The Polish Connection.. the search continues

I've spent more time at the Family History Center browsing the microfilms from the Zassow parish in Poland looking for distant relatives from my father's side of the family. During the last visit, I was able to quickly find Agatha Kizior and her two brothers listed in the Baptismal records for the parish. Within the details of those records their parents and grandparents can be identified. In a matter of 15 minutes, I had been able to add two more generations of family history to the tree. Not bad... Now I'm thinking, this is going to be a piece of cake. NOT





My second visit I spent a lot of time looking for Julia Kizior. I wasn't sure if she was younger or older than Agatha so I asked my grandmother who told me she was an older sister. I looked backwards from 1892 to 1882 and did not find her. With time to spare, I began looking for Szacik's of Wiewiorka, another small village next to Zassow. After nearly 2.5 hours of random searching, and nothing to show for it, I decided to catalog what each section of microfilm recorded because as I went through the film, it didn't appear to be in any specific order.





I had ordered 4 films, 3 showed up and 1 is on backorder. I loaded the film that I found the Kiziors and quickly went from beginning to end writing down each particular section and the dates associated with it. For example, film 1959127 contains the following records.

1. Wiewiorka Deaths (1883 - 1921)


2. Zasow Baptisms (1784 - 1837)


3. Zasow Baptisms (1837 - 1868)


4. Zasow Baptisms (1869 - 1890)


5. Zasow Baptisms (1890 - 1944)


6. Mokre, Przeryty Bar, Dabie Baptisms (1784 - 1805)

Now it's 10 minutes to closing so I put in film 1959216 and start recording the various sections. I get up to the 4th section and what do I find? An index of Zasow Parish Baptisms. I couldn't believe it. It's not a typical index though. It's broken in multiple sections, each section is a village. Within the village section the names are grouped by the first letter of last name. But within the letter group, list it is not alphabetized. Heck, it's better than nothing.

Because I had Szacik on my mind I found the village of Wiewiorka, got to the S's, and started looking through the list. I managed to locate several members of the Szacik family. I knew the names of this family because I have a copy of Adam Szacik's will. He's my Great Great Grandfather. In it, there are specific references to his children Antoni, Jan, Tomasz, Stanislaw, Jozef, Katarzyna, Marji. Here are the names that I was able to find in the short amount of time that I had left:

• Jan Szacik (b. 11/27/1886)


• Thomas Szacik (b. 2/3/1889)


• Joseph Szacik (b. 3/8/1883)


• Stanislaw Szacik (b. 4/18/1884) my Great Grandfather


• Catherine Szacik (b. 5/20/1885)

Included in the index is the name of the mother and father (Adam Szacik and Sophia Krystyniak), the church volume number and the page on which the entry is recorded. I ran out of time and had to pack everything up, bummer.

At this point I was both excited and a bit bothered to have found this index. Excited because now I have some new dates, names, and volumes to research and I also have an easier way to find individuals. Bothered because it took me nearly two full visits to discover it....

I left the center happy to find more names and anticipating my next visit (which was on Tuesday of this week)

Sorry, no scans this week.