[Ger-Poland-Volhynia] Research in Poland?

[Jerry Frank]

At 12:39 PM 14/05/2005, margaret wrote:
>The current issue of Ancestry magazine has an article about Polish 
>research.  It
>set me to thinking about my husband's family.  This is strange but I 
>wonder if
>they were polish way back when?  The
>area I have them coming from in the
>1800 is Pommern, especially Kreis Stolp,
>Rummelsburg and Lauenburg.  When I
>look at maps of Poland back in the 1600 and 1700 I can't figure out if the 
>are of
>our ancestors is Pommerm or Prussia or Poland.  The names I research are
>Lohroff, Villwock and Schwochow.  I have not done much research in the 
>area because I do not read German and can
>not decipher the records.  I am only curious, are our families German? or 
>perhaps way back Polish?  Sure would
>like someone's opinion on the subject.
>Thank you.
>Margaret



Otto and Uwe have given some good comment and suggestion for beginning 
research.  I would recommend that you not give up just because you can't 
read German.  Most German records are in column format so all you need to 
do is recognize a few basic words for birth, death, marriage, etc. and you 
can be on your way to success.

I must however point out that research in the Pommeranian region is VERY 
difficult as most records were destroyed in the Wars.  You might get lucky 
with certain locations but dead ends are often encountered.  You can find 
some English resources for Pomerania at 
http://www.feefhs.org/dpl/frg-dpl.html

I would like to add one comment to Uwe's reference to the Kashubians.  The 
Kashub were in fact a Slavic tribe, speaking a dialect of Polish that is 
today almost totally forgotten (though some remnants are trying to revive 
it).  They primarily lived in the western part of West Prussia, encroaching 
also into the eastern part of Pomerania.  Though there probably was 
intermarriage between Germans and genuine Kashub, any Germans from this 
region became known as Kashubian.  They were generally considered to be at 
the lower end of the Germanic cultural pecking order.




Jerry Frank - Calgary, Alberta
FranklySpeaking at shaw.ca