PolishOrigins(TM) Forum

Re: Polish Genealogy Academy

Agnieszka Pawlus — Tue Feb 09, 2021 3:39 pm

Author: Agnieszka Pawlus

Posted: Tue Feb 09, 2021 3:39 pm

Dear All!
We are not slowing down with our Polish Genealogy Academy. I would like to share with you some news (I've bben writing about also in our latest newsletter):

First of all, we have enabled registration to Polish Genealogy Academy. From this week, to watch some videos (also the free ones), you have to be a registered user. This will allow us to create a database of our students: people interested in learning Polish genealogy. In the future, there will be additional bonuses for registered members. Please note that it is not possible to log in with the PolishOrigins’ Forum account. You will have to create a new account, but you might use the same email and username.

Secondly, you can now watch all our videos with subtitles. We hope it will help you focus on your content even better and bring even better results. To turn on the subtitles just click on the button CC in the menu of each video. To see the menu simply move the cursor in the display area.

We are constantly working on new content. We want the new videos to be released every month.

Many of our subscribers have their roots in the former Russian partition. This is a large area and difficult to research, starting from the language difficulties, dispersion in several countries (Poland, Lithuania, Belarus), sometimes lack of resources.

Well, fortune favors the brave, so we hope that with our help you will be able to tame this topic and possibly move on with your research.

If you are a beginner, watch the video Introduction to genealogy research in the Russian partition.
https://polishorigins.com/courses/introduction-to-genealogy-research-in-the-russian-partition/

It is free. It presents the territory of the Russian partition of Poland and its border changes over the years. You will also learn about the characteristics of the vital records in this area.

This week we have also published something for bit more advanced genealogists: Useful websites for genealogy in the Russian partition.
https://polishorigins.com/courses/useful-websites-for-genealogy-in-the-russian-partition/

In this 33-minute presentation by Aleksander Zawilski you will learn about three important pages that collect scans and indexes from the State Archives.

If your ancestors came from Mazovia, the vicinity of Lublin, Płock, Łódź or Kielce, the knowledge of these sites is crucial.

This time, we share with you detailed, substantive knowledge and show some of the most important tools we use in our daily work on the genealogy of our clients.

You will learn how to locate the actual scans and in some cases indexes of records, which might be important, as the documents we talk about here are mainly in old-fashioned, handwritten Russian.

Apart from the access to the video, you will also receive the pdf presentation.

Currently, the access to the video costs only 20 Polish zlotys (which is only about $5,50).

We would like also to encourage you to send us your ideas for another videos: is there anything that is especially difficult for you? Maybe you have some questions to the older videos?

We are open to any of your wishes and ideas!

Agnieszka Pawlus

Re: Polish Genealogy Academy

Agnieszka Pawlus — Tue Dec 15, 2020 9:07 am

Author: Agnieszka Pawlus

Posted: Tue Dec 15, 2020 9:07 am

After our recent newsletter, which was sent last week and included the message I have posted above, as always, we have received several emails from our dear readers.

I am copying you one of them below from our Forum member LIT-2236 https://polishorigins.com/userinfo/?uid=2255

"I appreciate above information. Hopefully I will be able to view some of the videos etc. over the holiday period..... Just not good at spending long periods on the internet....But I remain very interested in my Polish heritage & would love to learn more.
Would you believe I (in Australia) knew more about my mother's journey during WW2 & to Australia in 1947 than the relatives she had been in contact with until she died aged 94 in 2012! It was only after I contacted them upon her death (after finding addresses in her belongings) that they started tracing the movements of the relatives they lost contact with way back then. They have concentrated on tracing the descendants they had lost track of - I'm more interested in the ancestors & the history - direct & lateral.

I ask a favour =
In this time of Covid19 - I am very aware that direct & extended families in Poland, Europe, England & America are experiencing many more difficulties than I am in Australia. I have no way of doing it BUT could you put out a message everywhere that there are family folk they don't even know exist & in distant countries, - who actually are concerned re their welfare & are sending positive thoughts their way. ......during this Crisis & for Xmas 2020 & the new year approaching of 2021."

Re: Polish Genealogy Academy

Agnieszka Pawlus — Tue Dec 15, 2020 9:00 am

Author: Agnieszka Pawlus

Posted: Tue Dec 15, 2020 9:00 am

Dear Forum Members,

Preparations for the holidays are in full swing. In Poland, the time has come to send greeting cards, baking gingerbread cookies and fermenting borscht. I am sure you’re already busy, but if you will find some time for genealogy, we have prepared something special:

From December 10 to January 6 all our videos from Polish Genealogy Academy https://polishorigins.com/academy/ will be available for free.

