Let the Process Begin

 

Equipped with the index of Polish vital records at BaSIA, coupled with Google Translate to help me bounce back and forth from German language records to marginal notes in Polish, I've begun my quest to find civil records documenting the descendants of my second great-grandfather Franciszek Jankowski. The end goal is to trace all the lines of descent that I can find for this ancestor and his collateral branches. The reason for such an expanded search is that I want to be able to connect with possible DNA cousins linked to this family.

While that process has barely begun, I can already see it will be a tedious one. Thankfully, the steps at BaSIA to move from the index to the actual scans are straightforward. But taking the time to find each individual in each generation of the family, then confirming the details on that person by reading the document—who knew I could stumble my way through old German text?—and entering the information in my family tree is indeed time consuming.

Being painstakingly thorough is the goal. I'm surprised at the notes which sometimes pop up in the margins, with stern, hundred-plus year old German script in the body of the document embellished with the more rounded handwritten addenda entered alongside in Polish, capturing later details about the person's life.

As I had hoped, the records at BaSIA reach much further into current times than what I had been able to find at FamilySearch.org. This is helpful on two counts. First, these digitized documents are civil records, not church records, also offering the actual scanned document rather than simply a transcription. This allows further inspection into details, such as the specific village where the child was born, rather than the diocesan headquarters where the baptismal records were kept. Second, the more recent records help me push forward in time to closer family connections, guiding me in guessing the nexus with DNA cousins. When I finally uncovered a family record dated in the mid 1920s, it really hit me how helpful this approach may become.

I've seen so many of these Prussian forms in the old German script that I almost want to draw up a translation of the pre-printed material as a guide. I certainly don't speak German, myself, but would like to know the specifics of the routine portions. Reading the handwritten portions is also challenging, but spotting names and dates is not much of a problem—unless the person in question is known by an alias.

Bit by bit, I'm working my way through the available records. So far, I've found a couple birth records for which I've not been able to find any baptismal record back at FamilySearch.org, perhaps lost in the transcription process at FamilySearch but thankfully flagged by native-speaking volunteers at BaSIA. Even finding a few confirmations like that are helpful, making me more determined to continue the step-by-step minutiae of the process. Not much to report on while in the midst of doing it, but rewarding to realize it is a more thorough approach.