Types of sources used for genealogical queries

Materials gathered both in family and public archives include a lot of information used for genealogical purposes. On the basis of archive materials, it is possible to establish the relationship by birth and by marriage, social class affiliation, financial position, occupation, functions, and religious denomination of individual family members. Information on persons noticeable by active involvement in any particular domain, e.g. political, scientific, or artistic arena, may be included in collections of documents preserved by various scientific archives, party archives, archives of unions and associations, societies and foundations, social, sports and touring organizations, as well as libraries and museums. Nowadays, many archive materials of well-known persons and families are preserved by state archives.

The following types of archive materials may be used in the course of genealogical research: registers of births, marriages and deaths, vital records, church archives and those of religious orders, population records, judicial and notary’s files, records of the administration of justice, records of universities, schools and various educational institutions, parties and associations, records of chanceries from the Old-Polish period, and those of institutions established to make inquiries regarding the rank of nobility.

Births, Marriages and Deaths Registers (parish and civil registers)

Old-Polish BMD registers, i.e. those drawn up until the end of the 18th c., provide information, first of all, on the genealogy of noble and middle-class (bourgeois) families. Not much information may be found in them on peasants’ families, as the practice of inheriting peasants’ surnames from generation to generation did not become common until the 19th c. Entries included just forenames and, occasionally, occupations. Many changes in keeping BMD registers took place in the partition period. At that time, civil status records became public and legal documents. The manner of keeping them was regulated under relevant provisions incorporated by each of the invaders participating in the partitions of Poland.

Not all public registers from the period of the Warsaw Duchy and the years of 1808-1815 were preserved. At that time, regardless of civil registers, parish-priests continued to keep church BMD registers in parishes. There are some church BMD registers from the period of the Kingdom of Poland which simultaneously used to be the public registers. For each denomination, separate registers were kept in Polish, and from 1868, in Russian.
Church BMD registers, which were both religious and public, come from the area included in the Austrian sector of partitioned Poland. These records were made in Latin. As of 1784, the obligation was imposed on parish-priests to keep three different, separate registers for each of the villages of the parish. Records of Evangelical denomination were kept separately as of 1781 (registered by Catholic priests until that date). From1782, parish-priests kept registers of persons of non-Christian faith, thus, entries concerning Jews may be found in registry records. Jewish BMD registers were also drawn up by officials – rabbis. In 1875, the keeping of BMD registers was entrusted to separate officials, so called registrars.

In the Prussian sector of partitioned Poland, until 1874, BMD registers were kept for each denomination by proper parishes, and those of Jewish faith – by municipal councils, municipal police authorities and starosts. In 1874, public registry offices were established in Prussia. Mayors or officers of communes performed the function of public registrars. They kept three types of register: of births, marriages, and deaths.

In the inter-war period, various provisions concerning the manner of keeping public registers were standardized under relevant regulations and judgments of the Supreme Court.

After the Second World War, under the decree of 25 November 1945, the state, general, and uniform registration of civil status records was introduced throughout Poland. Pursuant to this legal act, new state administration bodies were formed: public registry offices. They keep public registry records and preserve them for the period of 100 years. Upon the lapse of that period, registers are transferred to state archives. The only deviations refer to BMD registers of the Jewish faith or those on the lands annexed to Poland after the Second World War (western territories).
Parishes continue to keep BMD registers and are not obliged to transfer them to state archives.

The contents of 19th and 20th c. registers, both Catholic and Evangelical, were similar. The following data is included in the certificate of baptism: date of birth (day, month, year), details of the ceremony (where and when it was organized), particulars of the child’s father (forename and surname, surname at birth of the father’s mother), child’s mother (forename and surname, surname at birth, occupation, social class), god parents (forenames and surnames, occupations), and the priest administering the baptism. The certificate of marriage includes data pertaining to: the date of marriage, course of the ceremony (where and when it was solemnized), the priest solemnizing the ceremony, forenames and surnames of the bride and the bridegroom, their social status, martial status, age, parents of the married couple, and witnesses. Attachments to marriage certificates may include certified copies of birth certificates of future spouses. The death certificate includes: date and place of death, age, forename and surname of the deceased, cause of death, martial status of the deceased, particulars of the surviving spouse, orphaned children, the administering priest, and date and place of the funeral. Many registers were kept superficially, and many entries are barely readable.

Scans and indexes of BMD records

- Olsztyn district XIX-th century records of birth certificates
- Płock records of birth certificates
- Pułtusk and surroundings records of birth certificates
- Warsaw records of birth certificates
- Wielkopolska records of birth certificates
- Zamość collegiate parish registry office records

Church registers

A lot of data of a genealogical nature is included in volumes and records kept by parishes, in registers of: parishioners, banns, parish announcements, the confirmed, those participating in religious instruction at school, Rosary fraternities, and records of charity assistance. Registers of religious orders may also be helpful for genealogical purposes (including information not only on the members of the order but also on the wealthy nobility living in the neighbourhood); similarly registers of episcopates, chapters, and colleges.

Population records

Population records include both censuses pertaining to a specific territory and registers of groups of population made for special purposes by state offices, organizations and religious institutions. Registration of the population residing in a certain territory became common in the 19th c.

State archives preserve population records from the period from the end of the 18th c. until the 20th c., as well as many censuses of the 19th and 20th centuries. These materials are usually preserved within the fonds of records of institutions that carried out the registration.

During the period of the First Republic, and thereafter, relatively complete population records, arranged according to the place of residence, and often providing data on the financial position and the family status, were compiled at tax collection. Tax registers are preserved within separate collections or included in, for example, judicial or municipal records. Exact information on families may be found by looking through 19th and 20th c. residence registration records. They include such data as: the surname and the forename, parents’ forenames, occupation and position, date of birth, denomination (not entered after 1945), national status, relation towards the general obligation of military service, origin (the place that the person came from), place of residence, temporary stay, records of departure (date of moving out and information on the place of destination), endorsement by the registration office (date, signature), comments.

