Could it be that there's no trace of any person, no document?
There's always something you can find, or at least that's what my experience shows. Although it's not always the things, the information people would expect.
Much depends on what individual starts with, what they have already learned and what they expect. It can happen that there is nothing about e.g. metrics, due to the fact that they could be burned or any vintages did not behave.
Then we encounter a wall that is hard to overcome, but it is worth looking further, in another sources. I don't think I remember a communicative like this so I couldn't find anything, find out.
To look, you gotta know how and where. What skills are needed, what skills are needed to connect dots efficiently?
Sometimes we look, we look, but there's nothing, so naturally we want to give up. That's why we request to be patient. It is besides useful to be creative, ingenuity, specified a detective schnitzel, erstwhile you gotta look for another sources and places, due to the fact that those tested so far have not brought any answers.
Yes, there are patterns of action that can always be applied, but each communicative is different, each region is different, so you gotta have an open head.
Language skills are definitely useful. It does not should be a fluent knowledge, but adequate to read texts written in Latin, Cyrillic, kurrenta, or old Gothic writing in German, or even Polish, due to the fact that we frequently work on handwritten documents, frequently very small carefully. any records gotta get utilized to the eye.
Of course, historical cognition will besides be useful. Thanks to her, you know where to look and what to pay attention to.
What about the human approach? On your Instagram profile, you described the communicative of an older man who had not said anything until you spoke to him in Polish, in a language he had not utilized since the war.
This is besides crucial – an approach to another man and uncovering a way for individual to share their memories with us. It's not easy for everyone. any forget the past, others deny it, and there are those who refuse to remember things.
You gotta make a safe space to make you feel comfortable sharing your experiences. In specified circumstances, it is besides easier to remember any issues.
When I worked at the judaic Historical Institute, most of the searches, talks, were done face to face. Now I usually work on the Internet, which means I contact my clients by email. But it seems to me that the way you conduct a conversation here besides affects who will and what will say.
What do those who come to you expect? Do they want to build a household tree or can they find relatives?
Some people would like to have an argument from the beginning of time, while most people are curious in the past of their own household until a fewer generations back. They want to know where they came from, who their ancestors were, what professions they had, whether they were farmers, tailors, or whether they were from nobility, what creeds they were.
Some people know household gossip, any legends. Others, due to the fact that no 1 has said anything about their past, about their ancestors, have a feeling of a certain theme.
It happens that individual is missing during the war, so individual else wants to know what happened to him. For example, this individual may have died or emigrated, but she never told anyone about it, never spoke to her household and founded another abroad.
The stories are truly very different, but I think people care about discovering their identity, building it, getting to know their roots.
Is that accompanied by emotion? I imagine it can besides be difficult, painful moments.
Yeah, it's definitely quite a few excitement. Sometimes you besides gotta face unpleasant information that we had no thought about. Therefore, it is crucial to be prepared for different scenarios. Not always everything that we thought was true, sure, is.
I'm actually working with a woman over 60 years old, and she just found out her dad wasn't her biological dad. She was shocked. We're trying to recreate the past of her biological family.
Every fresh find is very interesting to her, moving. She talks a lot about her full life having a certain identity, which now turns out to be completely different. The man she always considered a father was Polish and her biological father was German.
There is besides frequently quite a few emotion, e.g. erstwhile any stories heard from grandparents are confirmed, from parents. Similarly, erstwhile surviving relatives are found, if you were unaware that they existed at all. In my work, I'm dealing with a full array of emotions, due to the fact that the fact that I can participate in discovering specified stories is fascinating.
Are there any stories that someway amazed you, touched you?
I met a female who for most of her life was not curious in the past of her ancestors, and erstwhile she started, difficulties arose. Her parent suffered from dementia, and after 40 years of surviving in Israel she stopped speaking Hebrew – she started speaking only Polish.
Her children did not teach Polish, so no 1 knew, did not know how to talk to her, so her daughter enrolled in the Polish Institute in Tel Aviv to learn the language.
There are besides perverse stories. An example is that you, who said that you had no uncertainty noble roots, but after we developed respective generations ago, it turned out that there were farmers, peasants everywhere. However, the man was convinced that if his grandpa said so, it had to be so.
We checked a fewer more generations back and actually confirmed the origin of the nobles, only it looked a small different than my client assumed – the kid was illegitimate, but the father recognized them and gave him his name.
Do these stories someway stay in you, affect emotions?
Some are closer to others, but yes – they stay. I'm certain it's hard stories that happen around war, information about death. any clients say I'm becoming part of their family.
When I talk about someone's grandparents, it truly feels like we know each another a small bit. Sometimes I find myself on a handwritten résumé of a individual who applied for admission to a university or went to the army. I see the decisions that could affect someone's fate. erstwhile I read articles, especially prewar articles, they can visualize this life.
How many generations back have you had to know in individual else's history? I'm asking about client expectations.
To Adam and Eve [laughs].
