I am curious to see how many Polish and non Polish know their own family histories and have actual family documentation ?
I was told many Polish dont know their history, this I find hard to believe because so much tradition/culture is carried down generations, so i would think many have such knowledge .
please everyone feel free to respond, this isnt limited to just Polish, it would be interesting to hear all comments actually :)
non Polish know their own family histories and have actual family documentation ?
I know very little my grandmother on my mothers side has a huge file and alot of old certificates (birth/death and marriage) in her possession
I am researching my dads side and working out whom Zigmunt Tarasiewicz is and what connection he has to my father?? My father passed away 7 years ago and never spoke about his family at all.
I know nothing about the one person, supposedly a Pole, who married into my Italian/German family. She may be the actual mother of my great grandmother (rather than the stepmother), but no one recorded anything but her name and she apparently died young, so we don't really know.
Her name was Mildred Swetkuse (this is a close as I have gotten to the actual spelling of the name; it is from an old ledger in a courthouse, read by someone who went there to look for me). She said it could also be Swietcuse or Swiatkuse, something like that.
She lived in Hazleton, Pennsylvania in the USA, in the early 1900s. She was called Millie. She married an Italian-born man named Rocco Rosello, who sometimes called himself Roc or Ric Russel. He was my great great grandfather. She was his second wife. He died in 1930 at age 70, and we have no idea what happened to her or where she and her family were originally from.
We were told the name is Polish, but I do not know that for sure.
I am researching my dads side and working out whom Zigmunt Tarasiewicz is and what connection he has to my father?? My father passed away 7 years ago and never spoke about his family at all.
Yes, same here, it was all foot work. we have a library in Detroit which i go to and they have some really interesting information, cencus, immigration, old church ledgers of baptisms, marriages, deaths. so I was able to locate records that our family more then likely had, but might have been lost during moves, and fires , floods etc.
it is hard , but its like a long history assignment you can never get a grade on :)
I think its amazing, to actually find a record of your 4th great grandfather who was in military , unfortunately, no one thought of diarys in my family :(
my dad never knew half the information I know now. but I think he would have been amazed to see all the military men on his side. :)
ok, not many responses to this thread, i thought you all would blow this thread out of the water with knowledge .
there are some i know who have traced, or know family history, but if you think about, if it werent for them, we wouldnt be us :)
My dad's side is hard to trace and he line stops cold with my great granddad, but my mum's side can be traced all the way back to Henry VIII's reign if not further, though it gets murkier...
My mum's side went to Canada in the 1800's, then found their way back to Britain when my Nan's dad fought in WW1, was wounded at Ypres and convalesced in the uk. Then after the war, they settled back in the motherland.
It's facinating stuff, that's for sure. If it wasn't for Kaiser Wilhelm i'd be a Canuck. :)
My dad's side is hard to trace and he line stops cold
this i can relate to mine stops dead with my dad as he never talked about any of his family only to say he was raised by his grandparents rather than his birth parents ... now the weird bit which i am looking into is my dad's mum is marjorie(margaret) married Zigmunt Tarasiewicz he was born in Poland in 1926 ... now my dad also used to visit them whenever he had a phone call when i was growing up ... courtesy of ancestry.co.uk i have found out their birth dates and the months both respectively passed to the other world. But i cant locate their marriage certificate on there :( and i really dont want to have to trawl all way to London to the Family History Centre to look through volumes of books in order to locate it but looks like its my only option.
:(
it is hard , but its like a long history assignment you can never get a grade on
my mum has done all that for both sides of our family
I started both grandparents on moms side, then started my dads father, when I realized, my dads mother side has so much to get, it became overwhelming.
I have three trees half way thru, and one which is a major project, she (grandmother) had alot of family come to the states around the same time. all Polish, and all aound the northern area in the states. lots to do.
I know back to my 4 times great grandparents in Poland. My gr-grandfather, Martin von Klopotek Glowczewski and gr-grandmother, Victoria von Cisewska, came to the US in 1868 through Canada and then into Portage County, WI. They originated in Glowczewice, Poland, were married there in 1854; had several children there, then 3 more in the US. My grandfather, was the youngest of that family. My mother is the youngest of his family of 12 children. I am in the process of validating who Martin's parents were because the parish records for his birth year were so damaged that they are nearly indecipherable. However, all records point to his parents as Martin von Klopotek Glowczewski and Katarina von Styp Rekowska.
My great grandmother, Victoria's parents, were Jozef von Cisewski and Magdelena von Lesczynska, daughter of Piotr von Lesczynski and his wife Agnes.
We come from a long line of musicians and artists, and still continue with those traditions. My g-grandfather brought his violin over with him from Poland. My grandfather used to play it at weddings and parties in Wisconsin. I have played it at bluegrass festivals in Wyoming and Colorado, and now my nephew is learning to play it. So four generations have kept the musical thread from Glowczewice to today, via that violin. Very cool, I think. :)
What is very cool for me is to trace the fathers/grandfathers and also the mothers/grandmothers and to be able to say that I am Jane, daughter of Rosalie, granddaughter of Veronica, gr-granddaughter of Victoria, gr-gr-grandaughter of Magdelena, gr-gr-gr-granddaughter of Agnes. (pardon the anglicized spellings). Six generations of women, and seven when I add my daughter Kat and niece Betsy, and eight when I add my great niece in September, Emmry. Therein for me lies the joy in genealogy -- to be able to know their names, to know where they lived, to know the children they had, the children they grieved for, the husbands they married, the husbands they followed, etc. Same for the grandads only with their women.
