Silesian (Śląskie) Voivodeship, Poland Genealogy

Civil Registration and Church Records
'''Almost all of the research you do will be in civil registration (government birth, marriage, and death records) and church records (baptism, confirmation, marriage, and burial records). To understand these records better study the articles: Poland Church Records and Poland Civil Registration.
 * 1. You will need to determine the name of the town your Polish ancestors lived in.  If you do not now know it, use the Wiki article Poland Locating Town of Origin.
 * 2. Find the voivodeship (province) for that town.  To see a map of the town, and find out its voivodeshp, use mapa.szukacz. Enter the town name in the "place" field in the right sidebar and click "Show". Province, area, commune, and postal code will appear at the bottom of the right sidebar.
 * If the town was in the area of Poland once controlled by Prussia, use Kartenmeister.
 * If the town was in the area of Poland once controlled by Austria, look it up in Skorowidz Gazetteer Online to find the parishes of various religions. Here are the instructions. Use the second option, "Viewing anywhere via the Digital Library of Wielkopolska".
 * 3. You will find birth, marriage, and death records:
 * in online databases
 * in microfilmed records of the FamilySearch collections
 * by writing to request searches
 * from State archives where records have been deposited
 * from church archives where records have been deposited
 * from local civil registration offices
 * from local parish churches

Search Strategy
'''For records before 1874, you will use just church records. For records from 1874 on, civil registration records will be your main source, supplemented by church records, if possible. In the very southern-most part, which was part of Austrian Poland, civil registration is not available until 1918. '''Study maps A and C on the Poland Genealogy main page to see if your town lies in this region.
 * Search for the relative or ancestor you selected. When you find his birth record, search for the births of his brothers and sisters.
 * Next, search for the marriage of his parents. The marriage record will have information that will often help you find the birth records of the parents.
 * You can estimate the ages of the parents and determine a birth year to search for their birth records.
 * Search the death registers for all known family members.
 * Repeat this process for both the father and the mother, starting with their birth records, then their siblings' births, then their parents' marriages, and so on.
 * If earlier generations (parents, grandparents, etc.) do not appear in the records, search neighboring parishes.

Historical Geography
Silesian Voivodeship is a voivodeship, or province in southern Poland, centered on the historic region known as Upper Silesia, with Katowice serving as its capital. Despite the Silesian Voivodeship's name, most of the historic Silesia region lies outside the present Silesian Voivodeship — divided among Lubusz, Lower Silesian, and Opole Voivodeships — while the eastern half of Silesian Voivodeship (and, notably, Częstochowa in the north) was historically part of the region of Lesser Poland. In the 18th century, territories that later became part of the modern Polish regions of Lesser Poland Voivodeship, Subcarpathian Voivodeship and Silesian Voivodeship were added to Galicia. Only a few far western areas were part of German Silesia (Schlesien). Source: Silesian Voivodeship 'Because of this history of changing nationality, records for different parts of Silesia Voivodeship are found in the FamilySearch system under both "Schlesien, Prussian, Germany," '"Katowice, Poland", "Krakow, Poland," and Austria, Galizien (Galicia). There is a lot of overlapping in the catalog.'''
 * Use the gazetteer, Kartenmeister - German/Polish Place Name Conversion to find the name of your town in both languages.
 * See also, Silesia, Germany Genealogy and Austrian Poland (Galicia), Austro-Hungarian Empire Genealogy.

Online Databases
There does not exist one central online database for Poland, rather many independent projects by many different organizations. So you will need to search several databases.


 * Geneteka: a collaborative effort by numerous volunteers who index church and civil records all over Poland.
 * Szukaj w Archiwach: collections from all over Poland, continuously updated.
 * Archiwum Państwowe w Katowicach: Record books of Katowice, Silesian voivodeship, Lesser Poland
 * JewishGen Poland Database
 * Archion: Evangelical Central Archives in Berlin ($)
 * Eastern Prussian Provinces, Germany (Poland), Selected Civil Vitals, 1874-1945, index and images, incomplete.
 * Jewish Records Indexing-Poland
 * Index of Polish marriages until 1899
 * Metryki Genealodzy Roman Catholic records indexing

Online Town Genealogies
In German genealogy records, an Ortssippenbuch (town lineage book) or Ortsfamilienbuch (town family book) includes birth, marriage, and death data for all persons found in the local records during a specified time period, compiled into families. Sources may include the local parish registers, civil registration records, court and land records, and sometimes published material. In the printed book, this information is then arranged in a standardized format, usually alphabetically by surname and chronologically by marriage date. Family entries are identified by sequential numbers. Town genealogies are known by various names, including “town lineage book,” “local heritage book,” “one-place-studies,” “Ortssippenbuch (OSB),” and “Ortsfamilienbuch (OFB).”

In some cases, these books were written before the records were lost or damaged during the war. A fairly large number of online OFB's are available on Genealogy.net (CompGen). Scroll down the page. The OFB's for modern Germany appear first, but after that OFB's for towns formerly in Germany, but now in Poland, are listed.

FamilySearch Historical Records

 * 1226-1950 - ., images, no index.
 * 1700-2005 - , images, no index.