Among them there are two extended presentations prepared by Aleksander from our team, which were not available before:

How to find the archive that stores the records of your interest? - extended video
https://polishorigins.com/courses/how-to-find-the-archive-that-stores-the-records-of-your-interest-extended/

Research in Western Galicia – history, characteristics and sources - extended video
https://polishorigins.com/courses/research-in-western-galicia-history-characteristics-and-sources-extended/

If you are new to Polish Genealogy Academy, we encourage you to visit our website and watch all the videos starting from #1. We tried to arrange topics from the basic to the more complex.

We hope these materials will help you discover something new about your ancestors.

As always, we are waiting for your feedback and comments. Thank you for being a part of this community.

Re: Polish Genealogy Academy

Agnieszka Pawlus — Tue Nov 24, 2020 9:31 am

Author: Agnieszka Pawlus

Posted: Tue Nov 24, 2020 9:31 am

We have prepared another free video in our Polish Genealogy Academy series.

You can watch video #6 “Introduction to genealogy search in the Russian partition” (and all others) on our website: https://polishorigins.com/academy/

This time Aleksander describes the territory of the Rusian partition of Poland and its border changes over the years. You will also learn about the characteristics of the vital records in this area. There is also a downloadable pdf presentation.

Let us know if the video was helpful. Thank you for all your comments and suggestions.

[html-link]

Re: Polish Genealogy Academy

Agnieszka Pawlus — Thu Sep 17, 2020 9:06 am

Author: Agnieszka Pawlus

Posted: Thu Sep 17, 2020 9:06 am

Dear Forum Members,

We have been doing Polish genealogy research for years. We’ve solved countless various cases, developed a wonderful team of researchers based all over the country and we have met hundreds of clients, both during Genealogy Tours https://polishorigins.com/tours/ and Genealogy Services https://polishorigins.com/genealogy/.

We also read your stories and questions posted on our Forum.

We know you well enough to write that many of you struggle with similar problems: you don't know how to start, what kind of information is vital at the beginning, how to eliminate the uncertain and confusing data, where to look for records and... why are there so many places with the same name in Poland

We would like to share with you our knowledge, that is why we are launching Polish Genealogy Academy
https://polishorigins.com/academy/

You will find there some short videos presenting useful tools and sources, showing you the basic steps in Polish genealogy, which are (and will remain) free.

There will also be extended videos, discussing the whole topics, which might help you in finding your ancestors on your own. First video: How to find the archive that stores the records of your interest is already available on our website..

It is accessible for free till the end of September 2020, but it is password protected, available for you - subscribers of our newsletters and members of PolishOrigins’ Forum.
The password is: LearnWithPO
and is valid till Sep 30, 2020, so make sure you will watch it till the end of this month!

In this video you will learn which institutions can store vital records in Poland and how to locate the relevant archive, which will have the records from the parish of your interest. We will discuss and show you some useful functionalities of the following websites: SzukajwArchiwach (Search Archives), FamilySearch and Geneteka. With the hint of luck you might be able to find the online scans and indexes of some records.

You will find it here: https://polishorigins.com/polish-genealogy-how-to-find-the-archive/
We hope that you will find it useful.
We also want you to know that you are the first, who will receive this link and password. Tomorrow we will be sending it in our monthly newsletter.

Good luck with your research!

Re: Polish Genealogy Academy

Agnieszka Pawlus — Fri Aug 28, 2020 10:22 am

Author: Agnieszka Pawlus

Posted: Fri Aug 28, 2020 10:22 am

Tip for today: Do not limit your search to direct descendants' records and look for their siblings or even cousins as well since their records may sometimes contain information that direct ancestors' records don't.

https://polishorigins.com/genealogy/

Re: Polish Genealogy Academy

Agnieszka Pawlus — Fri Aug 21, 2020 9:03 am

Author: Agnieszka Pawlus

Posted: Fri Aug 21, 2020 9:03 am

Tip especially for those who have Jewish roots: In Jewish families, newly born children could not be named after a living person so when you notice the same name in the family given to a newly born child it is very probable that the older one (so usually a grandfather or a grandmother) had just died recently.

https://polishorigins.com/genealogy/

Re: Polish Genealogy Academy

Agnieszka Pawlus — Thu Aug 13, 2020 9:36 am

Author: Agnieszka Pawlus

Posted: Thu Aug 13, 2020 9:36 am

Do not forget about military records. World War I draft registration cards will often provide a specific place of birth.

https://polishorigins.com/genealogy/

Re: Polish Genealogy Academy

Agnieszka Pawlus — Wed Aug 05, 2020 5:51 am

Author: Agnieszka Pawlus

Posted: Wed Aug 05, 2020 5:51 am

Tip for today: Talk to your older relatives. And find out who the people are in all those old photos before it's too late.

