Genealogy /
Is my family surname (Reslofsky) Polish? [18]
Let me know names and approx. ages, where they may have ended up in the US or at which port you think it's likely they entered the US.
If you don't know that, that's ok, just provide names and ages and/or where you think they were from/may have lived in Europe.
In genealogy, you work backward from the known to the unknown, so we have to start with a correct name/entry point or place of settlement in the US to eventually get to where a person came from.
If you know a husband's or wife's name, or a child's name, I will check that in addition to the target person, too.
Once we know we have the right person on these shores, we work backwards from that point to the point of origin overseas. We try to figure out if one trip was made by the target person, or several, or if many members of the same family went back and forth.
Then from that point I can look for trips to the port of embarkation and there to manifests onboard the ships that brought them over.
Sometimes, I can access archived records overseas. Poland is usually easier due to the voluminous church records kept there, but not always--and I don't read Polish well enough yet to do a complete translation if I do find something.
But I work on my free time and I'm free, so I think that's a pretty good offer!
FYI: many Canadian records are now available that will show passage from Europe and then record a person's trips thru Canada, then into the US via that country. I have access to those, too, if needed.
