Hi Ceil I would appreciate being put on the mailing  list for the new Pari Journal. My email address is [email protected]          I stilll plan to givijng a copy of my ancestral charts as well as entering a discussion on the Poles in the auto plants, mostly my families experiences.   Foir me I had cataract surgery, three weeks ago tomorrow.  I had to wait two weeks for a follow up visit to my eye doctor and his prescription for a new lens on the left eye (the one operated on).  Needless to say I have been off from work approx three weeks.  Hopefully the glasses willl be ready this week.  I hope you had a good holiday season,  belated Wesolych Swiat Bozego Narodzenia oraz Szczesliwego Nowego Roku .  Much luck and success in 2011..  I also hjope to see you soon. Jim   ----- Original Message ----- From: "MiPolonia" <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Sent: Sunday, January 2, 2011 1:46:59 PM Subject: [POLAND] Reflecting on 2010 / Michigan Polonia / PARI I have been a member of the list for quite awhile, but haven't posted very often. I want to share my reflections of 2010-Michigan Style.  I'm Ceil Wendt Jensen and I transitioned from public school teaching to professional genealogy in 2000. My grandparents were born in Poland, but spoke little of their ancestral homes-perhaps a reference to the larger towns, but never their birth villages. I've developed a second career helping others, such as myself, who lost contact with their ancestral history and want to reconnect with Poland. The year began with the publication of my latest book Sto Lat: A Modern Guide to Polish Genealogy. It follows my three earlier pictorial history books released by Arcadia  Publishing: Detroit's Polonia, Detroit Mount Elliott Cemetery, and Detroit's Mount Olivet Cemetery.  Sto Lat was released at the National Genealogical Society Conference in Salt Lake City in April. The Family History Library asked me to record three "how to" videos while I was in SLC and they are available free of charge on their website: Introduction to Polish Research http://broadcast.lds.org/elearning/FHD/Community/Independent/Introduction_to _Polish_Research/player.html Advanced Polish Research http://broadcast.lds.org/elearning/FHD/Community/Independent/Advanced_Polish _Research/player.html Polish Displaced Persons http://broadcast.lds.org/elearning/FHD/Community/Independent/Polish_Displace d_Persons/player.html I learned a great deal about the plight of Displaced Persons  with a grant from the Michigan Humanities Council-allowing the Polish Mission to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the beginning of WWII. I've partnered with Family Tree University to offer an online class in Polish genealogy. The new four week session begins tomorrow. http://www.familytreeuniversity.com/trace-your-polish-roots-strategies-for-s earching-in-the-us-and-poland 2010 also was the opening year of the Polonica Americana Research Institute (PARI) on the historic campus of St. Marys of Orchard Lake.  PARI is a division of the Polish Mission and I work closely with the Director Marcin Chumiecki.  Located in the historic Wotta building on campus, we offer a 8 station lab with access to several premium databases including the Detroit Free Press, Sanborn Fire Insurance maps,and Ancestry.com.  Our wireless Internet connection allows patrons to bring in their laptops and login for research. We offer 45 minute consultations, as well as a lecture series. We also host historical and genealogical societies-our past visitors include the Jewish Genealogical Society of Michigan, the Irish Society, and the Polish Genealogical Society of Michigan. Many of our core volunteers are also members of PGSM. We are open each Friday and Saturday from 10-4 pm. Please call for an appointment (248-683-0323). Our library catalog can be found at: http://www.librarything.com/home/MiPolonia We are proud of our parish jubilee book collection and continue to receive donations. We are also maintain a Vertical File for descendency charts and family group sheets of Polish immigrants to the US. We are still collecting Pol-Am auto worker stories-and have a grant from the MotorCities National Heritage Area, an arm of the National park Services, to record oral histories of Michigan Pol-Am UAW workers. Our project is entitled "Automobility drove Polish American Prosperity". Marcin has worked to build new bridges with Poland and we have had an impressive list of visitors this year: Lech Walesa,  Piotr M. A. Cywinski (the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum),  C. Piotr Zaleski (Bibliotheque polonaise a Paris), and Prof. dr hab. Zdzislaw Pietrzyk (Biblioteka Jagiellonska). Find more visitors and images see: http://www.polishmission.com Please send me your email address if you would like to subscribe to our new PARI digital journal. [email protected] If your travels lead you to Michigan in 2011 we hope you will stop by campus and see the growth we have in mind for the Polish Mission! We will continue our outreach to bring Polish family history into the mainstream by speaking and hosting a vendor table at forthcoming seminars including the Ohio Genealogical Society and the  Michigan in Perspective: The Local History Conference. Over the May 20-22 weekend we will host a Civil War symposium showcasing our earlier history as the Michigan Military Academy. The symposium will feature lectures by archivists and historians and the past will come to life with an encampment by re-enactors-some representing the Pol-Am soldiers who fought for both the Blue and the Gray. I will end on a personal note. 2010 was also the year I completed my pilgrimage to the ancestral parishes and villages of my ancestors.  The most current was to the parish of Debowiec (near Jaslo). I was able to find the location of the house in Zarzecze where my grandmother Agata Zdziebko was born (1872). Earlier trips lead me to the parish of Milobadz near Tczew (birth place of my grandfather Franciszek Wenta), the palace of Rogalin where my Adamski ancestors toiled, and the small rural village of Wielki Leck where my Przytula line resided for over two hundred years. Ceil Wendt Jensen, CG PARI 3535 Indian Trail Orchard Lake, Michigan [email protected] ********************************* Need to contact the list manager?  Write to Marie at [email protected] ---------------------------------- Discussion of Polish food, culture, and customs are welcome on the list as long as the discussion stays pertinent to the topic of this list: researching our Polish roots. ---------------------------------- Browse the list's archives here: http://archiver.rootsweb.com/th/index?list=poland-roots Search the list's archives here: http://archiver.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/search?aop=1 ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to [email protected] with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message