Please meet Genealogy volunteers in Poland:

Jolanta Ilnicka, Teresa Korczak and Zbyszek Nalichowski

Today is another post from new series "Who is Who" in genealogy in Poland.

Last time I mentioned Maciej Róg and today I would like to present people without whom Maciej would not be able to achieve himself all, please meet his three musketeers who were also founders of Opole Genealogy Society:

Jolanta Ilnicka president of the society, teacher of history; Teresa Kroczak, who unfortunately is not with us anymore and Zbyszek Zbigniew Nalichowski vice president of this society and also a teacher. Without them, the Polish Genealogy Conference in Brzeg wouldn't be such successful and without them, many projects for Opole region would not exist. Big thank you from all of us!

Leszek Ćwikliński, Krzysztof Dławichowski, Bronisław Popkowicz and Wawrzyniec Myśliński

Since we talked last time about digitizing vital registers in Łódzkie in today’s episode of our series “WHO is WHO” in genealogy in Poland, let’s say hello to Leszek Ćwikliński (engineer), Krzysztof Dławichowski (retiree), Bronisław Popkowicz (engineer), and Wawrzyniec Myśliński (retiree).

These "FANTASTIC FOUR" volunteers throughout many years digitized vital registers located in the state archives in Gdańsk, Grodzisk, Kielce, Koszalin, Mława, Płock, Pułtusk, Sandomierz, Warszawa, Diocese Archive in Warszawa-Praga and civil registry offices in Ciechanów, Mława and Przasnysz area (Wawrzyniec). The result of their FREE work can be currently found in Genbaza and Metryki, I am still amazed how they achieved so much with so little resources, purchasing their own equipment (cameras, specialistic tables, etc), quite often travelling hundreds of km to reach the archives and sometimes sacrificing themselves and sleeping on archive's floor for many days to spend there as much as possible.

Of course, their work doesn't end on digitizing, all of them are authors of indexes which can be found on Geneteka, PomGenBase and Indeksygenbaza.

If that was not enough, Leszek is also the one who is responsible for coordination and "feeding" the Genbaza (including database organization and digital images processing to be posted). Also, he cooperates with German volunteers who participate in the indexing project of West Pomeranian's vital registers from State Archive in Koszalin located on Indeksygenbaza.

Gents, CHAPEAU BAS and thank you from the bottom of our hearts!

In 2006, Jacek created geneteka database being inspired by another database of "Nationwide index of marriages till 1899" created by Marek Minakowski. This new database aimed was to also include births and deaths records. When he became a chairman of Polish Genealogy Society, the geneteka became the project of that society.

The first parish which was entered into the database was Białobrzegi parish (near Radom), since that time thanks to more than thousands of volunteers in 2019 geneteka has more than 28 millions entries.

Geneteka admins (former and current)

We cannot, of course, forget about those who for many years took care of the administration of geneteka: so let's also wave to Leszek Ćwikliński, Marta Nalążek and Tomasz Turniak and other current regional admins Tomasz Turniak, Dorota Nowakowska, Krystyna Domańska-Bzdak, Cezary Kujawa, Bogusław Gadecki, Alicja Rybałko and Igor Daniszewski.

Thank you all :) I know without your hours spent on preparing and entering indexes into the database system we wouldn't have any tool for our research!!

Sebastian Gąsiorek, Kamil Tetkowski and Krzysztof Imiołek

Today is another post from new series "Who is Who" in genealogy in Poland.

Last time I mentioned "geneteka" creator and its administrators, but we would not be able to use this tool if we had no involvement of our IT geniuses who behind the scene ensured that current version is much more user-friendly and makes our life easier while researching.

Also, we cannot forget about the person who is taking care for metryki - who is not only placing digital scans but is also one of those who numbered all scans making it easier for us to find the exact record.

Let's meet the behind the scenes magicians: Sebastian Gąsiorek, Kamil Tetkowski and Krzysztof Imiołek.

