The effects of a new political border on the migration patterns and predicted kinship (PHI) in a subdivided Hungarian agricultural population: Tiszahat

Tiszahat, an agricultural region of northeastern Hungary, is highly stable and culturally homogeneous, with settlements that can be traced to the 12th c. AD. This swampy, malarial region has been geographically isolated by the Tisza River and the Russian border. In 1945, the border with the Soviet Union was shifted, bisecting Tiszahat and markedly reducing matrimonial migration. - This research focused on church marital migration records of the Calvinist parishes of Tiszahat for two time periods, 1875 to 1899 and 1950 to 1974. A migration matrix was constructed (male and female places of birth - rows and columns) and predicted kinship was computed for the 20 subdivisions of Tiszahat. The average predicted kinship (×10⁴) for the two periods decreased from 67 to 36. The relationship between geography and predicted kinship closely paralleled MALÉCOT'S isolation-by-distance model. An increased linear effect was observed in the predicted kinship of the northern villages of Tiszahat.