Microfilms: The FamilySearch Catalog
To search the catalog:
 * Many church records have been microfilmed and can be viewed at the main Family History Library in Salt Lake City, Utah. Eventually, microfilmed records will all be digitized and available online. The records you need might have been digitized now.  Check back from time to time to see if they have become available.
 * The FamilySearch Catalog is organized by the voivodeships as they existed in 1967. There are maps on the Poland Genealogy main page comparing those jurisdictions with the modern jurisdictions. In 1967, most of Silesia  voivodeship was known as Katowice voivodeship. A small area in the southeast belonged to Kraków voivodeship. A few small areas in the west once belonged to German (Prussian/Preusssen) Silesia (Schlesien) and will be found there under German names.
 * Use the gazetteer, Kartenmeister - German/Polish Place Name Conversion to find the name of your town in both languages if necessary.
 * a. Click on the records of Poland, Katowice or records of Poland, Kraków or records of Germany, Preussen, Schlesien or records of Austria Galizien. There will be a lot of overlapping in the catalog.
 * b. Click on Places within Poland, Katowice or Places within Poland, Kraków or Places within Germany, Preussen, Schlesien or Places within Austria, Galizien, and a list of towns will appear. Check each one until you find your town
 * c. Click on your town.
 * d. Click on the "Civil registration" or "church records" topic, if available. Click on the blue links to specific record titles.
 * e. Choose the correct record type and time period for your ancestor.
 * For records in German: "Geburten" are births. Heiraten are marriages.  "Verstorbene" or Toten are deaths.
 * For records in Polish:  Akta urodzeń are births.  Akta chrzest are christenings/baptisms.  Akta małżeństw are marriages.  Akta zgonów are deaths.
 * f. Some combination of these icons will appear at the far right of the microfilm listed for the record. FHL icons.png. The magnifying glass indicates that the microfilm is indexed. Clicking on the magnifying glass will take you to the index. Clicking on the camera will take you to an online digital copy of the microfilm.

Poland Letter Writing Guide
This letter writing guide will enable you to write in the Polish language to parish churches and church and government archives: Poland Letter Writing Guide. Generally, the people you wrie to will appreciate your effort to use Polish and cooperate more readily.

Civil Registration Office Address
Write to the local civil registration office for records after 1900. Records prior to 1900 will probably be in the state archives. Records in the last 100 years will have some privacy restrictions where you will have to prove your relationship and/or the death of the person the certificate reports.

State Archives Addresses

 * PRADZIAD This website can be searched by location (town or parish).  It will then tell you which archives hold what records for the location. On the entry for the records you want, click on "More" at the far right, and it will give you the contact information for the archive.

Church: 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.

Jewish Records
Some areas of Poland were predominantly Jewish settlements. Because churches were frequently expected to act as civil registrars, Jewish births, marriages, and deaths can appear in Catholic records. See also, Jewish Records Indexing-Poland and JewishGen Poland Database

Church Diocese Archives Addresses
See the Catholic Diocese map on the Poland Genealogy main page. Use The Catholic Directory, Poland to find the diocese for your town. Click on "View Full Listing" for your parish.

Częstochowa Archdiocese
Archives of the Archdiocese of Częstochowa ul. St. Barbara 41 42-225 Częstochowa Poland phone: +48 34 365 12 15 e-mail: aaczwp@genealodzy.Czestochowa. en
 * Website
 * List of parish records

Katowice Archdiocese
Archdiocesan Archives of Katowice Skr. 206 40-950 Katowice Poland e-mail:  archiwum@archidiecezjakatowicka.pl phone: +48 32 201 75 51 ext. 551 and +48 519 546 114 ; +48 519 546 115
 * Website
 * List of digitized parish registers
 * Clickable map of parish registers
 * Further contact information

Gliwice Diocese
Archives of the Gliwice Diocese ul. Łużycka 1, postage 196 44-100 Gliwice Poland tel. 32 / 230-71-42. E-mail: biuro@silesia-pro-europa.gliwice.pl

Word Lists
The language of the records depends on the controlling government. Small southern parts of Silesia Voivodeship were part of Austria until 1918, and church records are in Latin. The parts of Poland which belonged to Prussia (Germany) used German until they were ceded back to Poland (after World War I or II). After 1918, all the records are in Polish.
 * Polish Genealogical Word List
 * German Genealogical Word List
 * Latin Genealogical Word List

How-to Guides

 * Reading Polish Birth Records - [[Media:1-Poland_Birth_Records_in_Paragraph_Format-Instruction.pdf|Instruction]], [[Media:2-Poland_Birth_Records_in_Paragraph_Format-Assignment.pdf|Activity]], [[Media:3-Poland_Birth_Records_in_Paragraph_Format-Answer_Key.pdf|Answer Key]]
 * Reading Polish Marriage Records - [[Media:1-Poland_Marriage_Records_in_Paragraph_Format-Instruction.pdf|Instruction]], [[Media:2-Poland_Marriage_Records_in_Paragraph_Format-Activity.pdf|Activity]], [[Media:3-Marriage_Records_in_Paragraph_Format-Answer_Key.pdf|Answer Key]]
 * Reading Polish Death Records - [[Media:1-Poland-Death_Records_in_Paragraph_Format-Instruction.pdf|Instruction]], [[Media:2-Poland-Death_Records_in_Paragraph_Format-Activity.pdf|Activity]], [[Media:3-Poland-Death_Records_in_Paragraph_Format-Answer_Key.pdf|Answer Key]]

Lessons

 * Reading Polish Handwritten Records
 * Lesson 1: Polish Letters
 * Lesson 2: Polish Words and Dates
 * Lesson 3: Reading Polish Records
 * Reading German Handwritten Records
 * Lesson 1: Kurrent Letters
 * Lesson 2: Making Words in Kurrent
 * Lesson 3: Reading Kurrent Documents
 * Old German Script
 * Part 1
 * Part 2
 * Part 3 (German Church and Civil Records)
 * '''Latin for Genealogists