Poland

Why Poland

Many families of today's western Ukraine, western Belarus and Lithuania were Roman Catholic, Greek Catholic or Jewish, and their registers were kept in Polish, Latin or Russian. Part of what survives from the eastern lands of interwar Poland was taken to Poland after 1945. The kingdom of Poland, around Warsaw, was itself part of the Russian Empire until 1915, and its church registers were written in Russian from 1868.

Where the records are

• The Central Archives of Historical Records in Warsaw (AGAD) keep civil and religious registers from the former eastern lands, east of the Bug river.
• The regional state archives keep the registers of their own area once they are old enough: births after 100 years, marriages and deaths after 80. Newer registers stay in the civil registry offices.
• Church archives of dioceses keep second copies and older registers.

What is online

• AGAD. The archive's site, with its inventories of the registers from the eastern lands.
• Szukaj w Archiwach. The search of the Polish state archives, with millions of scanned pages, many of them parish and civil registers. It does not open from some countries.
• Geneteka. A volunteer name index of baptisms, marriages and deaths from thousands of parishes.

How to order

Polish archives answer genealogical requests by e-mail, in Polish or English, usually for a fee. Name the parish, the faith, the years and, if you found it, the archive reference.

Traps

• One village may have a Polish, Ukrainian, Belarusian, Lithuanian and Yiddish name.
• First names are often in Latin in Catholic registers: Joannes for Jan, Ivan or Ioann.
• A family that was Greek Catholic is in different registers from its Roman Catholic neighbours.