Poland Letter Writing Guide

Introduction
This guide is for researchers who do not speak Polish, but must write to Poland for genealogical records. It includes some useful information and a list of sentences you would use in requesting genealogical records and Polish translations of these sentences.

The best sources of genealogical information in Poland are records of births, marriages, and deaths records kept by churches and civil registration offices. There are many records available online. It is usually faster and more productive to search these records first. If the records you want are not available, you can use this guide to help you write to Poland for information.

Before You Write
Before you write to Poland for family history records, you should do following things:


 * Determine exactly where your ancestor was born, was married, lived, or died. Because most genealogical sources were recorded locally, you will need to know the specific locality where your ancestor was born, married, lived or died. See Poland Locating Town of Origin for help searching sources that can help you learn that information.
 * Determine your ancestor's religion. Because most early records were kept by churches or synagogues rather than civil registration offices, you may need to write to the church your ancestor attended in his or her hometown. If you are not sure what your ancestor's religion was in Poland, determine what religion he or she practiced after immigrating. People usually did not change religions when they moved from Europe to their new home. Remember that main religion in Poland was and still is Roman Catholic. There were also following minority religions: Orthodox, Greek Catholic, Protestant (Lutheran) and Jewish.
 * Determine which parish or registration office served your ancestors' town or village. When you have a locality name, use a gazetteer to determine which parish or civil jurisdiction served your ancestor's locality.
 * Check if records are available online. A comprehensive list of finding aids to help you search for online records or for the definite location of records in various repositories can be found at Poland Finding Aids.

State Archives
The best and the quickest way to contact State Archives in Poland is e-mail. It shouldn’t be a problem when you write an e-mail in English. Probably there is at least one archive worker who knows English well enough to understand your inquiry. Of course, all answers you get will be in Polish. You should receive an answer in a month, but sometimes it takes up to 2 months to get the results of research. You may also send a regular letter, but it will significantly increase the time to get information.
 * Use the PRADZIAD tool to discover which archive has the parish records you need.
 * Address list of all archives in Poland.

Payments
If writing a regular letter, do not include any money in an envelope. The only acceptable form of payment is bank transfer. If it appears that the research you request will be time-consuming, you might be asked to pay in advance. If not, you will receive an invoice for archive services, and after it is paid you will receive the results of research.

Each archive has own fees for services. In most cases, prices are the following: The initial reply from the archive will be a standard letter, stating that they can begin a search for you, as soon as you deposit a stated amount of money (Polish złoty) into a bank account. They will give the account number and a reference number for your request.
 * Copy size A4: 2-3 złoty ($1.00)
 * Copy size A3: 4-6 złoty ($2.00)
 * Research: 40-90 złoty ($13-30)hour

Civil Registration Offices
Civil registration offices keep documents younger than 100 years (with some exceptions). Older records should be transferred to an archive. If you would like to know if records are already in the archive, you can check first in the Pradziad database.

A letter to civil registration office should be written in Polish. You should include as much information as you know concerning the record you are interested in: eg. full name, exact or estimated date of event and denomination. The civil registration officer is not obligated to perform research if you can’t specify what are you looking for.

To receive a record, you need to be a direct descendant of the person you are interested in. For example, you will get a death certificate of your great grandfather but it can be a problem to get a record of your grandmothe'rs sister's second husband. You can apply for that, but the result is determined by the officer's goodwill.

This universal form can be used to apply for full or shortened transcript of a civil registration record.

Payments
Since 2007 the only form of payment is bank transfer. Payment can be done when sending the request. Otherwise, you will get a response to complete your application within 14 days. If you have a friend or family member in Poland, you can ask him to make bank transfer for you (which is cheaper and quicker) and send confirmation of payment. Prices are the following:
 * Copy of certificate (without legal validity) - 5 złoty ($1.50)
 * Shortended transcript of certificate - 22 złoty (about $7.00)
 * Full transcript of certificate - 33 złoty (about $10.00)

There is also an option that records can be sent to the nearest Polish consulate in your country, and you will be notified how to make payment in your local currency, but this way is more expensive.

Parishes
The results of writing to parishes can vary greatly. You may get a great deal of information, or you may get no answer at all. Some clergy are willing to provide considerable information, while others are not.

You can include a small donation (such as $10-20) in the envelope. It may increase your chance in getting a response, but remember there are no guarantees.

Parish Addresses

 * The Catholic Directory, Poland
 * Luteranie.pl: Polish Evangelical website with all current diocese addresses and individual parishes and email addresses. Many Lutheran parishes that existed before the 1918/1945 boundary changes no longer exist. Some of their records are in the diocese archives, and some were sent to Archion: Evangelical Central Archives in Berlin.

Remember that in some cities there are more that one parish. Usually you need to determine the oldest one, where helpful records are most likely kept.

Church archives
A great number of records kept in Catholic Church archives in Poland are microfilmed by FamilySearch and may be digitized. Eventually all of them will be digitized.

Each church archive has its own rules:


 * Some provide research, but not all do.
 * Some diocese records are kept in parishes and archives only possess microfilms.
 * Some church archives do not use computers nor e-mail.

Please do not include any money in the envelope, especially if you are not sure if the archive provides research services.
 * Catholic Church Archive Addresses

How To Address the Envelope
For a Roman Catholic Parish Parafia Rzymsko-Katolicka (street name and number) (postal code) (name of locality) POLAND

For a Protestant Parish Parafia Ewangelicka (street name and number) (postal code) (name of locality) POLAND

In Poland approximately 134 protestant parishes exist. Some records formerly found in such parishes may now be archived in local Catholic parishes. Additionally if there was not a local protestant church, many baptisms would be performed by local Catholic churches.

For an Orthodox Parish  Parafia Prawoslawna (street name and number) (postal code) (name of locality) POLAND

For a Civil Registration Office Urząd Stanu Cywilnego (street name and number) (postal code) (name of locality) POLAND

For State Archive Urząd Stanu Cywilnego (street name and number) (postal code) (name of locality) POLAND

How To Write a Letter in Polish

 * If you need help with composing a letter in Polish you can ask for help in the Genealodzy.pl forum. The General Discussion allows English there.
 * You can also hire a professional genealogist from Poland. You will be responsible for charges, which vary for this type of service.
 * You may also wish to prepare your letter by yourself using following tips. Before mailing it out, it is advisable to have it reviewed by someone fluent in Polish.

Your letter should include:


 * The date (at the top).
 * The name and address of the addressee.
 * A greeting.
 * A brief introduction.
 * Biographical information about your ancestor.
 * A short, specific genealogical request.
 * Referral request(s).
 * A comment about payment(s).
 * Closing remarks.
 * Your signature.
 * Your return address, to include your country.
 * Be brief and to the point without asking for too much at one time.

The English-to-Polish translations found below will help you in composing your letter. Read the sentences in English and choose the Polish phrases that best express what you wish to say. Be sure to arrange your sentences logically. It may help you to first write out your sentences in English, then replace those sentences with their Polish translations.

However you proceed, make sure you type or neatly print your letter and, when necessary, add any diacritical marks and special characters (such as ą, ę, ł, ż) using your computer's wordprocessing program or a pen. On most computers, you can simply highlight the text here, and paste it into your preferred word processing program and the special characters are usually kept intact. If not, FontMeme.com offers instructions how to insert special characters for both Windows and Mac.

Do not use this guide as the letter itself! That may insult the recipient and lessen the chance of a reply.

Writing Dates
Write dates in the European style: DD Month YYYY, writing the full name of the month and the full the year (1845, not '45). You can also use numbers (01-12) to specify months. For example, April 7, 1890 should be written as 7 kwietnia 1890 or 07.04.1890.

The following names of the months are shown in their possessive form, which is used in writing dates:


 * January - stycznia
 * February - lutego
 * March - marca
 * April - kwietnia
 * May - maja
 * June - czerwca
 * July - lipca
 * August - sierpnia
 * September - września
 * October - października
 * November - listopada
 * December - grudnia

Greetings
Depending on to whom your letter is addressed, you will choose one of the following greetings. This will also affect some of your later sentences. The following sentences were written in the format of the first greeting. When addressing a priest or pastor, use the appropriate word indicated in parentheses.

Biographical Information
9. Offer as much pertinent information as possible. Use only those items below for which you can give accurate information that is relevant to your request. Do not give information about events that occurred after the ancestor left Poland.


 * Roman Catholic - rzymskokatolickie
 * Greek Catholic - greckokatolickie
 * Orthodox - prawosławne
 * Protestant - ewangelickie
 * Jewish - żydowskie

Follow-up
Use these sentences in follow-up letters as needed.

Other Forms and French Translation
Other letter writing forms that may meet your needs are available from:
 * Polish Genealogical Society of America website.
 * Polish language guide in Polish

For the French translation of the Polish Letter Writing Guide click here.