Holocaust Remembrance Day (Yom HaShoah) — #Genealogy, #Jewish, #Polish

Holocaust Remembrance Day (Yom HaShoah) 2013 begins in the evening of: Sunday, April 7
and ends in the evening of: Monday, April 8. In the Hebrew Calendar is 27 Nisan (see Stephen Morse’s Jewish Calendar Conversion tool) is Yom HaShoah and varies in the Gregorian calendar across the Months of April/May.

To honor my wife Teréza and our children let me add a Jewish Genealogy blog post. It is for a Polish village in the AP Grodzisk (Warsaw, Blonie) and is called: Góra Kalwaria. Góra Kalwaria can be found in PRADZIAD database. What is great about this news is that there is yet another project beyond the ones I have previously written about (SzukachwArchiwum.pl and Metryk in PTG). This village and its images can be found in: Metryki.GenBaza.pl (AP Gordzisk) for :

• Góra_Kalwaria_moj_1402

This is just one of many congregations (Catholic & Jewish) that they have scanned. There appear to be about 110 villages in total so far this Polish National Archive in Grodzisk (a branch office of Warsaw).  I picked this village because it is all about the Jewish congregation (that I provided the Pradziad link for). The records run from 1826 – 1910 inclusive and there no missing years. This is a remarkably complete/intact record of a Jewish congregation in Poland. The scanned records from 1826-1867 are written in Polish and then starting in 1868 the records are written in Russian all the way through 1910.

So for the Jewish-Polish genealogists who read this blog, here is a treasure trove to research. In actuality, many of the 110 villages have Jewish records. Look for the abbreviation ‘moj’ (short for mojżeszowe). So I hope this is a joyful news for the remembrance of this solemn occasion.

Good genealogy to all my readers!

–Stanczyk

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A Guide for Using Szukajwarchiwach.PL Poradnik — #Polish, #Archive, #Guide, #Poradnik

Stanczyk has been writing for a while about Polish National Archives announcing via their National Digital Archive (NAC) that Poland would be putting 2.4 Million digital images of church / synagogue metric images from their regional archives online. So today’s blog post is a guide (poradnik) about how to use szukajwarchiwach.pl to view these images.

It is easiest if you know the regional archive you are interested in, but you do not need to know it really. I will demonstrate with the RZESZOW regional archive. This archive was in Austrian-Poland partition, so its records should be for those locales to Rzeszow. Recall from my post, Polish State Archives – Numbers (13 March 2013) where I listed the archive numbers, that Rzeszow = 59.

Œ Œ

Step By Step

Step One

            Go to the archive of interest - http://www.szukajwarchiwach.pl/59#tabInformacje

You should see the web site with the information for the Rzeszow regional Archive.

Notice the two links: Poprzednie archiwum  and Następne archiwum . With these two links you go through the list of regional archives. The list of archives only includes those archives for which they are presently loading images. If you hover over my two links above you will see ‘Previous Archive’ and ‘Next Archive’.

Step Two

            Click on ‘Resource’ [see 2 in red circle] –  which brings you to the list of collections at Rzeszow. http://www.szukajwarchiwach.pl/59#tabZasoby

You should see …

Step Three

 Click on Collection Number ‘59/20/0‘ for the civil records from the Roman Catholic parish of Błażowej - http://www.szukajwarchiwach.pl/59/20/0#tabZespol

You should see …

Step Four

Click on ‘Units 20/20‘ in red circle - http://www.szukajwarchiwach.pl/59/20/0#tabJednostki

You should see …

Step Five

Click on ‘Reference Code 59/20/0/-/1‘ in red circle - http://www.szukajwarchiwach.pl/59/20/0/-/1#tabJednostka

You should see …

Step Six

Click on ‘Digital Copies 107‘ to see a table of 107 scanned images - http://www.szukajwarchiwach.pl/59/20/0/-/1#tabSkany

You should now see the scanned images …

There are 107 images [currently] and the data looks like it is in the Latin Box format. Since there is no index, you will have visit each image in turn and look at each row of boxes to see if that birth/baptism is for one of your ancestors.

So that is a visual guide for how you navigate the  szukajwarchiwach.pl website to get to the scanned images. Obviously, you will need to focus on the villages/parishes for your ancestor. That may be another Archive (besides Rzeszow) or if it is in the Rzeszow archive then you need to pay closer attention to the parishes in the Rzeszow collections and finally, you will need to select Birth/Marriage/Death (Urodziny/Małżeństwo/Zgony) for the year of interest to you.

You will still need to be able to deal with Latin or Polish or Russian or German language in the records to understand what you see in the scanned images. You will also need to be able to read the handwriting. But you can do this!