Gents, thank you for making our research more enjoyable ❤️

At first in 2011 Kornelia Major started the cooperation with Diocese Archive in Kielce and during this year, she and other volunteers digitised 3719 vital registers with 517,656 pictures of over 2,000,000 records. Those who support Kornelia were: Ewa Jaskólska, Ewa Pabian, Maciej Terek, Leszek Cwikliński, Edward Jabłoński, Krzysztof Dławichowski. All these pictures can be found published in metryki.genbaza.pl and indexes can be found in geneteka and on Society website.

But as usual this is not the end :) Kornelia Major arranged the agreement with State Archives in Kielce and Sandomierz to digitize vital registers, this digitization continues till now and more than 4,000,000 pictures where done. Additionally, she and her colleagues coordinate the indexing of those records.

Kornelia is a lawyer by a profession, but her heart is with genealogy; she is humble, always helpful and happy to share her smile with anybody who shares her passion. She also has received recognition award "Genealog Roku 2011". Thank you all for everything.

Today is another post from new series "Who is Who" in genealogy in Poland.

Eight years ago a group from the Lublin region decided to create a new project which will focus on indexing and digitizing records from that region, let me introduce you with "Lubelskie Korzenie (LK)" especially Grzegorz Kociubowski, who celebrated yesterday Lubelskie Korzenie 8th anniversary.

Through those years, this group of volunteers indexed so far 7 147 039 records from 745 parishes in Lubelskie region, that includes parishes which digital copies are located on szukajwarchiwach, digitized copies directly from parishes itself and those which accessible on FamilySearch (all those projects are still ongoing). This group was the first one to come to such agreement with the Family search!!!

Lublin area is close to my heart as my ancestors come from that region, thanks to all efforts put in the creation of that database, I was able to build that branch of my tree,

So I wish those who do use this tool currently or will use it, join me and we can say together Happy Birthday volunteers of "LK", thank you for your tremendous work for all of us :)

Today is another post from the series "Who is Who" in genealogy in Poland.

Many of us have ancestors from Pomerania region, so let's meet and learn about the Pomeranian Genealogical Association - PTG. This association was created by a group of genealogists from the area of Gdańsk Pomerania in 2005. The aim of this association was to promote genealogy and assist all those whose roots are in that area. It's members organize various activities every month including members and association's supporters meetings, lectures for youth and seniors, genealogy competitions for schools, etc.

The PTG flagship initiative is a website ( www.ptg.gda.pl) which includes POMGENBAZA indices for Pomerania region. Since its inception volunteers indexed more than 4.800.000 records and soon one of the volunteers will type in its 300.000th record!

The area covered by PTG includes all parishes located in The Diocesan Archive in Pelplin and State Archive in Gdańsk. PTG's volunteers established strong cooperation with these both archives and since the beginning, they also digitized many records which now can be found in GENBAZA http://metryki.genbaza.pl.

An interesting fact is that since this area between 1793-1914 was under the ruling of Prussia, quite often the immigrants from Pomerania are considered as Germans. The descendants of those who left that area currently can be found in New Zealand, Argentina, Brazil, USA and Canada.

The PTG first chairman and founding father was the late Stanisław Pieniążek (1939-2018) who unfortunately left us last year. He was not only a well-known expert in that area but also had a big heart and helped many researching for the ancestors. He also received recognition award "Genealog Roku 2015" Currently, the chairman of PTG is Janusz Grot.

So without further ado, please meet ALL those who make possible for us to research in the Pomeranian area!!! Thank you all for everything you have done so far!

I know it has been a while :) but let's continue our series "Who is Who" in genealogy in Poland.

Today we would like to introduce two important men who for sure are well known for those whose ancestors are from Greater Poland region, but if you don't know them, let me introduce you to Łukasz Bielecki and Maciej Głowiak and let me tell you a short story about Poznań Project.

The Poznań Project was primarily conceived in 1999, when Łukasz tried to find a way to assist all genealogists from abroad, whose ancestors left Wielkopolska area to settle in America, Australia or elsewhere. Since many ancestors quite often only indicated Posen as their place of origin, (and we all know Posen/Poznań is the name of the city and also a reference to the pretty big area), Łukasz thought that one of the ways to overcome this problem is to create an online database with marriage records for all the parishes of this region. This way database entry can provide the information needed for researchers to pinpoint and order the appropriate microfilm(s) to locate researched record. The first entries to the database were published in 2000. In 2005 Łukasz was joined by Maciej who created the current website and the search engine.

