_________________________________________________
TATRA AREA RESEARCH GROUP
_________________________________________________© TARG (Formerly the Zamagurze Area Research Project &
Podhale Area Research Group) All rights reserved.
Newsletter for January 2001
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Happy New Year!
St'astný Nový Rok! (Slovak)
Szczs'e~liwego Nowego Roku! (Polish)
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Millennial greetings to all of you across the world! Welcome to the huge
numbers of new you TARG members. Thanks to all of those (many of you) who
sent my family and I your Holiday greetings and hope for a better year.
Likewise thank you for all of the thanks received from you for my efforts in
leading the TARG project. It is time consuming, yes, but a labor of love and
rewarding in its own way. Well, we have lots of ground to cover in this
issue, so lets get to it!
-- Paul K. Bingham
TARG Founder
bingham@iols.netFREE CSGSA JOURNAL ISSUE______________
The avalanche of TARG members who contacted me for a complementary copy
of the Holiday issue of "Vc^era a dnes" (which contains the new TARG Project
map and complete village list) has been overwhelming! Copies ran out! But
more have now been printed and will be mailed out this week.
The CSGSA has been a huge support of our efforts here at TARG ever since
we started. Every issue contains articles useful to to TARG members. Even
though the journal is from a Czech & Slovak society, the topics follow the
readership, which is overwhelmingly Slovak with many Polish researchers also
as subscribers. For more on how to subscribe, you can visit their website
at: www.rootsweb.com/~azcsgsa/index.htm.NEW TARG WEBSITE!!!____________
If you are anxious to see the list of villages and map (and some great
photos, too!) check out our brand-new TARG website at:
http://targ.1avenue.com. The website is just in its beginnings, but thanks
to my 16-year-old's webpage expertise, we are up and running. As time goes
on I would like to have TARG split up into regions, as the ZARP and PARG portions within TARG operate now.
Within the webpage I would like to have separate pages for each region
and a photo and description for each village. We have room on this site to
do that. If any of you would like to volunteer to be Team Leaders for
certain villages, please let me know. (This is how I learned so much about my
ancestral villages!) Also, if you have village photos to contribute, you can
e-mail them to me (.gif of .jpg images are best) or mail them to our address
below and I'll scan them in.2001 TRIP____________
The upcoming Góral Homecoming 2001 Trip to our TARG area next August
should not be missed! Helene B. Cincebeaux and crew take care of all of the
arrangements so you can enjoy all of the beauty and spend your time
discovering history, visiting your ancestral villages, doing research and
finding lost relatives that you really want out of such a trip. Its been two
years since
Helene organized our first trip, and this one is custom-tailored to TARG
members.
The hassles of trans-Atlantic airline flights, car rental, foreign
country driving, hotels, meals, border crossings, translators, researchers,
getting lost and missing the hidden sights are eliminated all at a very
affordable price. Helene has over thirty years of tours to Slovakia. Find
out why a huge majority of her tour-goers are REPEAT customers.
She really does things right and provides the flexibility for you if you
discover something or someone you wish you could see, like so many did on
the tour two years ago. I recommend her tour to you wholeheartedly. For more
information contact her, Helene Cincebeaux at:151 Colebrook Dr, Rochester,
NY 14617-2215 or call toll free: 1 (888) 529-7150 or e-mail:
helenezx@aol.com.ANOTHER MUST-READ BOOK____________
My daughter gave me a book for Christmas that I could not put down. I've
seen it offered on various obscure sites for a year or more, but expected a
thin paperback with little new in it. For $20, I guess I wasn't in a hurry
to be disappointed.
How wrong I was! This is a hardcover book of about 300 pages entitled
"Podhale: A Companion Guide to the Polish Highlands". It was written by Jan
Gutt-Mostowy, a Polish writer from Poronin (a Zakopane suburb). The book was
translated beautifully into English in 1997. I find myself engrossed in his
detailed stories and often laughing at some of the things our progenitors
did long ago.
He also pulls out history and antidotes around every corner of the
Polish Tatra foothills. Did you know Jurgow is considered the "most Slovak
of all villages in Poland"? Or that the little limestone hills just outside
Nowa Biala (home of our Librarian & celestial cheesecake) has a cave that a
few years ago yielded a Mastodon tusk carved into the shape of a boomerang
and bones of a Pole almost 2000 years older than any ever found in Poland
before? Or that a plague in the 1840's killed 25% of the Góral population?
Well, the book is full of gems that just make you want to go back
and look around where you've already been, now knowing what you missed! The
book is only about the Polish side, but history and culture references are
applicable to all Góral. He captures who the Góral were and are, why they
are so resourceful and tough, yet so God-fearing and gentle.
Borders Books has the "Podhale" book on special right now for $14.96.
Its at www.borders.com.CONTACTING TARG_____________________
To contact TARG the e-mail address is:
TARG_NET@hotmail.com
or you can contact me directly at: bingham@iols.net
TARG's mailing address is: P.O. Box 3533, Escondido, CA 92033.
-- Paul K. Bingham
TARG Founder
bingham@iols.net
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