This paper reviews the results of studies of star forming regions, carried out at the Konkoly Observatory in the last two decades. The studies involved distance determination of star-forming dark clouds, search for candidate pre-main sequence stars, and determination of the masses and ages of the candidates by spectroscopic follow-up observations. The results expanded the list of the well-studied star forming regions in our galactic environment. Data obtained by this manner may be useful in addressing several open questions related to galactic star forming processes.