A Family Tapestry

  Sometimes the research task bids us keep our nose close to the ground, sniffing out every hint, gobbling up every clue. When our focus get...

  It seems like only a few days ago when I was mourning the passing of summer, and here we are, staring 2026 in the face. In just a blink, C...

  Tracing the ancestry of Anna Gramlewicz, the young woman who showed up in my great-grandfather Anton Laskowski's New York City apartme...

  Some branches of a family tree seem to twist and turn—and ultimately lead us nowhere. Such was the case with the relative who showed up in...

  I learned a long time ago that when it comes to documenting family relationships, you can't rely on just one document to confirm ances...

  When stuck on a research project, it isn't a bad idea to go back and check all that work twice. I know, I know: it's a lot of drud...

  When it comes to Internet resources for researching Polish roots, the typical places Americans use—with the exception of FamilySearch.org—...

  When supposed relatives don't quite fit into the family tree the way we thought, we can sometimes find ourselves building out what tur...

  I should have caught on to this detail sooner, but my mind was thinking too literally. When I heard the term "uncle," I took it ...

  Welcome to December, the last month of the year, filled with holidays and celebrations. In my case, I hope to celebrate some discoveries a...

  It should have come as no surprise that families from small communities would, over the generations, intermarry with relatives. Yet, when ...

  In a town as small as Żerków , one wouldn't expect to run into name twins, but it seemed that my Polish great-grandfather Anton Laskow...

  Some research ideas may seem brainy at the first, but turn out to be nothing more than a rabbit trail. I'm hoping my latest foray int...

  A little here ( at this website ), a little there ( at another website ), and pretty soon I'm adding clusters of relatives to the fami...

  Looking for records of Polish ancestors has been, as I've said before, not a plug-and-play experience . Part of the documented family ...

  So, the data's gathered. Now what? I'm sitting here, looking at the list I've harvested from a search for Laskowski relatives ...

  There are some research problems which leave me feeling as if I'm walking in circles. Pursuing my Laskowski ancestors in Żerków is on...

  Researching ancestors from an English language country is far simpler than pursuing those secret ancestors my paternal grandparents never ...

  Doing a " One Name Study " on a surname as common in Poland as Laskowski may have been overkill for someone just wishing to find...

  It almost seems as if my Polish second great-grandfather Mateusz Laskowski was an only child. Other than his younger sister Antonina, who ...