In a message dated 8/28/2008 9:06:36 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time, [email protected]_ (mailto:[email protected]) writes: Dear List, I belong to a local Hungarian club here in Connecticut that is trying to resurrect their membership and attract new members. I have suggested to them that they consider doing a one day seminar on Hungarian genealogy (as the local Irish club has done this and it was very profitable and had a great turn out). I would like to be able to bring ideas to the board as to how this could be set up, what materials could be given out, outlines, examples, and specific areas that should be addressed. If this were done by late winter, we would have time to gather materials. I would appreciate any and all suggestions from everyone as I think this would be of great interest to many people. Anyone out there from CT or near by who has expertise in such a thing? Jamene Farrell ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, Jamene, I have been trying to accomplish something similar here in the Pittsburgh PA area for quite a few years, but of an on-going nature. This past winter I had a Hungary RootsWeb contact, an ex-patriot of Pittsburgh who was willing to help and had wonderful ideas.....and then, for personal reasons, I was unable to dedicate time to it. I expect to resume the efforts as soon as possible. In the meantime, just a few caveats on your approach. I thought it best to contact the Hungarian intellectuals, professors, book authors and the like in our area. I expected they would act as guest speakers, but all were too busy at the time. Perhaps they can come on board later. Finding a meeting place central to everyone in our spread out Pittsburgh area was another. Since you have a place at the Hungarian Club you are off to a great start. Keep the fee reasonable and establish the fact it is a “fund raiser”. You may want to have sequential meetings. You may already have marketing skills, but here are some. Send out announcement flyers to other Hungarian Clubs in the area. Place flyers in your local library, municipal building, etc. Take advantage of free media ads offered for community projects. Provide attendees with hand outs on how to use the Steve Morse web sites for genealogy search and of course recommend this Hungary RootsWeb List. Provide them with copies of maps of Hungary during various intervals of history - counties would do for a start. I am reading Alan Furst's book "Kingdom of Shadows", set in pre WWII Hungary. While this is fictional, it is historically correct and has a broad scale 1938-39 map reflecting Hungary land ownership. This gives the Ruthenian borders at that time. Enlarge a map of Hungary pre WWI, place it on a sandwich-board type easel. Have the guests place a thumb tack on their family's area of research. If you can, provide a print-out of a sampling of towns and their name change spellings from pre WWI, spellings after the Trianon Treaty at Versailles to pre WWII and then the changes afterwards. This page of URL’s is titled “Hungarian genealogy,forms” thru a Google search. Forgive me Les Josa, I haven’t mastered shortening a URL as you instructed us: _http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=ISO-8859-1&q=Hungarian+genealogy%2Cform s&btnG=Google+Search&aq=f&oq_ (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=ISO-8859-1&q=Hungarian+genealogy,forms&btnG=Google+Search&aq=f&oq) = Introduce them to the home web sites for these nationwide Hungarian fraternal organization …The American Hungarian Federation in DC and also the Hungarian Reformed Federation of America. These sites have a wealth of Hungarian history and wonderful articles. The William Penn Assn.(headquarters located in Pittsburgh) issues the William Penn Life magazine and it is on line. It shows what the fraternal organization is doing to promote Hungarian activities a few times a year and has monthly recipes. I believe genealogy research becomes meaningful in understanding the history of the times, brining us forward to present time. If you would like to write me personally, I would be happy to give you other ideas. Good Luck! Marika **************It's only a deal if it's where you want to go. Find your travel deal here. (http://information.travel.aol.com/deals?ncid=aoltrv00050000000047)