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TATRA AREA RESEARCH GROUP
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© TARG (Formerly ZARP & PARG) All rights reserved.
Newsletter for December 2001
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Vesele' Vianoce a St'astny' Novy' Rok!
Wesolych S'wiet i Szczs'eliwego Nowego Roku!
(Merry Christmas and Happy New Year in Slovak & Polish!)
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Hello TARG members. Happy Holidays to all of you! With the new year
around the corner I have been contemplating TARG and its growth and what the
new year will bring. Here is a discussion of the future for you to follow
along. As you read, realize that many of my hopes center around our new web
site.
For a majority of the 800+ villages within TARG, most don't have
information readily available for people researching. I would like to change
this. Wouldn't it be helpful to have a short history, a list of contacts who
know the area, others searching for family there, links and books to look at
for more information and perhaps a picture or two from each village? These
are things I foresee on our TARG web site.
A master map of TARG -- where regions are clickable and a visitor can
zoom up to a detailed map of where their village is -- these are also dreams
I would like to see become reality.
I have also been working on the TARG surname database. This is a long
term project for sure. Will we ever have all of the surnames from every
village within TARG's sphere of influence in this database? Probably not.
But by searching through parish record and phonebook extracts, cemetery
inventories, books, newspapers and members' postings we will come pretty
close. I figure I have about 200+ hours left on this project. And I already
have over 14,000 name occurrences entered -- most just from Spisz and
Podhale. Will this be a published list, or searchable online? One or both,
probably.
I hope to have our new web site up very soon. It won't have all of the
things I envision above up for a while. But over time they will appear. It
is a labor of love and will take time. A hardy "Thank You!" to all of you
who have thus far given your help and support. If any of you have specific
things you might be willing to help with, please send me a note. Looking
forward to a wonderful new year with all of you!
-- Paul K. Bingham
TARG Founder

TARG WEB SITE UPDATES__________
The URL of our TARG web site is:
www.ancestral.net/Home.html.
I have been working on it and may have something more up by New Year's Day
(I'm hoping!!!). Visit any time, and I would love to hear your suggestions
and encouragement.

A SPECIAL THANKS_________
A special thanks to TARG members Marc and Jo Kuklinski for their
donations and support over this year, especially towards our camera fund.
They are also looking into ways to make some of the little village libraries
we visited in August internet enabled! Thanks folks!

