GENETEKA GENEALOGY POLAND the important link!
PROS
1) Your need to read Polish is minimal because like many church records in Europe, LATIN is used.
2) If you can get through some handwriting hazards, there are good Latin- English and Latin - Polish reference books at the library or on-line translators! You will soon learn a Derelictus is simply a widow- not a worthless bum!
3) The columns or categories are generally obvious, be it that you are looking for marriages, deaths, or births.
4) You'll have to be patient for indexing is an ongoing project, one you may want to get involved with. So if an index helps you get to the person you're looking for, well, you can still get to the records from there. If your ancestor doesn't come right up in the index, but you have some information from immigration documents such as from the steamship, draft registration, or citizenship papers, you might want to start by reading the records from that place.
5) Get maps and descriptions of villages easily on-line to help you understand your ancestor's geographic and cultural world. Begin with the link above that lists the 21 "Provinces" of today's Poland and record coverage.
CONS
1) There are missing records that will not ever be indexed because they are simply missing. This is because they were never collected, they were ruined by fire, flood, or some other disaster, or because of war, particularly World War II. Still start out hopeful. (Great Grandma may have been born up in the mountains in the winter and her baptism may have been by midwife (common) and /or not reported at all.)
2) *** Some records you will find twice, in two different handwritings. This is because a small local church might keep a record and then report it to the main parish. It's helpful when one of these records is neatly written. BE AWARE THAT FOR SOME REASON THE COPIES MAY NOT BE IDENTICAL and that you should look at both because some pages may be missing from the original books or the copy.
3) If you have the misfortune of finding a paper - such as a typed letter - tape - over the exact part of the book page you want - you can still write to the archive and ask someone to look under there! Sometimes there were two images taken - the paper moved for one of them.
4) Watch for the naming of other locations when reading records such as where the bride or groom was born or lives at this time. Nat. is an abbreviation for native. It loosely means the person was born there but in general it means that person has lived there a long time. Just like you might be born in Chicago but have moved to Denver 30 years ago. You stopped telling people you are from Chicago long ago.
5) You may be wondering why the person writing the record - usually the priest - has such an interest in what a person's ancestry and legitimacy is... Be blessed that they actually wrote so much because you'll have the names of another generation back quickly. Yes, in some records, especially way back, there may be missing information on the baptism. Such as the name of the mother. (I hate that!) The inclusion of the name of the midwife in both Christian and Jewish records intrigues me. I think it was to say "This person knows this baby belongs to this mother!"
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This post is part of a series on the subject. To pull all the topics up, click on the tag Pro Genealogy Tips - Galicia
