Polish National Archives – 2 million new scans in Szwa

PabianAus — Thu Oct 04, 2018 6:39 am

Author: PabianAus

Posted: Thu Oct 04, 2018 6:39 am

Good news from the Polish National Archives online database szukajwarchiwach.pl

They have released another 2 million scanned images of Polish BDM and other civil administration documents into the Szukajwarchiwach online database, thereby increasing their total holdings of scanned images to 34.25 million.

The announcement (in Polish) can be read at:
https://www.szukajwarchiwach.pl/aktualnosci/41

The summary listing of the new scanned records can be found at:
https://www.nac.gov.pl/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Aktualizacja-SwA-09_2018.pdf

Amongst all these scanned images, there are lots of new BDM records from the following regional archives offices:
• Białystok (woj. Podlaskie)
• Częstochowa (woj. Śląskie)
• Malbork (woj. Pomorskie)
• Kielce (woj. Świętokrzyskie)
• Leszno (woj. Wielkopolskie)
• Łódż (woj. Łódzkie)
• Opole (woj. Opolskie)
• Radom (woj. Mazowieckie)
• Rzeszów (woj. Podkarpackie)
• Siedlce (woj. Mazowieckie)
• Suwałki (woj. Podlaskie)
• Szczecin (woj. Zachodniopomorskie)
• Mława (woj. Mazowieckie)
• Pułtusk (woj. Mazowieckie)
• Zamośc (woj. Lubelskie)

The National Archives typically deals with the civil BDM and town administrative records, not the ecclesiastical versions of the BDM records which are stored in the individual parish and Diocesan archives. So, as a rule, don’t expect to find any BDM records from pre-1808 in the Szukajwarchiwach repository of scanned images.

Hopefully the armies of indexing volunteers on Geneteka and the other numerous Polish genealogy forums, will find something of interest to themselves amongst all of this wonderful material, that is worth their effort of indexing. In the meantime it’s a case of having to plough through the scanned images ourselves. Still, we should be extremely grateful that all these BDM records have been scanned and made conveniently, and still freely, available for all to view and research.

If you need a guide to navigating the Szukajwarchiwach service, here are a couple of guides (in English):
https://s3.amazonaws.com/ps-services-us-east-1-914248642252/s3/research-wiki-elasticsearch-prod-s3bucket/images/a/af/Polish_State_Archives.pdf
http://jri-poland.org/help/Guide_to_Images_Linked_by_JRI.pdf

Unfortunately, none of my parishes of interest have been included in this release. Sooooo....... looks like another trip to Poland is needed to get to the records that I am after.
Wishing you good luck as you search all the new images for your elusive gold nuggets.
Tom W

PolishOrigins(TM) Forum

Polish National Archives – 2 million new scans in Szwa