Wow -- loooooooooong answer to short question :)
My friends tease me about all the time I spend with "dead people" as I spend hours researching in the old microfilms of parish records. Several members of my extended family and I have a joint website that together houses information for literally thousands of Polish ancestors and their descendants.
You're welcome to visit any time. The main site is:
bigalke.biz
My little corner of it is:
bigalke.biz/klopotekproject/
of course, you will need to add the complete beginning of the www to the web address. :)
I've been researching my father's family tree for the past 5 years now. It currently stands at over 450 persons dating back to approx 1690-1710. More interestingly I've been able to locate living relatives who I never even knew about before living in Warsaw, Szczecin, Detroit and British Columbia.
I did that too.. I followed the tree upwards with the oldest known relative and came back down the tree with names and dates. picked one to find and found them.. living relatives of a great great uncle who actually knew my grandmother,, he was her uncle.. but of course as time went on.. the family grew further apart.
but with re-connecting the family now has been in contact since 1800 :)
thats a long time. I also have a Piotr in my tree :) but he is long gone and he was a twin... :)))
meant to add he was born in 1825.. his brother was Pawel :)
Ive not had much luck since.. records get sketchy..
Unfortunately my search was much more difficult. I had to use a research office in Warsaw and freelancers in Maryland and Lwow. I only started getting results when the Warsaw office started making "cold calls".
Things are complicated by my great (x6) grandfather who had 12 children with 3 different wives, so there are 3 sub-branches of the family (and lots of 1/2 cousins).
Currently I am trying to determine how many other family members (12 so far) who migrated to the US. Quite a few seem to have headed to Detroit.
I know a bit, but not as much as I'd like. My mom's side is well documented, with one branch going back to the American Revolution. My dad's side is more challenging. My surname is Balitewicz, which looks Polish, sounds Polish ( to an American at least ) and came from Poland, but I'm skeptical of it's Polishness. My greatgrandfather was murdered when my grandfather was a teenager, and no one really knew the family history that well. His widow remarried, and moved away from his brothers. Here's some of what I know. My great-great grandfather was Karl Balitewicz, he was married to Majira Kalendautis, which is Lithuanian. It's suspected that Balitewicz is a Polish version of Balevicous, or something along those lines. I have contacted a person who has researched that name ( and she was curious about my name, because it resembles her name ) and she indictated that the Lithuanian name was a Russian. Regardless, it makes for interesting research.
Ok on my mother's side (Grimm) we can be traced back most notably to the famous Brothers, Jacob and Wilhelm but I am sure the family goes back way before them.
As for my father's side, my aunt did a lot of research over a long period of time and apparently traced our name a really long way back. I'm not sure of the year, but from what I know, she traced it back to a man that was an orphan and had been taken in. When he was grown, a group of raiders I believe to be Cossacks destroyed the village and he was among the few survivors. The name of the village had been Ransleben and he took it for his surname since he never knew his parents and in honor of the memory of the village and it's inhabitants.
I still have family that lives in Germany on both sides, my mom's side they are all spread out and I have never had any contact with them, my dad's side mostly lives near Bremen and I have met them and talked to them on the phone.
I am researching the names: Kordulasinski, Narucka, Stempora, Swieciecki, Tyburski, Zwiatkowski, Adamczyk.
I have been researching for about 7 years and am looking forward to a trip to Poland when I can visit the Towns my Grandparents came from.
I made a trip to Salt Lake for a Polish Genealogical Conference and learned quite a bit. I also did a lot of research at the FHC Library, where I discovered some of the above names, which had been changed.
made a trip to Salt Lake for a Polish Genealogical Conference and learned quite a bit. I also did a lot of research at the FHC Library, where I discovered some of the above names, which had been changed.
I plan to do that.. and trip to Poland in the future.. your able to read those older records Between 1808-1862?
I have found some that they didnt wait for the page to dry, not good..
One branch of my Polish genealogy goes back to the late 1700's. My grandmother's second cousin, though, asked me not to post inquiries with the names. The other branches of my Polish family are still a mystery.
My Dad, sister and myself have spent years tracing our family roots and there's been some interesting results - including a link to the British in India. Very odd. :-)
My brother has been doing our family tree bit of a mixed bag, no Polish but some French and lots of Irish :)
how far back did he get so far?
My Dad, sister and myself have spent years tracing our family roots and there's been some interesting results - including a link to the British in India. Very odd. :-)
its definately a job.. long homework assignment that never ends :))) LOL
if I could come to Poland, I would need at least 3 months to collect all the material ( family docs )..
One Name I am connected to is Gorecki. This is my grandmothers maiden name. I cant even begin to tell you all the Gorecki's who came to the states..
and storys from my uncle .. he told me that some important man came to see his mother and that the Police and secret service were blocking the street, no one could go past them. he couldnt even to go home..
he said he was someone who was big in Poland ( one of grandmas nephews) a relative that knows her and this was in the late 1930's..
my first thought was Henryk Gorecki!!! ha ha.. but nahh couldnt have been him he is not from where my grandmothers from.. anyway.. thats my story.
My Dad, sister and myself have spent years tracing our family roots and there's been some interesting results - including a link to the British in India.
