My research into the Lagiewczyk family showed that the family had lived in Brzeski for many generations. As mentioned earlier, I only ever knew one grandparent and that was my mother’s mother, Babcia. When my mother and I went to Poland when I was 8 years old, we based ourselves at my Babcia’s house and spent most of our three month holiday living in her house. The memory of my time there and of her is still quite vivid. She still farmed the enormous amounts of land the family held way into her old age but she lived very frugally. No running water – she had a well for her water needs. No electricity – she used candles and lanterns for light and a wood burning stove for cooking. A simple but satisfying life.

Babcia's house in 1994.

My Grandparents, their son Jozef and wife Janina outside the house now derelict after her death in 1985. Circa 1960.

My mother, Leokadia was the eldest child and had a sister Rozalia and a brother Jozef who had two daughters, Irena and Dorota who are very close to my age and we had corresponded over the years.

Irena was now living on the land where my Babcia had lived as she had inherited it after my Babcia died due to being the eldest grandchild living in Poland. Irena has torn down the old family house which apparently had been moved from another location, brick by brick, when my grandparent’s married in 1921. She has now built a lovely home facing the fields where my grandparent’s worked. The old well is still standing there, with a lovely garden built around it.

My Babcia and my sister Grace at Babcia's well. Circa 1975.

Babcia's well in 2010.

Irena had been very close to my Babcia and so she had quite a lot of information to share with me, including the land where she now lived. Zenon and I found this information very useful when we spent a day at the Sieradz Archives looking through archival information such as wills and probates. Luck was again on our side and we found some very interesting probate records which gave us information about land my grandparents had inherited. Unfortunately we were not allowed to photograph the documents. The Archives had to photograph them and they sent them to me at my hotel a few days later on a CD. The amount they charged me was obscene and Zenon did argue the price with them, but I figured that as I had come a long way to find these papers, I would have to pay the price.

These documents were full of information but I found it difficult to read and understand. On my return home, I emailed them to Zenon who found a retired Polish literature Professor who was happy to transcribe them into easy-to-read Polish and again into English. Another great service that Zenon was only too happy to provide for me.

.
Footnote

Back home I am now able to reflect on my research trip and know that I would never have been able to find out all that I did, without the help and experience of Zenon. He was worth every dollar (or zloty) I paid to him. His knowledge of history is fantastic and helped me to understand a lot more, especially the plights of the Polish people during WWII and the Communist regime. His language skills of English, Polish and Russian was brilliant and certainly helped us out when researching parish registers, wills, probates and land records. His past experience in dealing with Priests, Registry and Archive staff proved to be invaluable when approaching these people. My sister and I, together with other family members in Poland, enjoyed his company and found him to be a warm, gentle and patient man who really enjoys helping other people find their family roots.

Zenon was hired by me to help me with my research, but I feel that in the short four days we spent together, we have forged a lasting friendship as well.

Basia

On another day we decided to concentrate on my mother’s family, LAGIEWCZYK who hailed from the Parish of Marzenin. We drove to the Church and had a look at the grounds and inside the church which was just beautiful and very ornate. This is where my parents were married in June 1945.

Marzenin Parish Church Inside Marzenin Church Dedicated to the Assumption of the Blessed Mary. Built Circa 1300

Inside Marzenin Church

Again, another irate Priest who made us stand outside in the rain, waiting for him to finish his ‘important’ meeting. When we went inside his whole demeanour changed and he began searching earnestly in his parish registers for the family I was seeking. I wanted to verify my grandparent’s marriage date, but unfortunately for me, the whole year that I was seeking had been torn out of the parish register!!! The Priest was nonchalant about it, saying that at times whole registers had been lost as during the War winters, the Germans used anything they could find to put in the fire to keep them warm. I was horrified! Had I come all this way across the seas to be confronted by this? Panic started to set in and realisation of War had again become a stark reality in my search.

I think Zenon could see the panic in my face and he suggested we now go to the Civil Registry Office in Sedziejowice to see if they may have a copy of the parish register for that period of time. Zenon then also explained to me that two copies of a parish register are always kept, so there was still a chance…

Luckily for us, the lady at the Civil Registry Office in Sedziejowice was the friendliest one we had encountered. Luck (or something) was on my side as she pulled out the parish register I was seeking and even allowed us to take a photo of it! She also found my mother’s birth and her siblings and also searched other years to see if my grandmother had given birth to more children I was not aware of. She let us photograph each birth, death and marriage that we found on that day and I will always remember this lady with great warmth and affection. My research was finally back on track!

Zenon later transcribed the parish registers we had photographed into English for which I am extremely grateful for. My Polish is not THAT good and my Russian is non-existent!

We then travelled to the local cemetery where I showed him the grave of my grandparents and Aunt. My sister and cousin were also with us this day to help out. We split up into groups and spent some time walking around the cemetery, looking for the Lagiewczyk name on headstones. Unfortunately we could not find any matching surnames but there were some beautiful graves and statues around the grounds.

Marzenin cemetery

.

My sister had never seen her original birth certificate in her lifetime. When she needed identification she always had to use her Australian naturalisation certificate to prove who she was. Zenon and I decided to surprise her and took a trip to Kolumna where she had been born and went to the Civil Registry Office there where the lady showed Grace her birth in the records and then typed it up for her. The look on my sister’s face was priceless! I think she finally felt like she had a real identity!