At least we know where to start...
We usually work in stages due to the fact that frequently the household moved from town to town, from parish to parish. This allows us to avoid a situation where something is impossible.
Some people just want to get as far as possible, and that depends on a peculiar parish, on a peculiar religion. usually at the beginning we are able to find out whether it is the beginning of the 19th century, the 18th century or possibly the 17th century.
How much time can it take to search?
Months, years... any are only curious in the direct line, and others besides want to grow the tree with siblings, with the full family, so you can spend your full life doing this.
Does anyone always find a surviving loved one?
It happens. I remember a communicative that was beautiful sad. In the background of war, camps, no 1 knows who survived or who did not. A man came to Poland – he had previously lived in Siberia – he could not find anyone here, so he emigrated. He started a second household in Israel.
We worked with the descendants of his first family. We were able to find him, we made contact with his boy from his second marriage, but this gentleman was reportedly already in specified a hard condition that the boy asked him not to contact him due to the fact that it could kill his father.
Tough situation. You don't know what to say to the another side: we found it, but you can't talk or you can't talk? There are different dilemmas.
How did genealogy come into your life?
I was born in Wrocław, my parents too, and grandparents came to Lower Silesia from various parts of earlier Poland. The grandparents liked to talk about their ancestors, about where they came from. They talked a lot about the past.
My mom was besides very curious in genealogy, the past of our family. She made the first household trees. She showed me fresh names, names, contacts with archives.
In turn, my grandma was Jewish, so possibly the question of seeking her identity, wanting to realize the full Polish-Jewish history, besides made me curious in the issue of identity, and the question of pre-war Polish residents, and planet War II. I think it had a large impact on me, too.
But you chose different studies?
I finished Indian philology and Indian culture. In the meantime, I studied for a while in Judaism in Wrocław – then I studied judaic Languages, and then I started working in the judaic Municipality, in the Information Centre, where I had contact with many descendants of Jews from Breslau, or prewar Wrocław.
I was mainly dealing with information, dating trips, selling judaic books, but quite a few people came to the center due to the fact that they wanted to know something about the synagogue, about their roots. They frequently shared any news, stories with me, so I tried to aid them.
One specified individual was you who brought along a bunch of different documents, including a postcard with an old pre-war photograph of her family's home and a street name. She asked me if I could find out where that villa was. erstwhile I started checking, it turned out that my home, where my parents inactive live, was located precisely where her home was. It was very striking and symbolic.
Then I started working in Warsaw in the department of genealogy of the judaic Historical Institute. That's where they went more professionally.
There's quite a few those sources where you can look for clues?
There are quite a few different sources, so actually, you learn where to look, where to look, check. The more so, for all place, this search looks different.
Quite quite a few information can be found online. In any cases a household tree can be created without leaving home.
Of course, it is besides good to establish contact with state archives, diocesan archives, university archives or military archives, to look in another sources. Many papers are only available on site, so it is worth visiting the archive personally due to the fact that it is surely an extraordinary experience. Everyone would besides like to find pictures of their ancestors - this is simply a small more complicated, but not impossible.
You can look for them in state archives – for example, in applications for identity cards, individual files, you can look for evidence envelopes in the offices of the Municipalities and Cities and evidence metrics in the state archive in Milanówek. Of course, these are just a fewer examples, there can be many more possibilities.
Is there anything you can journey over? The first thing that comes to head is of course GDPR.
Birth records younger than 100 years, and matrimony and death records younger than 80, are kept at civilian position offices and are only available to direct relatives or authorized persons. It's not a large problem, of course, but it can prolong the search.
It's all up to the clerk, of course, but I'm mostly dealing with very helpful and involved. More hard access to papers can besides be found in parish archives.
And how come you found a image of your grandparents on Allegro?
This is the simplest and trivial solution that I urge to everyone in household search – entering a name, surname and locality into a search engine. I was truly shocked due to the fact that I found this image recently, and I've been doing it a long time.
I was just looking for something erstwhile I saw the archival allegro auction, and on it a image of my great-great-grandfathers from their gold mating.
Even if we think we've already checked everything, it's worth going back to the same sources all now and then. For example, volunteers indexing births, weddings and deaths – praise them for it – are constantly adding fresh entries to index search engines, what was not 2 years ago, can now be available.
Are you inactive acquainted with your household history? Something amazed you?
Yes, I'm inactive digging through the past of my family, there's inactive a lot to do, but as frequently happens – shoeless shoemaker walks, and I spend the most time with household stories of my clients or people who lived where I live now, in the Giant Mountains. I'm curious in a local story.
What amazed me was that my grandpa had a sister that no 1 always mentioned. I accidentally found her death certificate, a fewer years old.
Is this a occupation that can't get bored?
He can't. There are patterns to follow, but due to the fact that each household is different, comes from different localities, you request an individual approach to each story. I besides learned that anything is possible, and the answers can be found in the most astonishing places.
