CSAGSI President's Message
October 2001
Fellow Members.
This message will be about CHANGE.
The terrorist attacks at the World Trade Center and at the Pentagon will have changed all of our lives in some way or another. Some will be changed for the better, and other for the worse, but all our lives will be changed. Some of you may have had friends or relatives that were killed in the attack or in the rescue effort. I am sure all of our members extend to the families of the disaster our best wishes in thought, in prayer, and in monetary donations.
Our search for our ancestors has changed. Many of us have been planning a trip to Europe to find existing family and common ancestors. How many of us will now be afraid to fly? How many of us, not afraid to fly, will not realize their dream of visiting Europe because of tightened regulations and the increase in the cost of traveling because of those safety regulations. For those of you who will not be able to get to Europe for whatever reason, please visit our website on your computer at
CSAGSI.ORG
and perhaps we can help you to reach out to Europe without leaving your home. A computer will be less expensive than plane fare if you do not now have one.
Our previous president, Joe Hartzel and his parents were only blocks away from the World Trade Center when the first plane went in. They were later evicted from their hotel, and for a while, lived on the streets of New York. My first email from Joe was titled "Refugees from New York." If you are interested in more of their story, ask them at the next meeting. It is good to get the story from someone who was there. How has their lives CHANGED because of those terrorists? Ask them.
This last summer I read an article titled "Volunteers Are Priceless," I believed it to be true then when I thought of it in context with our society’s volunteers, but even more so now, when we consider what the volunteers are going through in New York. Equally as important are the volunteers across the country who are giving of themselves to help the families of the victims. Many people are now widowed and orphaned; and some have lost their complete family. Consider how their lives have been CHANGED. Their family tree is now ended.
Our Society is a 100% volunteer organization. We volunteer of ourselves to be a group of like minded persons, all in search of our ancestors and their way of life. Let us NOT let the terrorists CHANGE us or our way of life as much as they wanted to do. Let us today resolve to be strong AMERICANS with a European heritage. Hopefully we will never have to struggle as hard as our ancestors did, as refugees from their homeland across the Atlantic Ocean, in order to continue to be a free people.
Our future meeting dates have NOT CHANGED. They are: Oct. 20, 2001 - Dec. 1, 2001 will be our Christmas party (sign up soon) - Jan. 26, 2002 - June 8, 2002 - Aug. 24, 2002
- and Oct. 19, 2002. We do need a volunteer or volunteers to find quality people to speak at these meetings and give us their expertise in genealogy related topics to make our searching easier. If you can help, please let us know.
Bill Hosna
Read the September, 2000 President's message.
Read the August, 2000 President's message.
Read the September, 1999 President's message.
Read the August, 1999 President's message.
Read the January, 1999 President's message.
Read the July, 1998 President's message.
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Webmaster: Chris Miksanek
Last updated: February 20, 2002