Why do many Austrian, Russian, and German emigrants to America identify home towns that are in Poland? The answer is that Poland has been both an autonomous state and a collection of provinces under German, Austrian, and Russian rule. Norman Davies, author of God’s Playground: A History of Poland (2 vols., New York: Columbia University Press, 1982) suggests that today’s Republic of Poland is not the successor to previous versions of a Polish state. Each incarnation of Poland was unique in its boundaries and in the makeup of its society.
The nation of Poland traces its origins to the Slavic tribes living between the Oder and Vistula rivers on the northern European plain that stretches from the Atlantic in the west to the Ural Mountains in the east. In 1563, through the union of the kingdoms of Poland and Lithuania, the authority of the Polish crown extended to an area that included all of modern Poland, Lithuania, White Russia, and Ukraine. And yet, by 1795, Poland had ceased to exist as a nation.
Divide and Conquer
In the last half of the eighteenth century, Polish nobles, seeking to fortify their power, vetoed any attempt by a king to establish a strong central authority. Poland’s neighbors, seeing her weakness and fearing that one or the other of them might gain an advantage by taking over Poland, decided to divide it among them. The partitions of 1772, 1793, and 1795 left northern and western Poland to the Prussians (West Prussia, Posen, and Mazovia), southern Poland to the Austrians (Galicia and Lodomeria), and eastern Poland to Russia (including Lithuania, White Russia, and Eastern Ukraine). Twelve years later, in 1807, Napoleon nullified the partitions by establishing the Grand Duchy of Poland. After Napoleon’s defeat, the Treaty of Vienna (1815) restored Posen to Prussia and Galicia to Austria. Most of the Russian partition was returned to Russia. At the Congress of Vienna the central region of Poland, with Warsaw, was created as a kingdom, popularly known as the Congress Kingdom of Poland. The Emperor of Russia was made the king of this new kingdom. Continual uprisings by the Polish against the Russians led to complete incorporation of Congress Poland into the Russian Empire by 1874.
The city of Cracow and its environs, in northeastern Galicia, was not returned to Austria by the Treaty of Vienna. Instead, the treaty gave the area autonomy as the Republic of Cracow. It remained the only independent part of Poland until 1846. A peasant uprising against landowners in 1846 invited Austrian intervention, and the Republic of Cracow was annexed to Austrian Galicia that year.
United at Last
Until the end of the First World War, Poland remained an idea rather than a nation. Then, from 1918 to 1921, wars and plebiscites produced a new Polish republic in control of virtually all of the regions that were lost to Russia and Austria in the partitions. This republic also included the former German-ruled areas of Posen, northern Silesia, and a corridor to the Baltic Sea that cut a swath through what had been the western borderland of West Prussia.
The Republic of Poland’s life was a short one. On 27 December 1939, Poland capitulated to German invaders; the Germans divided their spoils with their Soviet allies, who had invaded Poland from the east. By 1945, the tables had turned, and the Germans surrendered Poland to the Soviets, who were now in league with the United States, Britain, and France. The stage was set for the birth of a new Poland. Ukraine, White Russia, all of Lithuania, and the northern half of East Prussia were excluded from the new Peoples’ Republic of Poland. Its northern border extended to the Baltic and its southern border to the Carpathian Mountains. The western border followed the Neisse River north to its confluence with the Oder River, continuing north along the Oder and then north-northeast to Swinemunde (Swinouj´scie) on the Baltic coast. Poland’s southeastern border intersected the boundary with Slovakia where the San River originates in the Carpathian Mountains. The border then followed a line north to the Bug River and paralleled the river on its northward course. Then, at Brest, the borderline ran in a northern direction another 160 miles before turning west to end in the Baltic Sea near the Polish city of Braniewo. These boundaries have endured to the present day, although the Peoples’ Republic of Poland has not. As the Soviet Empire collapsed, the Soviet-supported government in Warsaw also dissolved. The Republic of Poland was born in 1989. Today Poland is led by a popularly-elected government and is eager to assume its place in the community of independent nations.
Records Recovered
During the first years after the Second World War, non-Polish minorities fled Poland, leaving it a nation whose citizens were almost all Polish–unlike any of the Polands of the past. As the inhabitants of post-war Poland cleared away the rubble of their destroyed cities, they discovered that many of the records created by past rulers of Poland had survived the war. A national system of state archives was established to preserve and organize these records. Archives were established in capital cities and in other cities in each wojedwóstwo (province). These state archives were (and still are) administered by the National Directorate of State Archives in Warsaw. Each provincial archives’ office gathered and preserved the historical records created within the area now encompassed by the provincial boundaries. All records older than one hundred years were to be turned over to these archives. Most civil agencies complied, but churches were reluctant to participate, preferring to keep their records or turn them over to central church archives.
While identifying records, archivists discovered gaps in record series. At first it was supposed that these records had been destroyed or lost. As communication with archivists in neighboring nations improved, however, it was discovered that many records had been taken out of Poland during the post-war exodus of non-Poles to neighboring countries. Consequently, family historians must sometimes seek ancestral records in several locations. During the Second World War Poland fell first under German control and then, at the end of the war, under Soviet authority. Records relating to the war years, as well as alienated records from earlier periods of history, may be found in German, Russian, White Russian, and Ukrainian archives today. The archives in these countries are managed by central archives administrations, the addresses of which can be found in these publications: The World of Learning (London: Europa Publications, 1948—) and Ernest Thode’s The German Genealogist’s Address Book (Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1997).
