My ancestors

  I need to know about my parent's grandparents, and the parents before them. My curiosity is overwhelming. Where did it start? I wish it started when I was 14 years old. Back then at least 2 of my Grandparents were alive. The ones in Canada that spoke English. The ones from Poland. At that time I was living with my maternal Grandmother. Did I think to ask her questions? No! I lived with her for 5 years and I don't remember anything. I have been specifically trying to pull up memories for most of the last year. I only remember her mentioning once about riding in a horse and buggy to church. She probably talked about things, and I just didn't pay a lot of attention.

  My Grandfather didn't live with my Grandmother by the time I was a kid. He didn't talk about anything. My Mom says he never spoke about his family.

  As for my paternal grandparents, I met them when I was 7 years old, and they came to Canada. I don't remember much about it, and they didn't speak English. My Grandfather died before I went to Denmark to visit my Father when I was 24 years old. I met my Grandmother, she just smiled and held my hand.

  Fast forward 30 years, and my quest to research my family tree.

I went to Costa Rica to get stories from my Mom. Then I went to Denmark to get stories from my Father. Then I went to Poland to get some family records. I have been here for 3 weeks.

  Part of the tease is that I've had books on both sides, that tell about my family for a few generations. I have moved so many times, I don't know what happened to the books. I have information on my family tree on a website, but it's been so long, sometimes I start to wonder about it's accuracy.

  I started on the familysearch.org website. I found out I could get a free ancestory.com account, and that I could link the 2 together. Ancestory.com found something for me that blew my mind. It was a link to the ship manifest with my Grandfather's name on it, and the information of when he came to Canada. That made my month. Half a year later I found the 1916 census from Canada with my Grandmother's family in the records. They stated they were from the country of Galacia, not Poland. Very interesting! I looked it up, and it was not known as the southeast part of Poland. It was known as the Kingdom of Galacia. That made my month. I had something concrete to research.

  Part of my complication is that every 5 years I have tried to do this family tree thing. I start accounts, I try to figure things out, and then I get frustrated and give up. A vicious cycle.

  Part of my complication is that it's all in another language after my Grandparent's generation. And I have to learn the history of Poland, it's the only tie I have to creating a story around my Great Grandparents.

  In my last U.S. hometown they had a family history center that was open and full of people who knew how to help me. Very exciting stuff, if only I had the time to go there. I want to go back there right now!

  In Denmark I didn't have access to the internet, I was staying with my Dad who didn't have a computer. He had books of family tree information though. Not that he actually showed them to me. On the last day I grabbed them, and took pictures. One of my cousins had showed me what pages to look at, since her Dad had the same books. One of my Uncles did a family tree of direct descendants that goes back over a thousand years! And I have a copy of it. I just can't read it. I tried to put it on the website and follow it, but there was an issue after the 5th generation. I can get it figured out, with enough time and effort and translation. I didn't spend enough time in Denmark! I have plans to go back before we leave Europe. When I go back, I will have a very specific list of questions.

  I came to Poland to see if I could find my Great Grandfather Henryk. And find out if he was Catholic or Jewish. I'm leaning towards Catholic, but one third of Poland (at least around here) was Jewish.

  At least we found some helpful friends here who are helping with the Polish translating, but in 3 weeks I have found nothing. I went to the local archives, they said to try another archive. That archive said they should have my Grandfather's birth certificate, they will look into it. They said give them up to 2 weeks, then they can email it to me. Then I go to the familysearch website and it doesn't want to pull up my tree. Frustrating. So I worked from the ancecestory website.

  I was also told that I need to find the family records, they are in specific parishes. The catch is, there are churches/parishes all over. There is no way I can begin to decide which parish to ask. And I have to pay people to research in the parish.

  I got one good lead, because my Grandfather was born in a very small village which is even now only 2,000 people. The catch is, I was told they expect me to go there to make my request. We looked it up, I would have to travel all day on bus/train/bus and transfers from 7am to 10pm just to spend a few hours there. With my own translator. By car it's less than 2 hours, but we don't have an international license. So we tried to get all the details and maybe work something out all day yesterday, only to see it would be too crazy to try. So later today my friend will call and see what kind of Plan B we can do. I've also been working with 2 friends, and trying to coordinate back and forth. One friend called yesterday and talked to the parish people, saying we were coming. Then we deciphered the schedules of how to get there, and realized it wouldn't be feasible. So my other translator friend is going to call and see what else we can work out.

  I leave in 5 days. We'll see what happens.

I also wanted to see if I could find some relatives who were still alive. But Poland doesn't have a phone book. Even on-line, I looked and looked. I found 5 names from the 1900's that I don't recognize, attached to records that I don't know how to access. Sigh. And so many records were lost forever. For example - over 80% of Warsaw was destroyed in World War II. I'm glad my Grandfather left before that. But he lived here for World War I, and Poland got the worst of it. He was 9-13 years old during that time.

  I talked to a person who works on family trees here. He even speaks English. I went to go see him, he is at a specific place at a specific time every week to help people. My friends said they talked to him, and he would be there. I arrived, and he said:" I'm sorry, I'm helping someone else. And I will be busy for the rest of the week. I can't help you." Talk about frustrating. He's lucky we were in a public place. I just shrugged and left. What can I do? He knew my story, he still didn't want to take the time.

  The one good thing I still have is my Grandmother's records. They were given to my Mom, who put them in storage in Canada before she moved to Central America. So my best shot at European history may be in a box in North America. An excuse to go back to where I grew up. I'll take it!

  I also have a phone number of a parish where my other Great Grandparents are from. I will have my friend call that one today too.

  The last great frustration is how to organize all the information. There is so much of it. Every piece needs to be documented. Where did it come from? Even the bad leads need to be written down, so I don't try to do them over and over again, and I know why.

  I still need to find someone who might help me track down my Grandfather's service record, he was in the French army before coming to Canada from France.

  Finding family has been unfruitful. My only consolation is that I enjoy learning the history of Poland. And at least I can say that I tried.