Genealogy /
How many Jews lived in Poland and did they ever convert to catholicism, if so when? [62]
What for?
For most people it's a hobby. Genealogy is not only about collecting the basic data like date of birth, marriage or death - it's much, much more. You try to find out as much as possible about your ancestors. Where they lived, under what circumstances, how they spent their days, whom they hung out with, and so on. History also comes into play. The plague, the 30 year war, the Deluge ... if you do serious genealogy, you will learn a lot about the past. I'd guess that's what most people drive.
And how do you do that?
Basically, you start with all living family members and collect their data. Once you reach a stage where people can't remember - say your great great grandparents - you go a different route. You try to find the civil registration record for the marriage of your great grandparents. This record includes the names of the parents of groom and bride. Now that you know their names, you go back to the year of birth of the groom/bride and check the marriage records for your great great grandparents (provided the groom/bride was the first born). And so on and so forth. At some point in time the civil registration records will end (around 1870) and you will have to rely on church books from then on. Catholic church books can reach back many centuries, protestant church books often not so much - but that also depends on the region. All you have to do is to find these church books and the record of your ancestor. Sounds easy, but the further you go back to more difficult it becomes. Many church books were destroyed during wars or by fires, and even if you find the old books you might not be able to read them. Many are in Latin and written in scripts that are extremely hard to decypher.
