What types of documents have the most accurate information?

Finding, for example, your grandmother listed in a variety of documents, it is not unusual to find conflicting information regarding her name, date of birth, place of birth, and the names of her parents. Here is a short list of documents in which you might find a family member listed, and an explanation of the degree to which (and why) the information in the document might or might not be accurate:

Birth records in Poland

A birth record in Poland is the most accurate source of information. In almost every case, it will correctly list a person’s name, date of birth, place of birth, and the names of his/her parents.

Marriage records in Poland

A marriage record in Poland will almost always be accurate as well, because at the time of marriage the groom and bride were usually required to prove details of their birth. At the time of marriage, they may have been required to provide other documents as well. Collectively, these documents are called alegata marriage records (or aneksy or dowody).

Books of permanent residents in Poland

Books of permanent residents for each town very likely will have accurate information because information in books of permanent resident was based either on birth and marriage records in that town (and likely stored in the same room!) or birth and marriage records sent from another town.

Military conscription records in Poland

Military conscription records very likely will have accurate information because they were prepared with great attention to detail and were based on birth records.

Death records in Poland

Death records in Poland are not nearly as uniformly accurate as the documents above because it is possible that they were based on people’s memory or based on a bit of guesswork. Sometimes, the details included in a death record were based on facts from many decades ago (for example, the maiden name of the mother of a woman who dies in age 70 or 80).

Others records in Poland

Others records in Poland (such as voter records or synagogue contribution records) include information of varying levels of accuracy.

Passenger list (from Europe to foreign country)

A passenger list may have roughly accurate information, but frequently the information is either approximate or incorrect. For example, if a person were born in the little town of Mstów (near Częstochowa), they might simply say they born born in Częstochowa, perhaps providing the name of the town in Yiddish rather than Polish. The person writing down the town in the manifest might have trouble understanding the town name and therefore might write down something considerably different. The handwriting itself could well be sloppy and therefore whoever (or whatever digital tool) transcribes that information could include incorrect information. For all of these reasons, the information in a passenger list might be wildly inaccurate.

Naturalization (not in Poland)

Naturalization records, like passenger lists, might also be inaccurate. In a naturalization record it’s likely that the boat and date of passage is correct, but because people years ago often did not remember their own date of birth, the date of birth or even year of birth might be incorrect.

Marriage or death (not in Poland)

Like passenger lists and naturalization records, marriage and death record outside of Poland often have incorrect information.

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