Forum | PolishOrigins :: View topic - Looking for my Grandfather's Relatives

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KaminskiJL

Joined: 29 Jul 2022
Replies: 33

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Posted: Thu Mar 19, 2026 10:30 pm Post subject: Looking for my Grandfather's Relatives

Hello,

My Grandfather, Jacob Kaminski, immigrated to the U.S. in 1910 from Bremen to Philadelphia aboard the S.S. Main. He was listed as living in Zakrynyche, Khmelnytskyi Oblast, Russia (Ukraine). His father was Franciszek Piotyr Kaminski, and his mother was Ewa Włoszczowska. He was put aboard the ship by his brother Anani Kaminski.

Can anyone tell me if this village still exists, and if there is any record of his parents and brother. Also, if his brother survived both world wars and married, are any of his descendants still living there.

Any help that you can provide is greatly appreciated.

Joseph Kaminski

Trish
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Joined: 23 Sep 2020
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Posted: Fri Mar 20, 2026 10:16 am Post subject: Re: Looking for my Grandfather's Relatives

KaminskiJL wrote:

Hi Joseph,

Just posting the manifest for everyone on the forum to view so that they can see if there are any clues we are missing.

Did Jakob stay in Philadelphia?

Regards,
Trish

Jakob is on line #1. It's a 2 page manifest.

Name Jakob Kaminski
Gender Male
Nationality Russian
Arrival Age 21
Birth Date abt 1889
Birth Place Kanew, Russia
Last Residence Russia
Departure Place Bremen, Germany
Arrival Date 4 May 1910
Arrival Place Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA
Friend or Relative Anani Kaminska
Relationship to Passenger Brother
Ship Main

Jakob Kaminski Manifest, Line 1, Page 1.jpg

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Jakob Kaminski Manifest, Line 2, Page 2.jpg

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Sophia
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Joined: 05 Oct 2014
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Posted: Fri Mar 20, 2026 10:39 am Post subject:

Hi Joseph and Trish,

Here is a link back to the previous discussion of this:

https://forum.polishorigins.com/viewtopic.php?p=61781

To answer your current question, Joseph, you'll see that Cynthia did provide a link to a map for Kuniv. I realize you are looking now for additional info, I just wanted to start things off with what was discussed earlier.

Sophia

KaminskiJL

Joined: 29 Jul 2022
Replies: 33

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Posted: Fri Mar 20, 2026 1:58 pm Post subject:

Hello,
Thank you both for responding. Yes, I tried to get this information a couple of years ago, before I knew that Zakrynyche was actually a village. At that time I was concentrating on verifying that Jacob's parents remained in Zakrynyche and also verifying his mother's maiden name. Since that time I have found that his mother's maiden name was Włoszczowska, and they did remain in Zakrynyche. Now I am wondering if there is any way to confirm their death location and dates, and whether or not Jacob's brother, Anani, survived both world wars. During my research I found some indication that he had survived, and that he actually had at least 1 child Michail Ananovitch Kaminski.

Thank you all again for helping.

Joe Kaminski

Sophia
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Posted: Tue Mar 24, 2026 5:32 am Post subject:

Hi Joe,

Sorry to be so slow in getting back to you. I have been trying to see if I could find the set of records that you need, but I am finding it too difficult to navigate the Ukrainian website which seems like the most logical place to search:
https://dahmo.gov.ua/index.php

I can see that there are online files there that get you directly to images of books, but I cannot figure out just which ones match the time and place you are trying to research. I had thought that if I could just get to the records themselves, they would be in Latin or Polish and I would be able to make some sense of them, but I can't find my way there. Anyway, here is an example of one of their fonds:
https://dahmo.gov.ua/viev_pid_cat.php?pid_cat=76

When you click on either of these links, you can have your web browser translate the entire page for you (not entirely accurately, I don't think, but enough to give you a sense of what is on the page). As for actually pulling the info that you want to answer the questions that you have, I think you are going to need a researcher who fluent in Ukrainian and is adept in this particular area.

Good luck with it!
Sophia

BarbOslo
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Joined: 19 Nov 2022
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Posted: Tue Mar 24, 2026 8:51 am Post subject:

Sophia, are any of the 2 links above direct to the specific location?

-Barb

Sophia
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Posted: Tue Mar 24, 2026 10:03 am Post subject:

BarbOslo wrote:

Sophia, are any of the 2 links above direct to the specific location?

-Barb

Hi Barb,

No, neither link is specific to the town that he needs. Thanks for looking!