Provincial Archives
Each province in Poland is named after its capital city. Each of these capitals houses a state archives which preserve records from the area covered by the province. Some of the records are housed in branch archives at several locations in the province. The map at left shows these provincial capitals. Researchers will find records for ancestral home towns, or at least directions about where they are, by communicating with archives staff in provincial capitals near their forebears’ towns of origin. Rather than guess which archives to contact, family historians can also write to the National Directorate of State Archives in Warsaw. For many years, this office has coordinated all inquiries from genealogical researchers. The archives’ staff in Warsaw will direct researchers’ letters to the appropriate archives. The address for the headquarters of the Polish state archives is Naczelna Dyrekcja Archiwów Pa´nstwowych, skr. poczt. 1005, ul. Dluga 6, 00—950 Warsaw, Poland.
Until recently, family historians wanting to use archival resources in Poland were required to obtain written permission from the office of the National Director of State Archives in Warsaw. Today, the directors in provincial state archives have authority to grant access to the sources in their archives. Family historians should write to request permission to visit the archives well in advance of visiting Poland.
Church Records
Today, Roman Catholic, Orthodox, Uniate, and Protestant churches in Poland generally preserve records at the parish level, although some are in central church archives. To learn where parish records are, a letter to the archdiocese or diocese for the area is necessary. Addresses can be sought in the publications noted above, or through a researcher’s nearest Polish consulate or embassy. Genealogists who would like a directory of all government and church archives in Poland can order the following publication from the address given above: Archiwa w Polsce. Informator Adresowy (Warszawa: Naczelna Dyrekcja Archiwów Pa´nstwowych, 1994).
Before family researchers write to archives, it’s best to learn whether the Family History Library in Salt Lake City has microfilmed church or other records from the town in question. The library has a large collection of church records from Poland. These records can be found using the locality search option in the Family History Library Catalog. The records are described in the catalog under the applicable Polish, German, and Russian names for each locality.
Austrian, German, or Russian?
Which regions in Poland were parts of Germany, Russia, or Austria? Our map shows not only all of the modern provincial capitals, but also the boundaries of areas that were under Austrian, Russian, and German administration in the past. This map will be easier to understand if readers are familiar with the history of each of these regions.
The Austrian Empire’s share of the partitions of Poland was the Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria (1773—1809), which was pared down to the Kingdom of Galicia (1815—1918) at the Congress of Vienna. Today Galicia is divided between Poland and Ukraine. Poland’s southern provinces cover this former Austrian region. The capital cities of each province are Bielsko-Biala, Kraków, Nowy Sacz, Tarnów, Tarnobrzeg, Rzeszów, Krosno, Przemysl, and Zamó´s´c.
The Russian Empire ruled most of central and eastern Poland from the partitions of Poland to 1918. Following is a list of the provincial capitals in former Russian-ruled areas of Poland: Suwalki, Bialystok, Lomza, Ostroleka, Ciechanów, Plock, Konin, Warszawa, Siedlce, Biala Podlaska, Chelm, Lublin, Radom, Skierniewice, Lódz, Sieradz, Kalisz, Czestochowa, and Kielce.
These are the capitals of Polish provinces formerly in Prussian territories (the German versions of the names are in parentheses): Katowice (Kattowitz), Opole (Oppeln), Walbrzych (Waldenburg), Wroclaw (Breslau), Legnica (Legnitz), Jelenia Góra (Hirschberg), Zielona Góra (Grünberg), Leszno, Pozna´n (Posen), Gorzów Wielopolski (Landsberg), Szczecin (Stettin), Pila (Schneidemühl), Koszalin (Koslin), Slupsk (Stolp), Gdansk (Danzig), Elblag (Elbing), Bydgoszcz (Bromberg), Torun (Thorn), and Olsztyn (Allenstein). Note that the eastern part of the modern Polish province of Suwalki was in the Prussian province of East Prussia (Ost Preußen) and that the northern half of East Prussia is today the province of Kaliningrad, belonging to Russia.
Understanding why German, Austrian, and Russian ancestors came to America from towns now in Poland will help researchers discover where ancestors’ records may be found today. Genealogists should visit their local libraries, especially college libraries, to search for atlases of the German, Austrian, and Russian empires published before 1918. The maps contained in these books will aid efforts to locate exactly where ancestors’ home towns were. German, Austrian, and Russian gazetteers from this same time period will describe smaller communities and help simplify the search for towns in atlases.
For Further Information
The National Directorate of State Archives in Warsaw maintains a Web site which provides information about its holdings. The site mentions a flood in the southwestern part of Poland this past July which caused damage in the state archives, particularly in archives submitted to the Polish State Archives head office. For further details, the Web site address is: http://ciuw.warman.net.pl/alf/archiwa.
Raymond S. Wright III is a professor at Brigham Young University, where he teaches genealogical research methods, European family history, and German and Latin paleography. He writes regularly for a variety of genealogy publications and gives conference lectures. Professor Wright is the author of The Genealogist’s Handbook (Chicago: American Library Association, 1995).
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