. During his military training, he met and befriended Eduard Pallavicini, son of Leopoldina Zichy.

Following his marriage to Franciska Tümler, he relocated from Austria to Hungary, at first living in Pest. He magyarized his name to Palásty, but is no relation to the ancient, noble Hungarian family of that name. Over the years, the new family name was spelled Palásti, Palástÿ, and Palásthy -- the spelling changing with the custom of the time. About 1817, he was employed as an overseer on the Pallavicini/Zichy estate at Algyó in Csongrád county. On 16 Jul 1836, he contracted with Leopoldina Zichy to serve as general manager of all the Pallavicini family estates in southern Hungary. The family's cattle ranching operations in southern Hungary were very extensive. Taking on this position made József Palásty a very wealthy and powerful man. During the 1848-9 war period, the Palásty family lived in their Szeged townhouse and József went to visit General Alfonz Pallavicini (grandson of his benefactress) in Vienna on several occasions. On one of those trips, his name change to Palásty -- though in use for decades -- was made official with the help and influence of Pallavicini. He is believed to have been a member of the Knights of Malta.

The church's death register entry states that he was attacked and died of the wounds despite treatment by a doctor. In that death register he is listed as a Roman Catholic, something that he never would have permitted during his lifetime. At age 64, the still virile József Palásty who had fathered 21 children with his two wives, was shot by "robbers" ... thought to be disgruntled peasants on the Pallavicini estate ... while carrying out estate business. His murder was the subject of several authors and is remembered in their books as well as an opera.

A note on the Pallavicini and Zichy families. The Pallavicini's title was Marquis (in Hungarian "örgróf") and they were descended from an ancient noble Italian family which came to Austria in the 18th century. Eduard (1787-1839) was the son of the Marquis Karl Pallavicini (d 1789) and Leopoldina Zichy (1759-1846). She was the daughter of Count István Zichy (1715-1761) a scion of the second wealthiest family (after the Eszterhazy's) in Hungary. Following her husband's early death, she settled with her young son on an estate at Algyö in southern Hungary. Leopoldina Zichy, as matriarch of the Pallavicini family in the Szeged area, was a great benefactress of my ancestor József Palásty, and is the namesake for his daughter (and my great-great-grandmother) Leopoldina Palásty. The Zichy/Pallavicini manor house in Algyö was on the Tisza river and it was destroyed in the flood of 1879, but had been abandoned by the family a few years earlier.

Franciska TÜMLER and József PLANKENHORN/PALÁSTY were married about 1814.⁹⁸

A note concerning mixed marriages: József Palásty was a Lutheran. Both his wives were Roman Catholic, and all the family's vital records were recorded in the Catholic churches in which the family worshiped. In virtually every baptism, the father was identified as Evangelical (ie. Lutheran).

In the 18th and 19th centuries, there were three phases in the legal approach to the religion of children of a mixed marriage. [Note: during this period, there was normally no option for a person to change their religion.] Until 1781, all children of a mixed marriage were by law Roman Catholic. Following Joseph II's "Patent of Toleration" a non-Catholic father had the right to bring his sons up in his religion. After 1868, the sons automatically followed their father's religion, the daughters followed their mother's. Note that all baptisms are considered valid in the Roman Catholic, Lutheran, and Reformed faiths, irrespective of who performs them. Therefore, where the baptism was performed changed nothing with regard to the legal religion of the child.

So, during the 1781-1868 period, when -- for instance -- a Roman Catholic priest baptized a boy into the Evangelical faith, in accordance with the father's religion, the priest was expected to report that baptism to a Lutheran pastor so the child could be properly enrolled into "his" church. In the early 1830s, the Roman Catholic church made strong efforts to rescind this right of fathers - - by a process called "reversal." Many priests refused to report the baptisms of Protestant boys, hoping that their immersion in the Catholic community would result in a reversal to the Roman Catholic faith -- with no one being the wiser. Sometimes later, only if the child died, was a proper report made. This controversy was apparently in play in the case of the Palasty sons. János (born 1830; died 1831) and his brother József (born 1832; died 1833) were identified in their Roman Catholic death records as being of the Evangelical faith -- though not in their baptismal records..

This played out many years later when this couple's grandson, János Mihály (b 1877) -- the son of János Adolf (b 1837) -- was identified as a Lutheran at the time he was baptized in a Szeged Roman Catholic church.

15. Franciska TÜMLER was born in 1798. She died on 19 November 1846 at the age of 48 in Algyö, Csongrád m, HUN.^98,103 She died suddenly at age 48.

Children were: