Dear reader,

Autumn favors  genealogical research!  Did you know that October is the Archives, Archaeology and Family History Month? Apart from that, it is also the Polish-American Heritage Month.

We wish you many exciting genealogy discoveries in October!

 Here, in Poland (in the breathtaking scenery of “golden fall”) we at PO, still have several genealogy tours scheduled: our guides and guests are currently conducting  research in Łomża, Łowicz, the Mława area, Włocławek and the Gniezno area. We are still looking forward to some upcoming tours in Lithuania and in the Podhale region, near Zakopane.

In 2018, we had  many successful trips and a very busy and fruitful season. I will write you about that another time…

Today, we would like to share some news with you: in April 2018 we began the cooperation with Polish Genealogical Society of America. Several months ago we have become their sponsor and there are some more upcoming projects.

PGSA is also having some important reasons to celebrate: the society was founded in 1978, so this year they celebrate their fortieth anniversary.

If you are not familiar with their activity and resources available online, it is worth looking at for a while:

The society is open for anyone having roots in the old Poland (within the borders of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth). Their main goals are to gather the people interested in the family history research of this area, to popularize genealogy, new research methods and techniques. They organize events, conferences, lectures, and seminars.

Apart from their quarterly publication, “the Rodziny”, they have many other guests publishing projects concerning Polish genealogy.

What we appreciate most is that they create community:  share leads, research sources, and any other information. This is also one of our main goals and the foundation of PolishOrigins philosophy.

Something that  is definitely worth checking out, is their online database, which is very useful for genealogy research in the USA. Some resources are available for members only, but several great collections provide free access.

You can see the new search engine here: https://pgsa.org/pgsa-search/

Among others, there are vital records from Chicago, obituaries from the local newspapers, the index of Haller’s Army and a Jubilee book.

If you wish to be up to date with PGSA events and activity, you can subscribe to their Monthly "Genealogy Notebook". We definitely recommend it.

Recently, during the annual meeting that was organized last September, PGSA announced several genealogy themed tours to Poland that are planned for 2019.

We are pleased and honored, that PO can cooperate with them in organizing several trips, based on our many years' of experience in organizing regular tours in Poland.

In 2019, apart from our usual tours,  there will be two special editions of the Galicia Tour and the Prussian Poland Tour, which PO will be in cooperation with PGSA.  During these tours there will be a little more emphasis on genealogy. In addition to sightseeing, we have planned some genealogy lectures and workshops in the local archives, the additional assistance of genealogists, the possibility of genealogy consultations, and, as always, the additional genealogy tours before or after the regular itinerary!

More details about PGSA tours can be found here:

Prussian Poland with PGSA

Galicia Tour with PGSA  

Regarding these above trips, please contact PGSA directly at [email protected]

When it comes to our tourist trips in the footsteps of the former partitions of Poland, along with news for 2019 dates, price and small reports from this year, will appear soon on our website!

I promise to come back to you soon and appear more regularly, as soon as we can catch our breath, after our exciting summer full of tours, discoveries, and unusual meetings. We have plenty of new stories to share with you!

As always feel free to write to us anytime and we invite you to meet us in our social media.

Have a great end of October!

Aga Pawlus and the whole PolishOrigins Team