The first year of Romania in the European Union looks like a good one for family historians.

Several sources have noted about the easing access to archives in Romania for foreigners. One no more has to ask permission from the Romanian archives authority in Bucharest, researchers rather can show up right at the archives they would like to visit and fill in the form. To list but one source I could mention the current issue of Nu What's New, Avotaynu's email newsletter.

And thanks to the efforts of the TransIndex site and their associates, the archives are opening up. At least at the level of archival finding aids. The archive's section of their databank service lists the Hungarian-related archival holdings in the state-run archives in Transylvania. Fonds and files names are available in Romanian and Hungarian languages. The structure of the subject index follows the structure of Hungary's county archives.

In Jan 2007 our list pal on the Csaladtortenet list was early to post a link to a relatively new family history site in Transylvania: Family History. Its young creator published a history of the Count Wass family, of which the much debated Hungarian writer, Albert Wass was a member. Now the PDF of the book is available in the Hungarian Electronic Library: The history of the Wass de Czege family / by András W. Kovács.

A couple more Transylvania-related old books have recently been made available in this same digital library, the MEK. The reference books of the histories of Szolnok-Doboka and Szilágy counties, and that of the R. C. Bishopry of Nagyvárad/Oradea had been published in the 19th century, then re-published on CD and DVD by Arcanum and it looks like Arcanum donated them to MEK.

One further donation is the book about the Andrássy family, an opus from 2002 by Mária Gál and Tibor Russu.