Hello to all of you,

I am so proud of myself as I managed to overwrite all the content at Polish Culture site! Which means... that each article there has been written by me. Now the only person that you can blame for poor article or grammar mistake is me!!! :)
It also means that now I can choose the topics of the articles myself. I do not have to think what topic I just delete but maybe I should then write about... I will just use my inspiration, your hints, my knowledge, your questions... and maybe also my mums cooking skills:) My last article is a combination of those (except for cooking skills:) and it concerns genealogical researches topic.

I receive questions about family roots and genealogy quite often. It is surprising that we are so interested in the past. Our ancestors seem to be a very important part of our identity. But I was interested in genealogical researches even before I knew BellaOnline. I got my own family tree (made by my brother) and then I helped couple of friends to proceed with their research. I spent hours over old church records... yellow pages were covered with unfamiliar names, information on marriages, births... but these names used to be alive! Those people had their own family, personality, voice, passion... and then a stranger from Krakow tracked their whole life on a paper... getting to know their marriage date (but no idea how they felt then), checking when their first baby was born, then probably second and third... then seeing one of them die and the other one re-marry... everything seems like a chapter in a novel... but you start to sigh when you think that those people are somehow connected with you. There is a long thread that connects their and your life.

The article tells about basic things that you should do before starting your research. If you plan your trip to Poland (to track your roots) you would surely hate to come back with no success! Hours spent on the documents you find at home, might profit in your further research. Your living relations might give you hints where to start your search or whom to look for. Official documents will assure you in the information you gathered. Start with simple things: asking, writing down, checking in Internet names of villages, looking for churches where your ancestors were baptized or even contacting institutions that keep the records you need: all of it you can make from home. The next step is up to you: hiring or asking somebody for help or simply continuing research yourself in the country of your ancestors:)

Planning genealogical research
Genealogical research might be very hard. But it can never be successful if you do not gather first all the important information that exists among your family. Ask people, check documents and letters to make your search in Poland easier.

Find more on Polish Culture site at BellaOnline.com.

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Feel free to forward this newsletter to anybody you feel would be interested in Polish Culture. In case of any questions or advices feel free to email me:)

All the best and have a great weekend!

Barbara Swiech, Polish Culture Editor
http://polishculture.bellaonline.com