O.K. Vira, you talked me into it. This all started when I decided that pedigree charts needed more than names and dates, they needed some life. My father and his family came from Jelsava, Gemer County from 1900 - 1911. My grandfather, unfortunately, died before he had a chance to get here. As a result, he has always been a bit of a mystery to us first generation cousins, my father was too young to remember him, and grandma wasn't apparently talking too much. So I sought out to research the Kristofik family from Jelsava. As mentioned, pedigree charts need some life, and I wanted to know more about the area, the history, and the culture of the time. One of the things I did was to do a Google search on Jelsava to see if anything was out there. Got lucky, there was a web site with the history of the town, pictures of the churches, architecture, etc. Only one problem, it was written in Slovak and I couldn't read a word of it. Figuring that most Europeans know more than one language, I took a chance, and E-mailed the web master a short E-mail. And that is where my story begins. I eventually got a reply from him, (Rasto) and his English was good enough to communicate with. Over the course of the next few months, we became E-mail buddies. He mentioned that he would like to have his site up in English, so I said I would help him with it. He would send me his English version, I would rewrite it, and send it back, and eventually we got the site up in English, and now I could read it. He teaches at a high school (gymnasium, as they call it over there) and one day he mentioned that he teaches with a Margita Kristofik. I had already found a Margita Kristofik in the Slovak white pages in Jelsava, but that was her mother. Margita (Gita) gave Rasto a brief pedigree going back 4 generations on her. By then I had done a lot of research through the Evangelical church records of Jelsava, and had about 100 Kristofiks on just the marriage index from 1898 back to 1791. I had a file on each birth, marriage and death of the whole lot of them, not to mention my grandmothers side of the family. I figured that Gita and I were cousins two times over once through the Kristofiks, and once through my grandmothers family, and if I work at it, I'll probably find it again through another name. So, once that was established I knew that I had living relatives in Revuka, about 7 miles from Jelsava, and Gita's mother and sister still in Jelsava. I had heard about Helene's tours to Slovakia and the thing that appealed to me was that she will do just about everything possible to customize one's tour. I decided on the July 7 tour because that would bring me closest to Jelsava. Planned this tour for about 6 months. In the end, it was a dream come true. Of course the best part of the tour was meeting Rasto and my family. The tour was going to Detva for the annual festival and we would be arriving there on a Friday evening. Made arrangements with Rasto that he would meet me in Detva and bring me down to Revuka for the weekend. He was there and waiting with his wife and little boy, and the minute I got off the bus, I knew who he was despite all the people around. The ride to Revuka was absolutely beautiful, through the mountains and deep woods. When we arrived at my cousins, her 2 children, Milan, age 21 and Miska, age 19, were there ready and willing to be translators. Gita and her husband do not know English, but it really didn't prove to be a problem because her 2 children did and they would be home for the entire week end. I was hardly in the door when the celebrating began. Milan, (the father) brought out a bottle of champaign, Gita brought out the food, and we celebrated. The next day was to be a journey into the past, and one of the most incredible days of my life. Part 2 tomorrow. Joyce

Joyce, This is just terrific. I wrote up a similar travelogue last year, about meeting my cousins and was amply rewarded with email replies. So many people may never get opportunity to go and appreciate the stories. Other people are inspired by such adventure and the next thing you know, you've motivated others to begin their research and journey. Could you kindly refer us to the Jelsava web site? It would be most interesting! Congratulations. We look forward to part 2! Sincerely, Bill Tarkulich -----Original Message----- From: WHew536674@cs.com [mailto:WHew536674@cs.com] Sent: Saturday, August 03, 2002 8:55 PM To: SLOVAKIA-L@rootsweb.com Subject: trip to Slovakia 1 (long) O.K. Vira, you talked me into it. This all started when I decided that pedigree charts needed more than names and dates, they needed some life. My father and his family came from Jelsava, Gemer County from 1900 - 1911. My grandfather, unfortunately, died before he had a chance to get here. As a result, he has always been a bit of a mystery to us first generation cousins, my father was too young to remember him, and grandma wasn't apparently talking too much. So I sought out to research the Kristofik family from Jelsava. As mentioned, pedigree charts need some life, and I wanted to know more about the area, the history, and the culture of the time. One of the things I did was to do a Google search on Jelsava to see if anything was out there. Got lucky, there was a web site with the history of the town, pictures of the churches, architecture, etc. Only one problem, it was written in Slovak and I couldn't read a word of it. Figuring that most Europeans know more than one language, I took a chance, and E-mailed the web master a short E-mail. And that is where my story begins. I eventually got a reply from him, (Rasto) and his English was good enough to communicate with. Over the course of the next few months, we became E-mail buddies. He mentioned that he would like to have his site up in English, so I said I would help him with it. He would send me his English version, I would rewrite it, and send it back, and eventually we got the site up in English, and now I could read it. He teaches at a high school (gymnasium, as they call it over there) and one day he mentioned that he teaches with a Margita Kristofik. I had already found a Margita Kristofik in the Slovak white pages in Jelsava, but that was her mother. Margita (Gita) gave Rasto a brief pedigree going back 4 generations on her. By then I had done a lot of research through the Evangelical church records of Jelsava, and had about 100 Kristofiks on just the marriage index from 1898 back to 1791. I had a file on each birth, marriage and death of the whole lot of them, not to mention my grandmothers side of the family. I figured that Gita and I were cousins two times over once through the Kristofiks, and once through my grandmothers family, and if I work at it, I'll probably find it again through another name. So, once that was established I knew that I had living relatives in Revuka, about 7 miles from Jelsava, and Gita's mother and sister still in Jelsava. I had heard about Helene's tours to Slovakia and the thing that appealed to me was that she will do just about everything possible to customize one's tour. I decided on the July 7 tour because that would bring me closest to Jelsava. Planned this tour for about 6 months. In the end, it was a dream come true. Of course the best part of the tour was meeting Rasto and my family. The tour was going to Detva for the annual festival and we would be arriving there on a Friday evening. Made arrangements with Rasto that he would meet me in Detva and bring me down to Revuka for the weekend. He was there and waiting with his wife and little boy, and the minute I got off the bus, I knew who he was despite all the people around. The ride to Revuka was absolutely beautiful, through the mountains and deep woods. When we arrived at my cousins, her 2 children, Milan, age 21 and Miska, age 19, were there ready and willing to be translators. Gita and her husband do not know English, but it really didn't prove to be a problem because her 2 children did and they would be home for the entire week end. I was hardly in the door when the celebrating began. Milan, (the father) brought out a bottle of champaign, Gita brought out the food, and we celebrated. The next day was to be a journey into the past, and one of the most incredible days of my life. Part 2 tomorrow. Joyce ============================== To join Ancestry.com and access our 1.2 billion online genealogy records, go to: http://www.ancestry.com/rd/redir.asp?targetid=571&sourceid=1237