This site has been setup to help researchers seeking documents on their ancestors and other relatives, which are held by the various archives in Poland, or order to further their genealogical research. They are setup by the name of the archives and the parishes within their area of jurisdiction. This website has been made to help researchers locate the village and parish where their ancestors lived, and where cousins may still live in Poland.
There are two sites most of us use to learn the location records for Poland and in Poland. One is the Latter Day Saints site. They are microfilmed records. You can rent the film at any Family History Center. You can locate the lists of records by clicking here: LDS Catalog To locate the closest Family history center, you can go to this site: Family History Center. This is for those of you, who wish to do your own research. There is a nominal charge for renting film through the LDS. If you find your family has been in a specific area or Poland for a considerable time, it is recommended that you order the records for an extended period of time. In doing my own research, I have learned that my ancestry goes back to the 1600's in the area where she was born. Our local library now has 19 rolls of film on a permanent basis. This is how the Family History Centers build their inventory of film films. These libraries operate on a non-profit basis, so the costs are not exorbant.
Another method of obtaining records from Poland is to request them from the different archives in Poland. This site gives you the list of records they hold. They have more records since the LDS began copying them. This is their website: Polish Archives. When requesting documents, they will charge you for each document and by the hour to do the searches for you. The LDS had massive copying projects back in the 1970's. They are now beginning to copy records again. If you are on a tight budget, searching the microfilm is the most economical method of finding records.
In order to locate your ancestors' records, you need to have the name of the village, town or city, where they were born, where they were married or where they died. Many of the villages will not be listed on this website, but this site will help you, as long as you know where they were born. You can pick the closest village to their village, which is listed on these lists. Once you know the village and/or the parish, you can choose your method of accomplishing your research.
You can go to Poland and request the records, but remember, you will still need the name of person named in the record, date of birth, or the date of marriage or date of death for the record. You still need to know the village and parish. Not mentioned above, but the religion is also needed. Records are filed by the people's religion. Do not expect to go to Warsaw or an archive, and give your family name, with no other information, and expect them to magically pull it out of a computer. None of their data is computerized. They are all in books, and have to be methodically searched. When I went to Poland last year, I went to the archives in Suwalki. Not knowing I could search the books, I gave them a list of 8 documents I wished to have. A few days later, I went back and purchased the five they were able to locate.
The last method of researching, is to hire a professional researcher. We have some professional researchers listed on our website at http://maxpages.com/poland/professional_genealogists. There are some people listed, who are not professioanls, but are willing to help researchers.
It is not recommended that you ask family members in Poland to get the records for you. For some reason, I find it difficult to ask my cousins to do this for me. I feel this is my project. I'm the one, who should do it and pay for all of the costs. It would not be good to wear out the welcome of your new found cousins, by asking them to do your research. I've seen many researchers make the mistake of asking their cousins in Poland to go to the archives or church to find records. This usually turns out to be disappointing to them, and I'm sure the relatives are disappointed also. Most people in other countries do not understand our passion to find records of dead people, whose names are no longer remembered.
Researching can be a joy or an agony. You are the one who chooses what it will be. If you love research, you will enjoy genealogical research. My quest has found Polish cousins in Uruguay, Argentina, Brazil, England, Canada, Poland and all over the United States. The ones in other countries were found as the result of finding elderly cousins, who I did no know existed, in the United States. They kept adding and adding to my tree all of their known family members. From this I expanded the search into other countries. Some found me, and some I have found because of family telling me, we had a cousin named so and so, who moved to another country. With the online telephone directories, I have been very successful in locating their descendants. We now correspond via snail mail and email.
