This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list. Classification: Query Message Board URL: http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/an/RdC.2ACI/569.1.1.1 Message Board Post: The place you want is Bielsk Podlaski. It is just south of Bialystok. It used to be in the gubnerii of Grodzienskiej. In Polish it would have been Grodno. This place has been call Bielsk and Podlaski. It is now a combination of both old names. There are two places in Belarus with similar names, but they are too far south to have been in the same province (gubnerii in Russian). I have the history of it in Polish. If you would like a copy of it, let me know, and I'll send it to you. I just did a new search using only Kruk for telephone numbers in Podlaskie. Maybe the name was Kruk. There are several of them in Bielsk Podlaski and a few Krukowska and Kurkowski. You can use this site to fidn them: http://www.telefony.arteq.org/exe/podlaskie.cgi This is a list of all the churches in the powiat of Bielsk Podlaski, for which the LDS have microfilmed records: http://www.familysearch.org/Eng/Library/fhlcatalog/supermainframeset.asp?display=localityhitlist&columns=*%2C180%2C0&PLACE=Bielsk+Podlaski&PARTOF=&prePLACE=Bielsk+Podlaski&prePARTOF= I would start with the one in Bielsk Podlaski first. Problem with that is that you need to get back to 1874 before you can go back any further in your research. The archives in Bialystok has a lot of Jewish, Protestant and Roman Catholic records: http://baza.archiwa.gov.pl/sezam/pradziad.eng.php?miejscowosc=bielsk+podlaski&gmina=&wojewodztwo_id=&wyznanie_id=&rodzajaktu_id=&search=search. You can write to them. They charge about $20.00 and hour to do research and about $5.00 for each document you request. You need to be explicit in what you want. First you have to know exactly where he was born, the name of the parish and when born. If you do not find any family in the Bielsk Podlaski records, I would try all the other parishes one at a time until you get the right one. Each has records for different years. At this site you can find the current address of the oldest Roman Catholic church in Bielsk Podlaski. This is the oldest parish in Bielsk Podlaskie: http://www.genpol.com/Katalog_Zasobow_Metrykalnych-parafia_300.html When you write to parishes, letters need to be in Polish. It's okay to write to the archives in English. They have translators. Replies from the archives will be in Polish. Churches do not translators. That's why you need to write to them in Polish. this helps you with your research. Happy New Year. Tina Ellis