On our Forum there was already an interesting thread "Interview your relatives": https://forum.polishorigins.com/viewtopic.php?p=1285#1285

Re: Polish Genealogy Academy

Agnieszka Pawlus — Wed Jul 29, 2020 1:24 am

Author: Agnieszka Pawlus

Posted: Wed Jul 29, 2020 1:24 am

Tip for today: In records from Galicia do not fixate on house numbers. This is the fastest strategy for quick search of the records but it may be misleading since families moved sometimes and new houses were built

Re: Polish Genealogy Academy

Agnieszka Pawlus — Mon Jul 20, 2020 7:26 am

Author: Agnieszka Pawlus

Posted: Mon Jul 20, 2020 7:26 am

A while ago we have talked on how to find the geographical position of the town or village of your interest. Today we want to add a short supplemental video, that will focus on its former Eastern Borderlands.

[html-link]

Re: Polish Genealogy Academy

aleksanderz — Thu May 28, 2020 10:54 am

Author: aleksanderz

Posted: Thu May 28, 2020 10:54 am

Have you narrowed down the village of your ancestors but are not certain to which parish it belonged and thus where its vital records are stored? As a part of our Genealogy Pro Tips series, we have prepared a video where we present some of the tools we are using in our daily work. They might help you in learning more about your ancestral village and moving your research forward. Good luck!

Genealogy Pro Tip #4

Agnieszka Pawlus — Thu Apr 23, 2020 8:17 am

Author: Agnieszka Pawlus

Posted: Thu Apr 23, 2020 8:17 am

If only it's possible check rather church records than their civil equivalents. Church records will probably contain more accurate information.

First of all: church records were probably recorded by a Polish priest (instead of the Russian, Prussian or Austrian official), so the surnames, places and other details are likely to be spelled more or less correctly. What is also important: civil records in Poland (from 19th century) are often just copies of the church records, therefore might contain some typing mistakes.

Of course, if you have time and possibilities, it is always good to check both and compare the data they include.

Genealogy Pro Tip #3

Agnieszka Pawlus — Thu Apr 23, 2020 8:14 am

Author: Agnieszka Pawlus

Posted: Thu Apr 23, 2020 8:14 am

There are multiple towns and villages in Poland with the same name. Sometimes determining the proper place of origin of your ancestors can be a real nuisance. There are many sources available.
We can recommend here two useful databases:

1. Index of the Places of the Republic of Poland https://www.wbc.poznan.pl/%E2%80%A6/publ%E2%80%A6/7126/edition/12786/content
It can be helpful, especially for someone who does not read Polish, in determining the parish to which a particular village belonged. It was published in the early 1930s but most of the data included fits the 19th Century. The main advantage for anyone who is not familiar with the Polish language is that the information is found in the columnar format. The first column on the left gives city, town and village names in alphabetical order and the last column on the right gives the location for the Roman Catholic, Greek Catholic, Lutheran, and Orthodox parish to which the place belonged.

2. Eastern Borderland Places https://www.kami.net.pl/kresy/. This database is extremely helpful to identify the correct village and its parishes in different confessions. It mainly includes villages in East Galicia, but also quite a bit of its western part, including many eastern counties of Krakowskie voivodeships.

Genealogy pro Tip #2

Agnieszka Pawlus — Thu Apr 23, 2020 8:13 am

Author: Agnieszka Pawlus

Posted: Thu Apr 23, 2020 8:13 am

Check out [url]nazwiska-polskie.pl[/url] for the detailed distribution of the last names of your interest.

Polish Genealogy Academy

Agnieszka Pawlus — Thu Apr 23, 2020 8:11 am

Author: Agnieszka Pawlus

Posted: Thu Apr 23, 2020 8:11 am

It has been over a month since we started to provide the Genealogy Services
https://polishorigins.com/genealogy/

On this occasions we have also stared a miniseries called Genealogy Pro Tips. This will be some short tips, useful links and small steps, which might help you to uncover your family history.
We hope that it will be of some help for you.
If you have some other tips that helped you in your research, you might share them with others here. This is why this community is for