YOUR LETTERS__________
Dear Paul, There is a great coincidence between Frank Luther's note last
time concerning his grandmother surnamed Jasica and the August meeting I had
with the Simala Family in Lipnica Wielka, Poland. Daunuta, one of the
daughters of the Simala Family patriarch is married to Marian Jasica! I
don't know how many Jasicas there are in Lipnica Wielka, but Marian and his
daughters may be related to Frank. - Florian Simala
***Hi Florian, and thanks for sharing your possible connection. I will put
you in touch with Frank so you can talk more about this. -- Paul
Hi Paul: I have a question for you. Do you or anyone you know have a
telephone book for Niedzica or Dursztyn in Poland? I could not locate the
information on the web. I'm looking to see if there are any Fischgrunds
living in that area. Perhaps you can help me. Many thanks. - Sylvia Cooke
***Hi Sylvia. I have phonebooks for those two villages. But unfortunately I
do not see any Fischgrunds listed. Perhaps one of our TARG members recalls
that surname and can help you. -- Paul
Dear Paul, I am searching for a town named Bielsko-Biala amd also Gorne
in Poland. Do you know if they are the same place? Also can you explain the
change in my surname spelling from Polish to Slovak? Thank you for all of
the hard work you are doing to keep our history alive. - Arline Monko
***Hi Arline, Thank you so much. Bielsko-Biala is a city over by where
Poland, Slovakia and the Czech Republic come together. It is a road trip of
about 80 miles northwest of Zdiar. Bielsko-Biala is only a few miles
southeast of the famous brewery town of Zywiec, Poland. I believe the Gorne
you refer to is probably the Gorne Wilkowica which lies between the two!
Just so you will know, I am trying to get Helene to take our 2002 tour
(talked about in the last TARG newsletter) to the big dance festival in
Zywiec. We would be right in your ancestral stomping grounds! As for the
MAKO to MONKO spelling change, yes, I knew about this. In the Polish
language they use an "A" with a little hook under it and it is pronounced
"ON". So in Slovakia, in order to pronounce the name correctly, they change
it to MONKO. The name BAK is the same way. In Slovak they spell it BONK. --
Paul
Dear Paul, What a help you have been. I had been going around in circles
trying to find out where these towns were. I am planning to go to Slovakia
next spring to visit relatives, some in Zdiar. I do not speak the language
but one of them has a daughter that can speak English and she will translate
for me. They also have a car. I am looking forward to seeing the area my
family came from and these new villages also.
- Arline Monko
Dear Paul, I'm sure you know this by now, but I guess it won't hurt to
repeat it. In addition to the site listed in your Sep-Oct newsletter, Steve
Morse also has a site that allows one to search for missing manifests. It
is located at: http://home.pacbell.net/spmorse/ellis/mm.htm
There are times when a manifest will not appear, either a broken or
incorrect link from the passenger to the ship manifest image. It must
remembered that that the Ellis Island Database [EIDB] is searched using a
text format, that is, the original manifests were interpreted by the EIDB
team which allows some errors to creep in. This manifests itself to be
incorrectly linked or not linked at all. Then there are actual ship
manifests that are missing [which are given at this site] or are being
repaired. Click on Tobias' lists that will give you a listing of missing
manifests and/or those that didn't conform to the normal roll [may be
missing the first page or has very pages that were scanned].
If you should run into a missing image, go to:
http://home.pacbell.net/spmorse/ellis/ellis.html
Check Tobias link which gives a listing of missing manifests and/or
and then type in the surname and nothing else, scroll down the page and
select 1000 hits/page and then click on search button. Remember if you're
doing more than one search or have more than 1000 hits, you need to change
the file name otherwise it will be overwritten. I have found two ancestors
this way, since their given names were incorrectly
interpreted by the EIDB team... though after looking at the handwriting
it certainly could be interpreted as that given in the text manifest.
When you get to the ship manifest remember the date and the frame number. -
Fred Kobylarz
***Hi Fred, No I did not know about this and will pass it on to our TARG
members. Many thanks for sharing! -- Paul
Dear Paul, Happy to be back in California? You just keep busy all the
time. I went back to Trenton, NJ for my HS reunion and went up to my roots
around Scranton, PA (Krisanda's from Velka Frankova). BTW, I found GREAT
kielbasa at a place in Dunmore, PA who will seal pack it and ship it out.
When I came back I had over 15 lbs. The aroma was something else! - Marion
Monkvic
***Hi Marion. Thanks for your note. Most of my relatives are in CA, so it's
nice to be back. I'll pass along the Dunmore sausage connection in case
others miss "the real thing", too. -- Paul

VCERA A DNES_____________
This is the quarterly journal I edit for the CSGSA. There are lots of
Slovak things in each issue and always TARG items, too. Last issue had
pictures of Florian Simala meeting his first cousin for the first time,
several of your letters, an account of my cousin Lucjan's first visit to
America, a big article on the Fujara we saw on our trip to the Tatras and an
article on the LDS release of the complete 1869 census records for Spis and
8 other counties (a treasure-trove). If you would like to subscribe to this
quarterly and support the CSGSA it's only $20 annually. Visit their web site
for more info at: www.rootsweb.com/`azcsgsa/index.htm

CONTACTING TARG_____________________
To contact TARG the e-mail address is:
TARG_NET@hotmail.com. Our mailing address is: TARG, P.O. Box 3533,
Escondido, CA 92033. Our new website is at: www.ancestral.net/Home.html.
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