Roman, This is what I thought the problem was after translating some of the verbiage on the site. You are correct.. The site is useless to people trying to find family in Poland. Not every house in the country has a computer to complete the form to be added to the directory. Thank you for confirming my thoughts. Tina On Sun, Nov 14, 2010 at 2:15 PM, Roman <[email protected]> wrote: > Tina, > > I don't think it's a case of your computer not being able to perform the > search correctly. It' simply likely that the person you seek has not > provided their phone number to the site. > > Although the site offers a telephone directory, it also requires that > those who are to be listed in the phone book must specifically authorize > their inclusion by filling out and submitting the appropriate form. > > Unfortunately, that being the case, in my opinion this phone book is of > little or no use to researchers. > > Cheers, > > Roman > > On 11/14/2010 4:43 PM, Tina Ellis wrote: > > This site does not work for me anymore. I don't know if it is because I > > now have Windows 7 or not. From what little Polish I know, it looks like > > people in Poland now have to subcribe themselves to this telephone > > directory. My cousins do not even appear when I try to look up their > phone > > numbers. > > > > Am I doing something wrong? Maybe you all can check for family you know > was > > listed, and see if they still are. I see people giving out this link, > but > > it seems to no longer be working. > > > > Thank you all for any thoughts on how this site is supposed to be > > functioning. > > > > Tina Ellis > > > > On Sat, Nov 13, 2010 at 5:41 PM, Jakub Przedzienkowski <[email protected] > >wrote: > > > >> There is and it is in Polish, > >> > >> http://ksiazka-telefoniczna.com/index.php > >> > >> Kuba > >> > ********************************* > 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 >

Roman, This is what I thought the problem was after translating some of the verbiage on the site. You are correct.. The site is useless to people trying to find family in Poland. Not every house in the country has a computer to complete the form to be added to the directory. Thank you for confirming my thoughts. Tina On Sun, Nov 14, 2010 at 2:15 PM, Roman <[email protected]> wrote: > Tina, > > I don't think it's a case of your computer not being able to perform the > search correctly. It' simply likely that the person you seek has not > provided their phone number to the site. > > Although the site offers a telephone directory, it also requires that > those who are to be listed in the phone book must specifically authorize > their inclusion by filling out and submitting the appropriate form. > > Unfortunately, that being the case, in my opinion this phone book is of > little or no use to researchers. > > Cheers, > > Roman > > On 11/14/2010 4:43 PM, Tina Ellis wrote: > > This site does not work for me anymore. I don't know if it is because I > > now have Windows 7 or not. From what little Polish I know, it looks like > > people in Poland now have to subcribe themselves to this telephone > > directory. My cousins do not even appear when I try to look up their > phone > > numbers. > > > > Am I doing something wrong? Maybe you all can check for family you know > was > > listed, and see if they still are. I see people giving out this link, > but > > it seems to no longer be working. > > > > Thank you all for any thoughts on how this site is supposed to be > > functioning. > > > > Tina Ellis > > >

The recent discussion about using online Polish telephone directories to locate family in Poland begs a more general question. If one knows the name of a family member, say a male who's name did not change upon marriage, and an approximate location, what options are available for tracking down such a person assuming they are still living in Poland? What have other list members tried that works? Jim DeGraff Houston, TX

Jim, A suggestion I took from the book _Polish Roots_ by Rosemary Chorzempa is to write to the parish priest (where your ancestor was baptized), in Polish, asking if there is anyone in his parish with that surname. You can include a separate letter for the priest to give those people. Make sure to ask the priest how you can make a donation to the parish. This all presumes you know the parish your ancestors lived in. Several Polish genealogical societies have Polish telephone books and charge a small fee to look-up names. The problem with Polish telephone books is that they include a whole wojewo~dztwo separated by villages and cities. This means if a person doesn't know the village in which his ancestor was born (could be different than the parish village) it could take over an hour to go through every village looking for a particular surname. If a society charges $5.00 to do one look-up, it's a bargain. Polish Genealogical Society of America in Chicago and the Polish Genealogical Society of Connecticut and the Northeast both do look-ups in Polish telephone books. I used to do this but ended up sending most of my books to the PGSA. Something else you can check is the 2002 edition of Professor Rymut's data base, titled, "Dictionary of Surnames in Current Use in Poland at the Beginning of the 21st Century". I think this is online but if not you can buy it from the PGSA. OR you can check the 1990 edition which is not as specific as the 2002 version. Also the 1990 edition, which is online, is best viewed on Internet Explorer. Rymut died a few years ago and I don't think the site has been upgraded to perform as well on the newer browsers. So, what do you learn from using the above mentioned data bases? You find out how many people with a particular surname lived in a particular old wojewo~dztwo (1990 edition) or powiat (2002 edition). If you have a common name forget the whole thing. However, if you have an uncommon name then this database can be very helpful. Example. I searched (1990 edition) on the name Tomalski and found there were 774 people in Poland with that surname in 1990. In the old woj. of Bydgoszcz there were 8. (I happen to know three of them and those three don't know the other 5.) Of course, 774 is too large a number to do anything with. But, if I knew that "my" Tomalskis lived in the old woj. of Bial~ystok, then I might try going further with this. If you know your ancestor's village (won't work with a city) you can try something else. You can send a letter to the "family of _____ " in that village and see what happens. This letter needs to be written carefully so that the recipient doesn't think this is a scheme from America. It has to be in Polish and you have to state that you're only interested in locating family and nothing else (no land grabbing intentions). It helps to include a family tree (the diagram) and perhaps copies of old photos of people who came from that village. You have to make a connection. Include a self-addressed envelope (no stamps) as well. Then you wait. If there are several families in the village with your surname, hopefully your letter will get passed around. You could also ask that the recipient do just that. Need a postal code? I happen to have a data base that lists them. It works best for villages though and not cities. That's all I got! Debbie Jim DeGraff wrote: > The recent discussion about using online Polish telephone directories to > locate family in Poland begs a more general question. If one knows the name > of a family member, say a male who's name did not change upon marriage, and > an approximate location, what options are available for tracking down such a > person assuming they are still living in Poland? What have other list > members tried that works? > > Jim DeGraff > Houston, TX > >