Initially, the period between 1835-1884 was chosen as this was the period of greatest emigration but later on, the timeframe was extended to 1800-1899 and the goal was to transcribe all 19th-century marriage records from the historic Greater Poland (then Prussian Province of Poznan) into a searchable online database.

Since the beginning, this Project was and is supported by more than 400 volunteers from many countries, who have been transcribing marriages from the entire region and database contains already 1 830 807 entries!!!

As you can see, this project is a perfect example that anyone can join indexing records from Poland, you don't need to speak Polish!

If you wanna read more about the project itself you can click here or read "myheritage" interview with Łukasz here.

From our side, we want to tell you both that this was a great idea, you did a great job, so thank You and ALL those brave volunteers from Poland and abroad who participated and still participate in indexing marriage records from Greater Poland and feed your project!!! You helped us to find our families!!!

And of course Dear "Poznań Project"

Happy 20th birthday anniversary :)

How time flies!! we are in August! Time to continue our series "Who is Who" in genealogy in Poland.

Today, we would like to introduce you to another indexing initiative born around 10 years ago. Ladies and Gents, please meet Jamiński Indexing Team!

Why this name?

Many wondered where the name of Jamiński Indexing Team (JZI) came from since currently, you may find on their website indices from the areas of north Podlasie, Suwałki and Belarus, but as it relates to other Polish indexing projects, the answer is pretty simple :)

In 2011, a small group of genealogy passionates started with indexing of only a small parish located in Jaminy, with aim to preserve its vital registers and provide needed information to those whose ancestors originated in this parish.

Once it was done, their work was published in three volumes of birth, marriage and death indices respectively. This publication also contained a historical and geographical description of Jaminy parish and was extremely well received, as it disappeared like fresh bread from bakery!

This positive response to their efforts fuelled their motivation to continue their indexing efforts of other regionally located parishes, and to mark that success, this group decided to name themselves Jamiński Indexing Team (JZI).

Why this specific area?

To be able to answer this question, please remember that any indexing of vital records in Poland is done by volunteers who usually choose these set of vital registers which are of their genealogical interest. Some may even say that if you imagine a map of the current status of completed indices, it really may resemble a good Polish cheese with many small holes :)

And that time, this beautiful landscape-wise area of the northern part of Podlaskie voivodeship seemed to be forgotten, but not due to lack of interest in that area, but mainly because a vast number of vital registers were not accessible, destroyed or scattered among various State, Church or parish archives located not only in Poland but also in Lithuania, Russia, Belarus and Ukraine.

Therefore, their efforts are not only focused on indexing vital registers and cemeteries but also digitization of all accessible registers of that region (see pictures below).

What is also worthy to applaud, since most of registers are old, often destroyed by time and wars, and they are written not only in Polish but also in Latin and Russian, JZI decided to create more detailed entries to their indices, aiding not only researchers but ensuring that these registers don't need to be physically accessed, so can be preserved for the future generation! Thank you JZI for that great idea!!!

Since "appetite comes with eating" the volunteers group grew and in 2017 it was officially registered as association "Jamiński Indexing Team Association".

Today, JZI has 30 members supported by around 60 volunteers indexing number of vital registers.

JZI's official website contains indices database, photos gallery, various articles about the history of the region as well as a web-store https://jzi.org.pl/en/sklep/ offering self-published historical, genealogical and memoir type books. From the sale of those publications, this association tries to finance the hosting of their website to remain free to all, purchase of the equipment used for digitization of vital registers and support the cost of their annual meetings which became a tradition.

Additionally, if you understand Polish, you can certainly benefit from their Youtube Channel, and browse various articles posted (some in English), full of extremely interesting facts, stories, lectures and interviews!

We know JZI may not be big, but in our eyes, its volunteers' efforts and achievements are enormous not only for those whose ancestors come from that area. Thank you for all you have done!

If you benefited from JZI's hard work, or you believe in their efforts, please consider to support them!

With more, they can certainly do more!