How did this work out... ? ----- Original Message ----- From: ;j. To: mthiessen Cc: GerRus Sent: Saturday, June 21, 2003 11:07 PM Subject: Re: [GERmanRUSsian] From / via Hungary... The place to go for that index is: http://pixel.cs.vt.edu/library/search.html In Data Category: select St. Petersburg Archives Then be creative what U look for... ;) ----- Original Message ----- From: mthiessen To: ;j. Sent: Saturday, June 21, 2003 3:35 AM Subject: Re: [GERmanRUSsian] From / via Hungary... Excellent input...thanks for sharing. Can you tell me how to access the St. Petersburg file Index ? Is it online ? ~malinda Don, further to that subject: Prior to the opening up of Southern Russia < New Russia > for settlers to the Russian Empire, there were earlier migrations from "German" regions into the Austro-Hungarian Empire... The Empress who "opened up" her door to these settlers only wanted Catholics... Later on her son < perhaps grandson > relaxed the rules, and Protestants were also allowed. The Protestants primarily settled in an area called the BATSCHKA < the Catholics were in the BANAT > After the initial colonies in S.Russia were decimated by disease, a renewed call for settlers went out < from Tzar Alexander > and many many settlers came from Hungary, where they or their ancestors had initially settled. Off the top of my head i can't remember exactly how and where, but there are lists of these settlers... I tracked a large number of 'em via th e St.Pete Index files... by searching for Hungary or Ungarn < both terms were used in the Index>.