This material is taken from: http://www.berecz.us/tutorial/miscdocs/notes.htm
Information on these Records: The 1869 census provides a 4-page snapshot of each household on 31 Dec 1869. The census forms I have seen (only Zemplen county) were printed in Magyar and Ruthene (which is a western Ukrainian language written in the Cyrillic alphabet). I assume the others are similar in format, and I believe some are in Magyar and Slovak, others in Magyar and German. The real problem with using this census is that it's only available for limited areas, primarily in the north of Hungary. But, since many Hungarian-Americans came from that part of the country, I have included it here.
This census is sometimes called the Zemplen County Census since it is quite complete for that geographically very large county. Note that the Zemplen county of historic Hungary is now divided into three parts; the northeastern part is in the Ukraine, the rest of the north and the central part make up much of eastern Slovakia, and the southern end of the historic county is in present-day northeastern Hungary. There are also a very large number of films for Nyitra county, but several areas of that populous county are not included. For each county, the towns and villages are either arranged alphabetically or grouped by district on the microfilms. Here are the list of counties and towns for which this census is available from the FHL, check Place Search in the catalog for details:
Abauj-Torna County -- 14 films.
Bars County -- 29 films.
Esztergom County -- 5 films.
Komárom County -- 53 films.
Nyitra County -- 157 films.
Sáros County -- 64 films.
Szepes County -- 57 films.
Zemplen County -- 171 films.
Györ, Györ m. -- 7 films by district.
Hajduszoboszló, Hajdu m. -- 1 film.
Nyiregyháza, Szabolcs m. -- 1 film.
Szentes, Csongrád m. -- 16 films by house number.
Inventory of Livestock: Horses (ló) are grouped into stallions (csödör), mares (kancza), geldings (herélt), and foals (csikó) under three years. The three categories under each of the first three groups are heavy (nehéz) and light (könnyü) species (fajta) and the total (összesen) for the group. This farm had only two light geldings. The next two columns are for mules (öszvér) and donkeys (szamár).
The second large grouping is for horned cattle (szarvasmaha) which are separated into Hungarian (magyar) and Swiss (svájczi) and buffalo (bivaly). The first two of these categories are divided into bulls (bika), cows (tehen), oxen (ökör), and calves (borju) under three years. Not being a 19th century Hungarian farm-boy, I'm not sure of the difference between Hungarian and Swiss cattle -- but, I suspect Hungarian cattle are what we call long-horns (which were more common in the large ranches on the plains of southern Hungary) and Swiss are what we typically see in this country as short-horned dairy cows. Anyway, this farm had only two Swiss cows and two calves. Apparently they borrowed a bull from time-to-time.
The next two columns are for sheep (juh). They are categorized as either "select" (nemesitett) or "common" (közönséges). This farm had six common sheep. The last three columns are for goats (kecske), pigs (sertés) of which they had eight, and finally beehives (méhkas). Note that fowls (chickens, ducks, and geese -- of which I'm sure there were many) were not included in this inventory.
Housing Facilities: Following the identification of the town, and the form headings, is a place for the street address (utcza -- note old spelling of utca) or the house number (házszám). A street address would only be used in larger towns, small villages used house numbers Then comes information about the house.
Does the house have? (A lakás van?): a cellar (pinczében); a ground floor (földszint); a loft (félemeleten); how many upper stories (hányadik emeleten); an attic (padlácson). Note that this is a one-story house without cellar or attic.
The house is made up of how many? (A lakási képezi hány?): sleeping room (szoba); pantry (kamra); living room (elöszoba); and kitchen (konyha). Note that this is only a two-room house consisting for a living room and bedroom.
Next is a statement that the house is used only for living (lakásra) -- ie. not for business. Then there is a question concerning additional facilities and buildings used for a business (in this case farming).
Business-related facilities: shop or store (bolt); pantry (kamra); cellar (pinczér); implement shed (félszer szin); storehouse (raktár); stall (iztállö); sheepfold (akol); barn (csür). We see this farm has a barn, four stalls, and an implement shed. Given the small farms I've seen recently in eastern Slovakia, in all probability the women did the cooking in the shed, which explains the lack of a kitchen in the house.
Column 1: House number and numbered lines for each individual recorded.
Column 2 lists the names of the people who lives at the house.
Column 3 specifies the sex of each person (ferfi = male and nö = female)
Column 4 specifies the birth year of each person.
Column 5 gives the religion of each individual. The instructions give the following choices of religion: Roman, Greek or Armenian Catholic; Greek or Armenian Orthodox; Evangelical of the Helvetic Confession (ie. Reformed) or of the Augsburg Confession (ie. Lutheran); Unitarian; other Christian denominations; Jewish; other non-Christian denominations.
Column 6 is the marital status of each individual [nös = with wife; ferjes= with husband; hajadon = maiden; nötlen = bachelor are seen here; özvégy = widow/er might also be found.]
Column 7 lists the office(s) held
On the second page of this two-page form, column 8 identifies the type of work performed. atelkes, a smallholder (ie. peasant farmer); atelkes seged helper to the smallholder. háztars, a housekeeper; areseged -- ie. help out on the farm/house; éves szolga, a year's servant (presumably that's the duration of his being hired out. If any of the children were in school, they would probably be listed as students (tanár).
Column 9 is birthplace/
Column 10 is citizenship -- all are helybeli (local) rather than idegen (foreign).
Columns 11 and 12 relate to whether the persons were at home or away at the time of the census, with special instructions for those who had been away for more than a month. These did not apply to this household.
Column 13 relates to literacy.
Column 14 was reserved for notes (jegyzet).