Parish of St. Barbara

© 2011 Photos - Kaja Gwincińska

After some research, I think I've traced the marriage of my great-great grandparents, Frank Zalewski & Anna Lindner, to Parafia św. Barbary w Świętem (or the Parish of St. Barbara at Święte.) According to a translation of their Polish Wikipedia entry: The parish was founded in about 1300 … [Read more...]

Slownik Geograficzny Translation

I recently took another shot at translating an entry from the Slownik Geograficzny. This time I worked on translating the entry for Święte, which is the town where my great-great grandparents were married and some of their family had lived. Here is my translation. You can find the original … [Read more...]

Across the Pond

Grudziądz, Poland

I had a Thursday off this past week, so I decided to visit one of the local Family History Libraries in the area. The last time I went I ordered some microfilm from the area that I had hoped my ZALEWSKI family originated. I was confused since they told me that it takes about six weeks for the … [Read more...]

Slownik Geograficzny

One of the things you need to do once you track down the origin of your Polish ancestors, is to search for an entry for the location in the Słownik geograficzny Królestwa Polskiego i innych krajów słowiańskich (or Geographic Dictionary of the Kingdom of Poland and Other Slavic … [Read more...]

Follow Friday: Polish

Since I've done a lot of Polish/Prussian research this week, I'm going to point at some helpful resources and blogs. Al's Polish-American Genealogy by Al Wierzba This one has been on my blogroll for awhile, since Al posts useful Polish information and interesting tidbits on his blog. It … [Read more...]

Gottschalk!

Jakob Salewski

I've been on a roll this week finding information in unexpected places. Earlier it was the cemetery website and newspaper archives. Tonight, I went to the FamilySearch website to see what records they may have on Goczałki or Gottschalk, the area of Poland that I'm targeting in my latest … [Read more...]

To the Motherland

Thanks to a higher amount of Polish records online and the help of some of the usual friendly genealogists (Thanks, Al and Rita!) I have traced a few of my Polish ancestors back to Poland. I now have the baptism location of my 3rd-great-grandparents, Ignatz Peter SZULTA and Nepomuncena SYLDATK. … [Read more...]

Fat Tuesday

Mmmm...Pączki

Fat Tuesday around here in Milwaukee, home to a large Polish heritage, is celebrated as Pączki Day. The most popular local bakery in the area, National Bakery and Deli, expects to sell 45,000 of them. A pączki is a deep-fried piece of dough shaped into a flattened sphere and filled with … [Read more...]