limmy

My husband and I are thinking of a visit to Poland in the spring and I think he'd like to learn about where his name comes from while there if possible. Does anyone know of any companies offering this kind of service?

I saw an episode of House Hunters Intl that featured an American female moving to Warsaw and she used a service to help her track down distant relatives in Poland. I checked the HGTV website for credits and didn't find any.

Thank you.

iris1745

www.genforum.genealogy.com

If you go to this site and sign in at no cost, you will see 'countries' and then find Poland.

At this point you can post a question and there are people waiting to try and help.

I had much help.

limmy

Thanks Iris, I checked out that site but the forum is no longer active.

cdnyul

The more you know about your husbands' background, the easier it would be.

The best keeper of and source of records in Poland is and has been the Catholic Church.

The use of family names, for most people in Poland, did not come into use until the 18th and 19th century, when Poland was divided between Russia, Prussia, and Austria-Hungary.

Polish family names have influences from the above plus Lithuania, Czech, Tatar etc.

Keep in mind that what currently is Poland, was not Poland in 1939.

Mark

iris1745

In addition, death certificates are a good source of information.
My GF was born in Poland in 1869 and died in 1932 in the US, three years before I was born.

I was able to find out his mother was a Mitros that was very informative. We found the name in a cemetery we visited in Poland.

On the web site I had given you, a woman had given me 25 living Mitros's and their address after I posted a message.

travelanywhere

Try doing a search on ancestry com. You can also pose questions there. I found my Grandmother and Grandfather using that site, starting with Ellis Island Records. Tracing my GM was relatively easy. She is from Poland. My GF was a bit difficult but I finally was able to track down the town using ancestry message board. There is also a Polish site which provides info on where to look for birth records.

travelanywhere

http://polishgeno.com/?page_id=38

This site might be helpful

IMDonehere

These answers are very helpful. A few years ago a wedding to which we were invited, but never took place, was supposed to occur near Poznan. Our family ancestry took us to that area but when it was part of Germany. We had trouble finding someone who help us with our genealogy. Besides that, the records were in German and the Germans destroyed many Jewish cemeteries and synagogues, which would have been helpful.

I even went to the area of NYC where there is a substantial Polish population to see if anyone could help us and I wrote to some academicians at the University in Poznan.

We never went but we could not get help in our research either. Maybe some of the Internet sites might be useful. My wife is a pro at Ancestry.com.

garybear

I will be visiting Poznan next month where some of my ancestors came from. The challenge is that they were German when this area was known as the province of Posen in the Kingdom of Prussia. I have found a couple of useful websites that may be of interest.

If your ancestors were ethnic Germans, here is a cross-reference of formerly German towns and villages with their current Polish names.
http://www.atsnotes.com/other/gerpol.html

If your ancestors were from the Poznan area regardless of ethnicity, here is a web site that has documented most marriage records of the 19th century and put them online. Apparently the churches protected their old records during the war and they mostly survived and are now in the Polish State Archives.
http://poznan-project.psnc.pl/
Their website also states they can do other genealogical searches on a fee basis and I wrote to them last week but no reply yet.

You said you were planning to go in the spring. Did you make the trip and how did it turn out?

limmy

Thanks for the the info Garybear. We decided not to pursue this at all since my husband really doesn't know anything to start with and he is estranged from the side of his family that he'd need to get basic information from to even begin. We didn't make it last spring but we are booked for late fall, we land in Warsaw on 11-27. We booked the trip very far in advance because we are using miles & points, so we are very ready to go at this point! As of today I can officially say that we're going to Poland next month, we're very excited!

Thanks for posting those links, I could see us looking into it in the future. We've had a very busy year and my husband just wasn't up for doing the work at this time. But I could see us returning to Poland for a summer trip some day. I hope your own search is going well and I hope you have a great trip.