The May program at the Museum brought in an audience interested in the details and practical steps neceassry to successfully search for data about our ancestors. Dan Corrigan provided background information on the Hungarian Genealogical Society of Greater Cleveland. Meetings are usually held on the 4th Wednesday of the month, September & October, then March – June, and the 3rd Wednesday in November at 7:00 p.m. (No meetings in January, February, July, or August.) The meetings are held at various libraries in Cuyahoga County, depending on the availability of meeting room space. There are instructional programs at the meetings. Members receive a newsletter, “ Forras”, and the organization maintains a website, containing many resources to assist individuals with their genealogical research: www.hungariangensocietycleveland.org
His wife, Diana Rogers, provided some basic information on the information that is necessary in order to search for ancestors in Europe: the ancestor’s name in the country of origin; country, county, and village name in the old country; the current location of that village; any other family members of the ancestor; and the ancestor’s religion. She showed websites that will be useful to find this information: www.fold3.com has naturalization records; www.ancestry.com has census records, ship passenger records; WWI & WWII draft registration cards; as well as US birth, marriage, and death records. Both Fold3 and Ancestry are subscription databases, but can be accessed for free through the Cuyahoga County Public Library.
Also, www.libertyellisfoundation.org provides ship passenger records to view or purchase. Finally, www.familysearch.org contains indexed or digitized vital records for Hungary, Slovakia and the other countries that formerly made up the Kingdom of Hungary. This is the website that will be used for most of the research. It is free; however, registration is required to view the digitized records. Individuals who have specific genealogical questions are welcome to e-mail the organization: helpdesk@hungariangensocietycleveland.org.
(This summary was written, in part, by Dan Corrigan.)
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