Richard Kuzniak
Joined: 04 Jul 2021
Replies: 100
Location: Toronto, CanadaBack to top |
Posted: Thu Jul 08, 2021 11:34 am
Post subject: Poznan and Wielkopolska Records
Could some kind person help an old(er) Polish Diasporan and point him to or summarize the history and current status of vital record access in this region of Poland?
I am wondering where the original church books are stored, what % were filmed by LDS and the current state of accessibility through Family Search and the Poznan Archdiocesan holdings. Have they been digitized from the original film? Are many indexed? Is the government actively indexing or just volunteer organizations like BaSIA and Poznan Project?
What period of time do the STATE archives have records for?
I know I’ve asked a lot. It is but a tiny fraction of my appalling ignorance in these matters!  Many many thanks!
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Posted: Sat Jul 10, 2021 1:19 am
Post subject: re: Poznan and Wielkopolska records
I have to be honest, clarifying location records in this area is still on my list as well but I can share a little:
If you have hits on Poznan Project or BASiA, look to see which archives/sources are referenced to give you guidance. Scans held by state archives, just like on FamilySearch, can be searched manually even if they aren't indexed, though getting there can be a bit convoluted. In general, most scans are documents from the larger cities unless someone has a particular project going.
Church records held by an archdiocese aren't usually online, though volunteer indexes have appeared via other sites as you've noted. Some archdioceses do provide a list of the parishes and dates they archive if you (or a researcher on your behalf) can visit onsite. Others are more vague. I've always heard that originals are supposed to stay with the parish (unless closed) and the archdiocese instead holds "duplicates" / short form versions, very rarely some book scans.
That said, there are some long-form church books in the state archives which have been scanned. It's just pure luck which ones though. The few LDS scans I have heard of seemed to be from the eastern territories, not sure why.
The whole purpose of the Poznan Project is to give you more geographic knowledge of a historical region. Because the city and duchy/province province shared the same name in the period when many of our ancestors immigrated, people frequently find documents that reference "Posen" but often this did not actually mean the city of Poznan and so records are not found there. Volunteers decided to index marriage records beyond the city to link people back to the actual parish or town, even if those records are not digitized or available online currently. PP has since added some civil records from the former province as well, possibly thanks to BASiA.
I have tracked a few records back to an archdiocese this way. Frequently on PP this is Gniezno, sometimes Bydgoszcz, sometimes others to the west. To date in this region I have only interacted with Gniezno and honestly had a lot of difficulty with them and their information/document control. However I have had good experiences with other archdioceses and the state archives in the country.
I don't know the exact story behind BASiA but its description explains that volunteers index 18th-20th century church and government records from archives across the Wielkopolska region. Some link to digital scans but not all. This means there is overlap with PP although I have found more civil records across a wider area on BASiA, especially to the north- northwest. PP has a little extra reach further eastward.
In this region I believe the Prussian Govt/German Empire required additional registration beyond the church in their Germanization push at the end of the 19th century, which is why extra records can appear in a couple locations. The caveat again is that civil acts may have been registered in larger towns than where they lived. But I have seen residency status noted in addition to registration location when I can access scans and figure out which line of the German form is which. They were short and standardized so it isn't too bad.
I'll mention two other general sources:
Geneteka is the easiest and has records indexed across the country but is volunteer run so the listings can be a bit random. It is constantly growing though. You can also search within a province instead of nationally.
Their general search is here, put the surname in the box beside "Nazwiska" - https://geneteka.genealodzy.pl/index.php?op=se&lang=pol
Szukajwarchiwach.gov.pl is a catalog for the state archives of Poland and you can limit your search to single locations like the Poznan archives. Polish history though means that the records are of all types and languages and there are a lot more collections than scans available currently. I believe at one time there was a list of fees for research and copy requests somewhere (maybe on individual archive homepages?) but I'm blanking right now. It also looks like they've completely overhauled the website since I last looked so things may have changed. In the past, collections had a string of letters and numbers which had to be provided for anyone requesting documents from the archive.
Personally I haven't been able to get further back than about 1790 but I'm still looking for sources and locations. Also things are constantly being updated and indexed so it is worth rechecking some sources--a lot can change in even a year or two. Good luck!
Kim
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Richard Kuzniak
Joined: 04 Jul 2021
Replies: 100
Location: Toronto, CanadaBack to top |
Posted: Sat Jul 10, 2021 11:44 am
Post subject:
Many many thanks for your thorough and helpful post. It is greatly appreciated. I started my family research 2 years ago when my granddaughter was born. I was able to produce a fairly complete tree going back a few generations. These days, I am concentrating mainly on direct ancestors. I have been lucky to fill in about 90% of my fan chart back to 1800 and am working on the 18th century. I have reached the late 1600s in a couple of instances and have a marriage record from 1730. I do have help from a genealogist in Poland finding some records but I would like to do more myself. My age and health prevent me from travelling to Poland and so I’m limited to what I can find online. Your post has clarified much of what I was ignorant of and has provided some guidance and direction. Thank you again and best of luck in your own searches!
