I have just completed an entire audit of my Slovakia Genealogy Web site, checking over 190 pages of content and 11, 000 external links.   It had been needing a link update for a while now.  I’m quite pleased with how it turned out.   The strategy and subjects have remained the same.   I’m not changing a winning formula. 

Everything  that's in the site is applicable for Rusyn research in Slovakia.  While my Rusyn ancestors and present-day cousins live in Slovakia, I have ancestral connections in Poland and Ukraine, so I've included content on research in the Rusyn regions there as well.

What is special about this site is that it’s not a book of links.  It’s hands-on, hit the ground running for genealogists, especially those who are making little progress.  I research the difficult stuff – searching overseas records, and for the easy stuff I provide recommendations and explain the pros and cons of each site. 

I present an over-arching research strategy, recommend what tools and sites will be useful in your research and then go into explaining how to use each site, be it a database, a tool or content.    From place names to churches, census, history, culture, villages, maps, FHL resources, military and immigration.  It then goes on to help you with “enablers”, things like foreign language translation, and PC configuration.  

My aim is to simplify things for you, by deep-linking into web resources so you can get to work quickly.   That means updating the links often, as other web sites restructure themselves or new ones come and old ones go.   While I keep things simple, there is enough content and recommendations to keep even those with the deepest interest busy for many years!

There are some special collections, such as passport documents throughout history, virgin forest research, the World War 2 battle at Dukla pass, making sense out of all the religions, and an extensive inventory and explanation of census in these lands over the centuries.

I developed pages for many northeast Slovakia villages long before anyone had even thought of having a village-specific page.   While they have now been eclipsed by Slovakia nationals slick new web pages, I’ve kept them alive as they often contain useful or interesting nuggets.   Not far from my village, a substantial meteorite tore through the sky and landed with a big bang in the 1880s.  Imagine how the villagers, highly religious and superstitious reacted to that!

I’ve been helping others after discovering and going to meet my cousins in Slovakia 20 years ago.   This web site is also 20 years old, a collection of everything I’ve learned over the years.  I’ve answered thousands of discussion group questions and helped hundreds of people succeed.   I’m not for hire and won’t do your work for you.  I’m proud to say that the purpose of the web site is to give away all my knowledge for free, so you can discover your family and how they lived.  My reward is hearing back from you on the progress you have made.

www.iabsi.com

Have fun!   

Bill Tarkulich

October, 2020