PolishOrigins(TM) Forum

Re: Looking for family

jwaldo11 — Sun Aug 01, 2021 9:08 pm

Author: jwaldo11

Posted: Sun Aug 01, 2021 9:08 pm

I can tell you that there are very helpful people here on this forum! I have gotten a lot of help with my questions.

The best advice I got is to find if at all possible the birthplace or last known residence of your ancestor. That way you know where to look for records. That at least narrows down all those pages of unindexed films the previous post was describing!

It sounds like you have some immigration information, and some birth certificates, so gather as much documentation as you have and see if you can find the name of a town or village to give you a place to start searching.

Then I would post again with the name of the place and the helpful folks here will be able to provide assistance with searching records!

Good luck!

Re: Looking for family

haydensydney — Sun Aug 01, 2021 7:28 pm

Author: haydensydney

Posted: Sun Aug 01, 2021 7:28 pm

Hi there - I have also been actively sniffing out leads on our Ossowski family heritage. You can read what i've done to date at ofsoskihistory.com - if you have any leads i'd love to compare notes!

vvitchy1 wrote:

I recently became 'actively' interested in my Polish heritage after discovering relatives of mine had travelled on a ship called the 'Shakespeare' that departed HAMBURG in October, 1875 + arrived in Petone, Wellington, NEW ZEALAND in January 1876. Martin Ofsoski / Osowski was travelling with his wife Marianna (Anna) + their children.

After talking with several family members it would seem serious attempts to trace the parents of both Martin + Marianna have been futile. An old church record uncovered by a Polish genealogist showed Marianna linking to a Krakowska / Krakowski relative although her records were recorded as maiden name Richert - however, the Krakowska name later showed up on one of her child's birth certificates. In cases like this, do people's records just vanish? What are the likely scenarios as to why no links could be found to either of their families!?

Martin was 53 + Marianna 39 when they arrived in New Zealand. It turns out New Zealand was trialling an immigration scheme that involved employment building NZ roads + rail, but does it seem unlikely that a man of that age would've been interested in such work!?

within this forum was able to link into an existing family tree.

Church Records in Poland

Malgroetsema — Mon Apr 20, 2020 9:02 pm

Author: Malgroetsema

Posted: Mon Apr 20, 2020 9:02 pm

While this may not be helpful, I can say from personal experience that my family's records from Poland in the 1800s and earlier are not available online. I am fortunate to have a Family History Center near me that has copies of 5 microfilm copies of church registers from the Lisia Gora Parish. These are not available online and online searches do not result in any hits. Some of the films from that parish can be viewed at FHCs, but they are not indexed and hence no information shows in any searches. If you can narrow down the village/parish where your family resided in Poland, you may be able to locate records at a FHC. But it will mean gruelling work going through image anfter image of un-indexed church register pages. But for me, I have been able to document my family back to the early 1700s that way. Also, one final note/hint -- when I looked for records from my grandparents village - Kobierzyn -- I got nothing on FamilySearch. But when I searched for Lisia Gora Parish in the FamilySearch catalog, which include Kobierzyn, that is when I located the microfilms that had my family's records.

So your family records may not have disappeared, they just may have never appeared online.

Looking for family

vvitchy1 — Mon Apr 20, 2020 3:45 pm

Author: vvitchy1

Posted: Mon Apr 20, 2020 3:45 pm

I recently became 'actively' interested in my Polish heritage after discovering relatives of mine had travelled on a ship called the 'Shakespeare' that departed HAMBURG in October, 1875 + arrived in Petone, Wellington, NEW ZEALAND in January 1876. Martin Ofsoski / Osowski was travelling with his wife Marianna (Anna) + their children.

After talking with several family members it would seem serious attempts to trace the parents of both Martin + Marianna have been futile. An old church record uncovered by a Polish genealogist showed Marianna linking to a Krakowska / Krakowski relative although her records were recorded as maiden name Richert - however, the Krakowska name later showed up on one of her child's birth certificates. In cases like this, do people's records just vanish? What are the likely scenarios as to why no links could be found to either of their families!?

Martin was 53 + Marianna 39 when they arrived in New Zealand. It turns out New Zealand was trialling an immigration scheme that involved employment building NZ roads + rail, but does it seem unlikely that a man of that age would've been interested in such work!?

within this forum was able to link into an existing family tree.