PolishOrigins Surnames & Places Database

[Zenon]

After several months of work by our team in Poland and in the USA we have put at your disposal a new tool: PolishOrigins Surnames Database.

The main goal of this project is to make it possible for everyone to search for people who are interested in the same surnames or places and to enable the exchange of information and findings.

We have all heard stories about researchers who did a great deal of work, spent months or even years researching their family, and after all that time ran into someone else who had already done the same research! Of course, very often it happens that this is a distant relative of whom we were not aware...

Why not check the Surnames Database first and share with others the surnames of your forefathers and the places (villages, towns, cities) of their origin?

How you can use the PolishOrigins Surnames Database:

1. You can search the database for surnames of interest. You can use either the internal search engine or the alphabetical index. You can search on only part of a surname (even two letters are enough) and you will get all the results that include that sequence of letters.

(Soon we will add an index for Places too; however, you can already find places of interest for given contacts by clicking 'More...' when viewing a surname entry.)

2. You can add surnames and places you are interested in. Just register or, if you are already registered, log in and edit your profile and enter all the surnames and places of interest in the appropriate fields.

3. You can create your own simple information page. When you edit your profile you will find a 'Notes' field there. This is the place where you can put everything that you think might be important for others to know about your genealogical projects. By clicking 'Toggle visual HTML editor' below this field, you will be able to add a link to your website, add photographs, and describe important facts. Click here: http://polishorigins.com/surnames/show/id/2/letter/Z to see an example of a Notes page.

You can always modify all the information by editing your profile and the changes will be immediately visible in your profile and database.

This is a beta version of the tool and although we have done our best we are aware that there can still be some bugs. We are also open to any suggestions that could make the database even more useful and user-friendly for all of us. Let us know what you think of this new project by posting reply here in Forum, or by sending private message to me.

[Zenon]

Places Database is ready!

As promised a month ago, we just completed work on Places Database. You can see the main page of the Places Database here: http://places.polishorigins.com. Now you can search for people who may be interested in not only the same surnames but also the same villages, towns and cities as you are.

We also added a few improvements to the whole database. The most conspicuous is change in appearance of your personal pages. Now there is only one column with four rows in the table. Thanks to that you have more space at your disposal to present your surnames, places and information about your family and research.

We would like to remind you that you can always log in to the Database and change the content of your personal page in your profile (click here: http://forum.polishorigins.com/profile.php?mode=editprofile ). You can add or remove your surnames and places. You can add, change and format content in your Notes field. You can even add pictures of your ancestors or old documents which will be visible in the Notes field in your personal page. To format text and add pictures you have to switch into html editor by clicking 'Toggle visual HTML editor' link below the Notes field. Example of simple personal page is here: http://polishorigins.com/places/show/id/2/ .

We are aware that it is only the beginning of the Database development and we are open to any suggestions and improvements you think could make the tool more useful for everyone.

[Zenon]

Most of you have probably heard about Polish Genealogical Society of America http://www.pgsa.org . I know some of you belong to this meritorious Society established in 1978 in Illinois, USA. One of many ways the organization assists its members in their own genealogical research is quarterly publication “Rodziny” (in Polish – “Families”) http://www.pgsa.org/Publications/publications.php .

In the latest, winter issue of Rodziny we can find a note about our www.PolishOrigins.com website and Databases. I couldn't express it more aptly what they wrote about our Databases (quotation): “The databases are small now but will become more valuable as user contribute information”.

If you know personally, or from your Internet interest groups, someone who might be interested in his or her family history, surnames, places, tell him or her about our Databases. I hope that thanks to growing number of people sharing information about their research there will be more and more opportunities for researchers and for those looking for their families to take another step forward, to overcome brick walls, or maybe even to find distant relatives....

Below you will find scans of the cover page and part of page 11 from “Rodziny” sent to me by Bob Janice. Bob is the author of "Computers and Genealogy" series in our website (click here: http://polishorigins.com/document/computers_and_genealogy ) . His last article was entitled "Image Editing and Cataloging Programs and Genealogy" and....... look whose image is on the cover of Rodziny .

[Zenon]

We enter 2010 with 2010 surnames in our Surnames Database http://polishorigins.com/surnames/

This simply means that chances of finding researchers or relatives interested in the same surnames or places as ours steadily grow.

What distinguishes our S&P Databases is the fact that it have such a structure, which allows search engines to index the content. Most of known to us genealogy databases are “invisible” to search engines, they don't exist for websites like Google.com or bing.com. This means that if you add your surnames and places to our Databases, the chances are high that someone who is looking for the same combination of surname and place through, for example Google.com, will find you. In the case of a rare surnames your entry in our Databases can be found by someone who enters only the surname into a search engine (try, for example, a search for 'Anazewski').

Thank you all for sharing and please give others chance and tell them about the existence of our S&P Databases http://polishorigins.com/surnames/ , http://polishorigins.com/places/

[BobK]

[Zenon]

Bob,

That's why a few months ago we set up a special category in the Forum: Villages and towns of our ancestors' origins.

I have never heard about such place name as DORNKINKE. If you have any document showing spelling of the town upload it into new thread in the "Villages and towns..." category. Maybe together we will be able to make it out.