Częstochowa-Radomsko Area Research Group
Supporting the search for Jewish family history
Learn More About Polish Jewish Genealogy
Ages
Inconsistent ages in Polish records
Commonly confused letters
How to improve your searching
Duplicate records
Why two copies of a birth, marriage, or death record
BMD records: available years
BMD records begin in 1808 for most towns; for some towns, many records are missing
Geographical terms
Terms that appear in birth, marriage, and death records
Language of BMD records
Language to expect in birth, marriage, and death records
Maiden names
The meaning of a maiden name that includes a suffix
Map
Map showing CRARG’s core towns
Notary records
Marriage records that indicate “a contract was made”
Patronymic names
What is a patronymic name?
Polish citizenship
How to obtain Polish citizenship
Pronunciation
How to pronounce names and towns
Raptularz records
BMD records in “table” format, created before the actual, official akt (record in paragraph form) was created
Scanned images
Scanned images of birth, marriage, and death records for towns in CRARG’s core area
Search advice
How-to advice for CRARG search engines
Surnames
When were surnames first required in Poland?
Surname with an appended suffix
What do surname suffixes mean?
Two dates
Why many records list two dates
Unavailable birth record
Wording used in books of residents and alegata marriage records when a birth record is not available
vel
What does “vel” mean between two given names or surnames?
Thinking of joining CRARG? Feel free to write to me (danielkazez@crarg.org ) to ask if we have records for your family! —Daniel Kazez, CRARG President (a volunteer/unpaid position)
If you are ready to join CRARG, visit our Pre-Holocaust Database page.