Navigating Online Records in Poland to Find Ancestors

The ability to search for birth, marriage and death records in regions now in Poland has enabled genealogy research most of us never thought possible. However, to many these resources are a perplexing maze of random searches. This presentation will provide a brief overview of two primary databases which reveal parish and civil registry records in Poland encompassing many Polish, German and Jewish residents of in the 19th – early 20th centuries: Geneteka and Metryki.Genealodzy.PL

This presentation was originally created in 2021 for members of the Society of German Genealogy in Eastern Europe as the second session of a 6-part course on navigating various online databases in Poland. A handout with links, basic word list, and suggestions of additional resources will be provided as a pdf.  

The program presenter is Sigrid Pohl Perry, Ph.D.  Sigrid was born in Wedel, Germany to a family whose ancestors lived in the Lubelskie province for almost a century before being resettled to the Wartheland region of northern Poland in 1940 and Hamburg in 1945. Her immediate family immigrated to Illinois in 1952 while other members of the clan homesteaded on the Alberta prairie or remained in Germany. Sigrid worked with archives and special collections at Northwestern University Library for 40 years until retiring in 2020. A member of the Society for German Genealogy in Eastern Europe (SGGEE) since 2003, Sigrid has served on the Board of Directors; been actively involved in Lublin Project indexing; and given various presentations at SGGEE Conventions, the International German Genealogy Partnership, and a local Illinois Family History Center. 

For this online program, we’ll be using Microsoft Teams. You’ll need a computer with a microphone (or headphones) and webcam, or your smartphone, or an iPad/tablet. 

An email address is required for registration.