It's the Little Steps

 

While it may be discouraging to find that there aren't too many digitized records—or even transcribed records—available for researching my father's Polish roots, I have to remind myself that it is the little steps that may matter the most this month.

Yesterday, for instance, I spent most of my research time taking lots of those little steps, just as I had done in the previous week at PTG. This time, I logged on to a different Polish website—this time, it was Geneteka—to see if I had missed any of the birth, marriage, or death records for any of the descendants of Andrzej Radomski, my third great-grandfather in the Pomeranian village of Lubichowo.

Of the six children I've been able to find for Andrzej and his wife, Mariana Nierzwicka, only a few lived to adulthood and married—at least, those I can find at this point. Of those siblings of my second great-grandmother Susanna, I've begun tracing their lines of descent.

In this process, I'm hoping to find 1) possible DNA matches, or 2) immigrants to the New World. So far, the first option has yielded me zero leads, and the second option is not far behind.

In the meantime, I'm continuing those little steps I had begun taking at PTG. Yesterday, I searched Geneteka to see if there were any further discoveries on the children or grandchildren of my third great-grandparents. As I worked through that process, I made sure that each line of descent was recorded on my trees at Ancestry and FamilySearch. Eventually, I'll replicate those baby steps on my trees at MyHeritage and WikiTree. I see them as tiny voices crying out for matches: cousin bait for the relatives I don't even know I have. Yet.