[Ger-Poland-Volhynia] Military Parishes in South Prussia 1795-1806

[Albert Muth]

I am following up my post from a few days ago with a bit more information on
what or WHO you might expect to find in these records. Soldiers, sure. After
all, Prussia had just taken a big bite out of Polish territory and needed to
ensure an orderly transition of power while at the same time moving in many
new settlers to colonize.

If one can read German, there is a 1937 book by Alexander von Lyncker, *Die
altpreußische Armee 1714-1806 und ihre Militärkirchenbücher* that seems to
promise a description of the units involved and where they were stationed. I
do not find it digitized; it is still in print in a more recent edition. LDS
has microfilmed the 1937 edition.

I have also found a description of what the records hold for Petrikau
(Piotrków Trybunalski) at http://www.armin-zimmermann.eu/Bessarabien/
Herkunft/<http://www.armin-zimmermann.eu/Bessarabien/Herkunft/Polen_Kirchenbuecher_englisch.html>
Polen_Kirchenbuecher_englisch.html<http://www.armin-zimmermann.eu/Bessarabien/Herkunft/Polen_Kirchenbuecher_englisch.html><http://www.armin-zimmermann.eu/Bessarabien/Herkunft/Polen_Kirchenbuecher_englisch.html>
"Births, Marriages, deaths, confirmations 1799-1806. In the church records
of the "Militärgemeinde Petrikau" you will also find records from the area
east Łódź and the area of Pabianice (Pabianitz), for example also from
Effingshausen (= Starowa Góra), Grömbach (= Łaznowska Wola), Wilhelmswalde
(= Borowa)."

Sounds really good, if you have ancestry in these areas. I would say they
are a must see.

As I mentioned the other day, there are several of these military parishes
scattered around the central area of Poland from this time period that we
really need to make more accessible.

And, keeping in mind that areas such as Posen and Westpreußen had themselves
only been colonized a few decades earlier, we *may* need to take a closer
look at the military parishes in places like Thorn, Bromberg, Gnesen, and so
on.

Don't keep hoping for www.ancestry.com or www.familysearch.org to index
useful records for your family. We are the only ones closely interested in
these records so we need to index them in order to move forward. By which I
mean, backward in time! These records are in German, not Polish, not
Russian. Volunteer!

Al Muth (Michigan, USA)