Basia

My father’s surname was POLA and research showed that this family had lived in Rembieszow for generations. My father was one of eleven children born to Piotr Pola and at the time of my trip in 2008 only my father and his youngest sister Bronia were still alive. Bronia was still living on the family farm in Rembieszow where my dad and his siblings had all been born and still doing a little farming in her later years. The old home where my dad and his family lived had been knocked down over 40 years ago but standing on the land you still get a sense of how they lived.

Bronia's house and barns in Rembieszow

The original Pola family home in Rembieszow Circa 1962

Zenon arrived at our hotel in Zdunska Wola and we decided to go to the Stronsko Parish which is where the Pola family attended the church and across the road they buried their loved ones. The church is a Romanesque church of St. Ursula and Eleven Thousand Virgins. On closer inspection of the outside church walls it showed holes in the brick work which I was told were remnants of WWII as the church was next to one of the war fronts. This really made me realise how close the war and the fighting had been to my family. WWII Bunkers still exist in the fields and valleys behind and left of the church.

Stronsko Church

We met up with the Parish Priest and he was not too keen to sit down with us and go through Parish records. Zenon had warned me earlier that a lot of the older Priest may not wish to help us as they always said they were too busy and could not understand the concept of people researching their family trees. I pleaded my case to the Priest, in that I had flown over here from Australia at a great cost and for the purpose of finding out about my family. He finally relented and agreed to meet with us in two days at an appointed time. That was a huge relief!

When we returned to see him two days later, he was extremely nice to us and quite chatty. He took out his many parish registers and looked up and verified names and dates of the Pola family. Unfortunately he would not allow us to take photos of the registers. He also could not find the date of birth of one of my dad’s sisters who had died quite young just two weeks before her anticipated wedding. Not a lot was known about her and I wanted to find out more. When he found my dad’s birth certificate it also showed the date of his marriage which was different to what I had been told. Zenon then explained that two marriages take place, a civil ceremony and a church ceremony. The official records showed 28th June 1945 but the civil records showed 29th April 1945.

After our fruitful meeting, we then drove to Zapolice registry office where we could obtain my father’s birth certificate and those of his parents. The ladies in the office were quite helpful and were happy to look up other registers to confirm more dates and also to try to find the birth of dad’s sister, Anna which they did! They also let us take a photo of it which Zenon later translated into English for me as it was written in Russian.

Anna Pola birth

My Pola Grandparent's Grave in Stronsko Cemetery

Basia

I live in Sydney, Australia. My parents were both born in Poland as was my sister, Grazyna (Grace). My parents emigrated to Australia in 1958, aboard the ship ‘Roma’, meeting up with my father’s older brother, Jan Pola who had arrived here in 1955 (his is another story). I was born eight years later in Sydney, the first-born in my Polish family outside of Poland.

I have always had an interest in family history, having researched my husband’s family in Australia, England and Ireland for the past fourteen years. When my mother was still alive, I asked her about her and my father’s family and she helped me to draw a tree of the families with what information she knew. This started me on the path to finding out more about my family in Poland, but at this stage I could only rely on information from family, which included sending the trees to the family in Poland and asking them to fill in what they could, which they promptly did!

My mother had taken me to Poland in 1974 when I was 8 years old. This was the first time I would meet the family members and I had a great time meeting and playing with lots of cousins my own age. When I returned I kept up the contact by writing frequent letters to some of these family members, including my only living grandparent, my grandmother (Babcia) from Brzeski. These letters would prove to be a catalyst in later years, when trying to source information to build my family tree in Poland.

In 1995 I was travelling through Europe and met up with my sister and niece in London so that we could fly to Poland for two weeks to visit the family. In 2008, I went back to Poland with my husband and daughter for a week so they could meet my family and see how my relatives lived. A few weeks after this trip, my father died aged 85 years. He was my last link to the family in Poland and this left me feeling quite empty. This prompted me to find out more about his family and to dig out old family photos and the old family trees I had started many years ago…

I spent the next year focusing on the photos and trying to piece together who they were and writing it all down as well as going through other old documents and photos that were left after my parents died. I also found a researcher based in Poland on the internet who could research the births, deaths and marriages of my family. I contacted him and arranged to have two main sides of the family researched which he provided to me via email some two months later. There it all was, in black and white. Family members back to the 18th century. I was ecstatic! For the first time, I had names and places.

View Larger Map>

A few months later, whilst looking on the internet trying to find any online Polish genealogical information I found Zenon’s website, offering trips within Poland to find ancestors and information. This sounded extremely interesting and it was at this time that I decided I wanted to go to Poland to do some family research. My sister Grace was also showing family interest and decided to come along with me. I excitedly contacted Zenon and promptly booked him for four days.

My background is quite different to what Zenon is used to in his line of work. For a start I can speak, read and write Polish and I also knew some of my family as I was still corresponding with them via letters and now email. My main aim was to find more information about family members including verifying some births, deaths and marriages from Parish registers as well as learning about the land my families seemed to have lived on for generations.

Basia