My time in Poland so far has been spent in two areas: in the former Austrian Galicia (in the southeastern part of modern-day Poland), and in Warsaw (which is spelled Warszawa in Polish). Warsaw was in the Russian partition of Poland. The “partition” refers to the fact that in the late 1700s, three major neighboring powers (Prussia, Russia, and Austria) completely annexed Poland and divided it between them. The partition only came to an end after World War I. It is important to know in what partition your ancestral town or village was located, because this affected the types of records kept and the languages that they were kept in (Polish, German, Russian). Also, Poland used to include areas that are now in Ukraine, Belarus, and Lithuania. Thus, Lviv was in Austrian Galicia before World War I, then in the Republic of Poland between the wars, and in the Ukraine SSR after World War II. The boders of Poland shifted west after World War II, to include some areas that had previously been in Germany. The following web sites are links to important resources for finding places in modern-day Poland, and areas that used to be in Poland.

http://dir.icm.edu.pl/pl/Slownik_geograficzny/ – Slownik Geograficzny Krslestwa Polskiego i innych krajsw slowianskich [Geographical Dictionary of the Kingdom of Poland] – This is a very detailed online gazetteer of Places in Poland or that used to be in Poland. The site is in Polish. It is very helpful for finding more obscure place names.

http://mapa.Szukacz.pl - “Mapa Polski” – An easy way to remember to get to this web site is the alternative address http://www.pilot.pl – This is an online atlas of Poland that is very detailed, and in my experience includes the names and locations of all the populated places in the country, and more. For each place, the corresponding districts and the population are listed. You can zoom in or out. The site is in Polish but easy to search.

http://baza.archiwa.gov.pl/sezam/pradziad.php?l=en – “PRADZIAD” is an online inventory of the civil and church registers held by the various branches of the Polish State Archives around the country. You can look up the locality and find out what types of records are available for what years. This version of the site is in English.

http://www.parafia.gliwice.pl/ – The “Parafia Komputerowy program [Parish computer program]” allows you to find out the contact information for specific Catholic parishes in Poland, so that you may write, call or email them. You can also find out the name of the church in a particular place (such as the saint to whom it is dedicated).

I will be in Greece for a week and then back in Poland. I have a lot to learn about Greek genealogy and the Greek language! – Kyle Betit