Good Luck!

#Polish #Genealogy – Library Of Congress Chronicling America

Stanczyk was reading the Genealogical Society of PA email/newsletter. They were talking about the Library of Congress’ (LOC)  Chronicling America program. This program is about saving/collecting/digitizing Historical US Newspapers, including Ethnic Language (i.e. Polish) newspapers.

Casual readers of Stanczyk will realize that I favor using Historical newspapers to fill in gaps or to provide context in your family history. My own ojciec (father) told me about an ethnic newspaper (Dziennik Polski) that his mother used to read daily in Detroit. That was over a meal the night before Stanczyk was going to the state of Michigan’s Library & Archives and I had plans to read microfilm of Dziennik Polski. So, on the basis of this kismet I searched Dziennik Polski and the first time I searched, I found my grandmother listed as a mother giving birth to a baby boy (my uncle Ted) and it listed the address where my grandparents lived so I was able to confirm it was my family. Thereafter, I was hooked on Historical newspapers.

At any rate, I digress (but I hope I have motivated you to look). Stanczyk’s own Dziennik Polski (Detroit) newspaper page came from the LOC’s Chronicling America program and adding their info to my own research to create my Rootsweb page. That is specific to just the Dziennik Polski (Detroit) newspaper (with a small mention to other MI Polish language newspapers). But today I searched the LOC for Polish Language newspapers in the LOC and my results are below:

American Historical Polish Language US Newspapers in LOC – http://t.co/CeEjpWv

Happy and Blessed 4th of July everyone !

#Polish #Genealogy – Useful Websites … #2

Donna Pointkouski ‘s question (about the Shoemaker’s Guild) reminded Stanczyk that he has needed for a while to collect his bookmarks/favorites/URLs together on the useful websites in Poland. In particular, the Online Archives.  Some of the nifty historical images in this blog have been gathered from these valuable resources.

Most genealogists know that you can use the LDS website familysearch.org and search for microfilm of Polish parishes or synagogues. But what if you wanted to search what was available in Poland itself as a way to see what else is available if you go to Poland to search its civil or ecclesiastical archives. Well, Stanczyk uses The Head Office of State Archives (the state archives of Poland) and in particular, I search the PRADZIAD database. You may also want to look at SEZAM, or ELA databases too.

But my images have been coming from Digital Libraries (in Polish = Biblioteka Cyfrowa). I have been collecting a spreadsheet of these digital libraries. They frequently use Dj Vu plug-in to display the scanned images of the books (or other materials). Some regional genealogy societies also have digitized books  (Książki Bibliotek Cyfrowych) on their websites. The one Stanczyk uses for his research is:  Digital Library of Malopolska (LittlePoland) .

The National Digital Archive has 15 million photos and thousands of audio files too. Recently they also implemented an interface (which seems to be implemented at a handful of Polish Archives) to search multiple Polish Archives. The image at left is “Search in Archives” in Polish.

So I have compiled a spreadsheet of Poland’s Archives and their websites. I believe most have an online catalog and some have also digitized some collections and placed those online too. So I have a TAB for Digital Libraries. Finally, I have compiled the Eclesiastical/Diocessan Archives. Since collecting these from Polish websites, I have determined that Poland and its websites are very dynamic and many links are broken. I have been researching them and correcting them where possible. Since this article is already too long …   tomorrow  a partial sample of the spreadsheet to enlighten people on what to search for.

#Polish #Genealogy – Shoemaker’s Guild (Leszczynski, Biechow)

Pretty nifty poster or book page huh? Stanczyk found this in a Polish Digital Library. This masonic-looking page, with the all-seeing eye in the clouds with cherubs, etc. is a notice of a Shoemaker’s Guild from the “Year of Our Lord 1842″ in the gubernia of Kielce.

Now this is of interest to me because my great-grandfather, Tomasz Leszczynski listed his occupation in the church birth records on the 1860′s, as shoemaker & innkeeper  — which I always thought was a rather clever combination as travelers would need shoe repairs and why not get those while you are staying at the inn. So this image is contemporaneous (roughly) with my great-grandfather and the thought occurred to me perhaps I can find records in a Guild Book about my great-grandfather.

So here is Stanczyk’s million dollar question:  “Has anyone done any research in Poland and located these guild books in any Archive or Library and been able to locate ancestors?” Question two, “Was the search worthwhile — what kind of info did you find?”

Come on genealogists, let’s crowd-source, collaborate, or social network a solution here. OK? Anyone near Biechow parish, Pinczow Archive or Kielce Ecclesiastical Archive or a Library in or around one of those three cities in Poland? Can you help a Polish-American jester out? Email me or even comment on this blog… I’ll be waiting.