Numerous population records were limited to specific social, professional, national, or denominational groups, for example, students, recruits, foreigners, electorate, military men, and insurgents.
Records kept by the State Repatriation Office (Państwowy Urząd Repatriacyjny, hereinafter referred to as PUR) and the Polish Red Cross (Polski Czerwony Krzyż, hereinafter referred to as PCK) are particularly helpful in making inquiries on the fate of family members during the Second World War and after its end. PUR records include name lists of repatriates, displaced persons, those settled in a given area, and foreigners. PCK records include lists of Polish and foreign soldiers killed in action, as well as of civilians, the displaced and those searched for. They also include registers of persons displaced to the USSR, prisoners of war, and persons taken away to concentration camps.

The ELA database includes information on population records preserved by state archives.
A lot of important data on the settlement on western and northern lands may be found in the records of the Polish Western Union, operating in the years 1944-1950. The forms of registration questionnaires of persons going to the Regained Territories have been preserved.

As regards the most recent materials, forms filled in while carrying out censuses and for the purpose of the issuance of identity cards and passports constitute a very valuable source of information.


Records of institutions of the administration of justice

District and municipal register, kept in Latin, and in Polish from the mid 18th c., should be used for genealogical queries on noble families from the Old-Polish period. These records include not only the names of owners of real estates, but also information on: family members, witnesses, debts and liabilities, sureties, last wills, amounts due.
Copies of court registers from the provinces of Podlasie (podlaskie) and Mazovia (mazowieckie), drawn up in the 18th c. by Ignacy Kapica Milewski, so called Kapicyana, are of great value. These materials are preserved in the Central Archives of Historical Records (Archiwum Główne Akt Dawnych).

As regards middle-class families, valuable information may be found in registers of courts, lay magistrates and councillors. The former comprise undisputable cases (including financial transactions and last wills), the latter – disputable cases and admissions to civic rights.

Court registers were also kept for villages having their own local governments. Not many of them have been preserved. They were initially written in Latin, and, in the 16th c, also in Polish. They include entries concerning real estate, receipts, last wills and dowries.

Information on individuals, mostly from noble and middle-class families, may be found in mortgage registers of the 19th and 20th centuries. They provide information not only on subsequent owners of land estates, and buildings and palaces in towns, but also advise on all the heirs, their relationship towards the deceased owner and spouses. Some of these records also include certified copies of BMD records and excerpts from municipal and district registers.

19th and 20th c. court files include, first of all, information on parties to the proceedings, mostly on their activities of interest for the court, both in penal and civil cases (inheritance, changes of forenames or surnames, declaring a person dead).

Records of 19th c. institutions set up by invaders, and carrying out repressive operations against the Polish society, are rich in personal files. Records of various commissions include alphabetically arranged lists of “political offenders”. They also include personal data, short description of activities, and the decision as to the future fate of the accused.

It is worthwhile to pay attention to records of Nazi and Stalin’s institutions (prisons, forced labour camps, concentration camps). They include lists of victims of repressive measures, sometimes with information on the place of origin and the cause of death.

Materials of Polish emigration authorities from the period of the Second World War pertaining to repressive measures against Poles in the territory of the former USSR constitute a very special type of documents. These are, first of all, passport documentation, questionnaires and accounts presented by victims of repression. Originals are preserved at the Hoover Institution, and microfilms are available at the Archives of Modern Records (Archiwum Akt Nowych).


Records of parties and associations

They include mostly lists of names, information on functions performed, taken up activities, sometimes also curricula vitae, photographs and personal documents.
Chancery records from the Old-Polish Period (Crown, Lithuanian, Mazovian, Volhynian Registers)
Genealogies of noble and magnate families may also be examined, among others, based on the preserved volumes of the Crown Register, which includes entries made by the Polish Royal Chancery from mid 15th c. until the partitions. The register includes information on appointments to the positions of senators, high offices of the crown, district administration offices.

Sumariusz ksiąg Metryki Koronnej (1573-1574) [Summaries of Volumes of the Crown Register (1573-1574)], Warsaw 2001, CDROM

Equally valuable information may be found in the Registers of Mazovia, Lithuania, and Volhynia (Ruthenia) and the Archives of the Crown Treasury. Unfortunately, many materials have not been preserved to our times, and almost the entire collection of original volumes of the Lithuanian Register is preserved at the Central Archives of Historical Records in Moscow.

A list of charters preserved at the Central Archives of Historical Records (AGAD) may be found in the Nobilitacje (Ennoblements) database and a book publication entitled Materiały genealogiczne, nobilitacje, indygenaty - w zbiorach Archiwum Głównego Akt Dawnych (Genealogical Materials and Different Forms of Rising to the Rank of Nobility – in the holdings of the Central Archives of Historical Records), catalogue elab. by Anna Wajs, ed. 2, Warsaw 2001.

Records of institutions established to make inquiries on the nobility (19th c. Local Nobility Tribunals and the Herald’s College of the Kingdom of Poland). Nobility Tribunals (Deputacje Szlacheckie) were set up in 1836 in the Russian section of partitioned Poland to examine the evidence of nobility. The Herald’s College (Heroldia) of the Kingdom of Poland was the body of supreme authority. Therefore, the records of these tribunals may include lists of certificates sent on the conferred rank of nobility, lists of persons allowed to use honorary titles of a prince, kniaz (Ukrainian prince), count, viscount, baron, lists of issued certificates of nobility, and of persons deprived of the noble status, as well as the nobility records arranged by names and genealogical registers of the nobility.

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