[Ger-Poland-Volhynia] Opening zloty bank account in poland

[Walsh, Brian W.,M.D.,GYN]

Hi darel-

I was wondering the same thing when I needed to pay the archives in Plock and Wloclawek. They ask for small amounts of money, like $12, but they want an international wire, which my bank would charge over $60 to do. I heard about xoom.com  and can recommend it. it's easy to set up an account with them and transfer money. I think they charge about $5 or so.

The process i've used successfully with both archives is the following:

1.      Email the archives giving as much detail as possible. Full name, date of event, LUTHERAN, date of birth, etc. I had a Polish friend translate it but it may not have been necessary.
2.      They will respond in 4-6 weeks, repeating your request. The response is in Polish. You can use "google translate" to read it. They will give an order number in the subject line. USE THAT NUMBER WITH ALL CORRESPONDENCE FOR THAT SEARCH. They will also give you their bank routing number.
3.      Typically they want a nominal amount of money up-front, for a 1 hr search, maybe $12 or so. Zloty's have an abbreviation on PLN, by the way
4.      I go to xoom and transfer $30 or so. This gives you a credit with that archive. They do a good job keeping track of it and will use it for future orders. It's nice not having to make multiple transfers.
5.      I print out the receipt from xoom, scan it, and email it to the archives WITH THE ORDER NUMBER so they can begin the search. I don't think they have a good way of tracking payment and xoom does not have a way for you to add information to the transfer.
6.      In another month they will email a scan of the document you request - or give you a computer search of people with the same last name, and have you specify which document(s) you want.
7.      They don't do well with multiple inquiries in one email. I wanted to be efficient and give them the whole list, to get it all done. They only do one search at a time.
8.      Once you send money through xoom, they keep the routing info, so it's easy to send more over later, if needed.

Best of luck!

Brian







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