| Tracing Your Polish Ancestors |
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| 6. THE FAMILY HISTORY CENTER (LDS) |
| The Church of the Latter Day Saints (LDS) runs the Family History Library in Salt Lake City, Utah. This library contains an enormous collection of genealogical resources. Many of these resources are available through a Family History Center near LDS churches. The centers are available to the public. |
| The LDS Locality Index lists parish records first by country, then province, then village or town. |
| Using the Family History Library is the cheapest, most accessible, and does not require writing letters in Polish to Polish parishes and Civil Registry Offices. If you find the records of your ancestor's village or town, you will be able to research mulitple family lines and life within that village. |
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| Locality Index |
| The Partitions of Poland |
| To find an ancestor's village or town, the researcher must determine if there were any boundary or border changes, language differences, and multiple towns with the same name. |
| Poland was partitioned in the years 1772, 1793, and 1795 by Prussia, Russia, and Austria. After World War I & II, the borders changed again. |
| Maps and Atlases |
| To find German place names in Poland, the LDS Church uses the Meyers Orts und Verkehrs Lexicon des Deutschen Reichs Meyer's gazetteer and directory of the German Empire. Leipzig: Bibliographisches Institut, 1912. (General Library Reference. 943 E5mo; also on microfilm |
| Each volume has an index in the back that lists all localities in the area in alphabetical order. The district (Kreis) is indicated by the first number at the top of the page; the second number refers to the town or village. The parish is listed under Kirchspiel by denomination: Evangelisch (Lutheran) and Katolisch (Catholic). |
| Civil Administrative Units |
| When Poland began as an entity, it was heavily wooded and sparsely settled. Many settlements that existed developed within the walls of a fortified military camp known as a grod. The administrative districts at that time were referred to with the term ziemia. Gradually Polish society developed into two classes: szlacta (nobles) and wloscianie, chrzescijanie, or kmiecie (peasants). When Poland was partitioned, three different empires goverened the administration of their region in Poland. The German Kreis corresponds to the Polish powiat, as does the German Gemeinde to the Polish gmina. In the Russian Empire, the uyezd functioned like the powiat and the gmina matched the Polish gmina. In Galicia (Austria-Hungary), the records were usually in Latin and the term districtus was clearly understood. |
| wojewodztwo (province)--equivalent to a state in America--in Latin, palatinatus, in German, Land or Provinz, in Russian, gubernia. |
| powiat (county)--a wojewodztwo is divided into units (powiaty) much like states are divided into counties in America. |
| gmina--an administrative unit under a powiat |
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