Richard
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Richard Kuzniak
Joined: 04 Jul 2021
Replies: 100
Location: Toronto, CanadaBack to top |
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dnowickiPO Top Contributor
Joined: 28 Dec 2011
Replies: 2841
Location: Michigan City, IndianaBack to top |
Posted: Sat Jul 10, 2021 5:22 pm
Post subject:
| Richard Kuzniak wrote: | Just a quick follow up (I apologize for my old brain struggling )...
Did the LDS film the church records in situ at the various diosecsan archives or were the books moved to a central location? Where are they stored now? Did all/most parish records get filmed?
Are all the filmed records stored in Utah with copies at various state archives?
These films are the source material for digitizing and indexing?
I know you answered these questions...I plead a state of overwhelmed confusion!  |
Hi Richard,
Before getting into specifics, a few preliminary remarks may be helpful. Technically, the entity which filmed the records which are on Family Search is known as The Genealogical Society of Utah. Before any records were filmed The Genealogical Society of Utah and the entity where the records are housed entered into a contract which allowed volunteers from the society to film the record books. The contracts, evidently, were not universally the same. Both parties were and are bound by the terms of the contract. In Poland a major rule is the 100 year privacy rule—no records less than 100 years old could be filmed. In the case of Archdiocesan and Diocesan archives the documents were filmed in the archive. Thus the film notes for parishes in the Archdiocese of Gniezno state “Mikrofilm zrobiony z rękopisów w Archiwum Archidiecezjalne w Gnieźnie”. Baring human error (like overlooking a record) all the parish records held in the archive were filmed. Since the manuscripts never left the archive, the originals are still housed in the archive. A copy of all the films was also left in the archive. The Polish National Archives are a separate entity from the Catholic Archdiocesan Archive so I doubt that films were shared by the Church Archive with any National Archive. Also, keep in mind that not every diocese agreed to have the society make films of their records. (The same is true on this side of the pond. Parishes where I live are part of the Diocese of Gary. Ten miles to the north of where I live is the Michigan-Indiana state line. The parishes in Michigan belong to a different diocese, which did not agree to allow the society to film its records. Bottom line is that records of parishes in the Gary diocese have been filmed whereas those in Southwestern Michigan have not.) Access to the digitized records varies according to the terms of the contract. Evidently the contract with the archives in Gniezno requires that the digitized records be viewed at a Family History Center or affiliated library. However, all the parish records of the Archdiocese of Chicago have been digitized and can be viewed on Family Search from the comfort of home. A lot depends on the luck of the draw.
As I understand it, films are stored at the Family History Library in Salt Lake City but are also stored in a vault in the mountains in Utah—a precaution against records being lost to disasters natural and otherwise. I’m not tech savvy enough to know how and where digital images are stored but my Mormon friends tell me that now when volunteers go to film records they skip the microfilm step and made digital copies from the get go.
The microfilms are the source from which the records are digitized. Digitization is a project which was begun a few years ago (I don’t remember how many.) and is still a work in progress. I have no idea of what the target date for the completion of the project is nor do I know the technical details of the process but it appears that the end is not yet in sight.
Since indexing of records is done by volunteers from various societies and organizations it would make sense that the digital images are what the indexers work with. After all, physical manuscripts are fragile and the less they are handled the better. This all brings back memories of days long past when I was doing research at the library of the University of Chicago in their rare book room. I needed to read a very early 16th Century book in Latin. The book was brought into the room by an attendant and opened by that person (who was wearing gloves). Every time a page needed to be turned it was necessary to signal the attendant who turned the page—all part of the effort to minimize any potential damage to the book—one could look but not touch. The experience was something I’ll never forget.
I hope that I’ve answered your questions. If you have additional questions please don’t hesitate to ask.
Dave
PS The luck of the draw and the 100 year privacy rule...My maternal great grandparents died and were buried in the parish of Świerczyn in Kujawsko-Pomorskie, my great grandmother in 1922 and great grandfather in 1932. I found their records on microfilm on Family Search more than 15 years ago. It was pure luck. A copy of the parish registers had ended up in an archive in Germany where it was filmed. Location, location, location worked to skirt the 100 year privacy rule.
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Richard Kuzniak
Joined: 04 Jul 2021
Replies: 100
Location: Toronto, CanadaBack to top |
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dnowickiPO Top Contributor
Joined: 28 Dec 2011
Replies: 2841
Location: Michigan City, IndianaBack to top |
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Richard Kuzniak
Joined: 04 Jul 2021
Replies: 100
Location: Toronto, CanadaBack to top |
Posted: Mon Jul 12, 2021 12:53 pm
Post subject:
Shame that there is not more being done by the government but I guess it’s not a priority. I appreciate your encouragement to the digitizers and indexers. Certainly conveying it in Latin carries more gravitas...
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