Sophia

KaminskiJL

Joined: 29 Jul 2022
Replies: 33

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Posted: Tue Mar 24, 2026 11:47 am Post subject:

Barb,

I have been doing a little detective work with the Gemini AI engine on my browser. I'm going to attach a transcript of this. During this research, the AI engine gave me a bunch of specific locations to look and documents to ask for to find the information that I need. My problem is (1) Language - I can't read/write in Ukranian, and (2) unfamiliarity with the computer/filing systems that they use in Ukraine. Maybe you can help me out? If not, it's no big deal...I'll just have to hire a Ukranian genealogy researcher.

Joe K.

Kaminski Genealogical esearch 2.pdf

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BarbOslo
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Posted: Tue Mar 24, 2026 12:46 pm Post subject:

Hi,
There are many pages and a lot of information. I will read through it, but I am somewhat limited when it comes to reading online. I broke my reading glasses, and the new ones will arrive in three weeks. It would be great if Sophia and Trish could also follow along, as we work closely together. Please give us some time. The biggest problem is that you are asking for information from years that are not available online. Therefore, in the long term, a genealogist from Ukraine may be able to help more than we can.

-Barb

KaminskiJL

Joined: 29 Jul 2022
Replies: 33

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Posted: Tue Mar 24, 2026 2:10 pm Post subject:

Barb,

Okay, as always, I am extremely grateful to all of you for your help. If you want to, go ahead and read through that transcript. It will give you a feel for what these new AI engines can do, and what their limitations are. The transcript contains both sides of the "conversation" that I had with the Gemini AI engine.
I will start looking for a good Ukrainian Genealogist to do the research for me over there. I also think that this will be best because they will be familiar with the filing system, and will also be able to translate directly from the documents.

Again, many thanks to you all for all of your help!

Regards,

Joe Kaminski

Sophia
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Posted: Tue Mar 24, 2026 6:03 pm Post subject:

Hi Joe,

Wow, this transcript is incredibly long. The helpful thing is that it does provide some specific Fond reference numbers for the website that I mentioned above (dahmo.gov.ua). For example, it explains that the church records will be in Fond 18, while the soviet civil records will be in Fond R-6193. If this is accurate information (and I don't know, as I have not worked with these AI engines at all) then it should provide good guidance as to where your researcher should look to answer specific questions.

Barb, this seems like difficult work to try to do without good eyeglasses. It might be a good idea to wait for the new ones rather than try to do this online searching. I do wish you the very best!

Sophia

KaminskiJL

Joined: 29 Jul 2022
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Posted: Tue Mar 24, 2026 6:24 pm Post subject:

Hi Sophia and Barb,

I sent you that transcript so you both might get an idea of what the AI engine can do and also how you always have to cross-check the AI engine because it will go off on tangents and it's really up to you to make sure that the engine keeps looking in the areas where you want it to. I really think, as is my case, where there is an apparent brick wall in your research, the AI engine can be an effective way to break through the wall and continue getting relevant information. While the AI engine will not give you the actual documents, it will point you directly at them so you can (a) go retreive them yourself, or (b) give a proxy researcher pointed directions of where to go and what to get.

Sorry for the length, but you should have seen the transcript for my research on my mother's family tree. I believe the final transcript was about 64 pages long, but it got me past my 3rd great-grandfather and eventually I ended up going back to my 9th great grandfather. Again, no documents, no citations, but I now have a clear set of directions to look up those documents and get those citations. In my case it helped a lot.
Well, again, thank you both for your help, both this time and in the past. I could not have found the information that I had without the help of you two and Trish. You all deserve a lot of credit for providing me with the data that allowed me to find the people that I needed to find.

Warm Regards,

Joe Kaminski

BarbOslo
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Posted: Thu Mar 26, 2026 7:01 am Post subject:

Joe, do you have an account on MyHeritage, Ancestry, or FamilySearch that I could take a look at?

-Barb

Trish
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Joined: 23 Sep 2020
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Posted: Thu Mar 26, 2026 7:31 am Post subject:

BarbOslo wrote:

Joe, do you have an account on MyHeritage, Ancestry, or FamilySearch that I could take a look at?

-Barb

Hi Barb,
I’m helping Joe with the USA records. I’ll send what I can to show you what I’ve found so far.

Have a wonderful day!
Trish

BarbOslo
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Posted: Thu Mar 26, 2026 9:17 am Post subject:

Trish,
Wait before sending it until Joe responds to my question. I would like to see exactly what he or someone else found about Jakub and his closest Polish/Ukrainian family.
-Barb

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