(article originally posted in PolishOrigins Forum here by Shellie)

In June 2009 I had one of the greatest adventures of my life when I traveled to Poland for the first time and visited my ancestral village with Zenon.

Everyone who takes a Forefathers Traces (FFT) tour with Zenon is given the opportunity to post daily updates – using Zenon’s laptop if you don’t bring your own. Blogging your trip gives your family and friends regular updates during your trip. Sure, you could update your facebook page on a daily basis, but let me tell you why blogging your trip might be a better idea….

Trip blogs are posted on Polish Origins and will remain there indefinitely and comments can be posted months and years later. This is the link to my blog:
http://blog.polishorigins.com/2009/07/12/11-shellies-tour-to-ancestral-places-day1/

Even now, 2 years after my trip, I am getting wonderful messages from people who are interested in my family surnames and my ancestral village. I met dozens of people who share my interest and are eager to make family connections. I have even met a distant cousin who was about to depart for my ancestral village. She was interested in getting family records and after several emails, she was able to plan her record collecting so she wouldn’t waste time looking at records that I already had. She was able to focus on finding records that I did not have. Now I have a new cousin and more records to help my research. Thanks to her I now have birth records for my great-grandmother’s sister and brother!

When I blogged my trip, I never thought that it would bring me together with Polish friends and family. Just a few days ago, I got a great comment from someone from my ancestral village who now lives in Chicago. I’m anxious to meet my new friends in person some day soon!

If you have blogged your FFT tour with Zenon, please tell me if you have had some surprising comments and messages left on your blog.

Shellie

Forefathers Traces Tours season is at its peak! We didn’t have opportunity to blog any of the family journeys with my guests we had so far in 2010. We were either busy with our search or far away from civilization, which meant poor internet availability in the places where we stayed.

However, of course we took a lot of pictures and now I want share with you some of them.

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Suwałki region. Street in the old part of Suwalki town where ancestors lived.

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Suwalki region. Entrance to the forefather's tiny village Żyliny.

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Suwalki region. Beautiful landscape of after glacier Masurian Lakes area. We stayed by one of them.

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Tarnów area. View of the church in Jastrzabka Nowa where grandparents were baptized and worshiped.

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Tarnów area. The oldest cemetery in the neighborhood. We found there a few surnames which appear in my guest's family tree.

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Tarnów area. Church in Lisia Góra. This is where great-grandparents and their parents worshiped.

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Tarnów area. Church in Lisia Góra - interior.

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Nur region. An old Franciscan monastery in Zaręby Kościelne built in 1700s, recently renowated and used in producing film about Maria Faustina Kowalska, commonly known as Saint Faustina.

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Nur region. Church in Zaręby Kościelne where grandfather of my guest was baptized.

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Nur region. Uścianek Wielki village. It now looks a little different than more than a 100 years ago...

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Rzeszów region. The main square of Nowy Żmigród town nearby Jasło. Almost all houses all around the square used to belong to Jewish people living there before WWII.

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Rzeszów region. The old Jewish cemetery in Nowy Żmigród, currently under renovation by local authorities and Jewish organizations.

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Rzeszów region. Tyczyn and old Jewish houses around square market.

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Rzeszów region. The town of Tyczyn. When my guest noticed the house she said: "It looks very similar to the house in front of which my father is standing in one of the old photographs from Tyczyn..."

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At the present day, August 11, we still have openings for Tours in October, November and December 2010. If you are interested, see details of our Forefathers Traces Tours offer here: http://tours.polishorigins.com/ or contact us directly by e-mail.

Zenon

Today I start our Forefathers’ Traces Tours Blog. While accompanying descendants of emigrants on many ancestral tours throughout Poland I have seen so many moments of joy, happiness and often deep reflections… Almost every day has been memorable and full of emotion. I thought, why not show a little of that to others…? The idea of this blog was born.

I want to record and relate here Forefathers Traces Tours of my guests (of course, always with their permission and maybe with their active participation). I hope that we will be able to show you the places from the old country, hometowns where our ancestors were born, lived and for which they longed after emigration. I believe it may be interesting experience not only for the people who have the luck to visit their fathers’ homeland personally but also for those who are not able to do this now, but may be planning to do this in the future, or just want to see (maybe watch and listen, too) what others have experienced.

Maybe not every day and every post we will be meeting relatives in the original houses of our gggrandparents like Louie did (click here: Sitting Down In My GGGrandfather’s house for Louie’s story) but I think we will have chance to experience many good emotions and better understand life of our forefathers by stepping in their footprints and meeting people living currently there.

P.S. One more advantage of the blog – if you are close to those traveling you will be always up-to-date on what your relatives or friends are doing now .

Zenon