Anne I would suggest that you also (subscribe and )post your query on the Ger-Poland-Volhynia List at www.sggee.org. You may even find some 'relatives'. Rose Message: 1 Date: Fri, 4 Apr 2008 08:21:10 +0100 From: "Anne Keen" <akdl25466_2@blueyonder.co.uk> Subject: [POLAND] Grandfather Edmund Milling born Koloni Zabloty, Kreis Lask, 1897 To: <POLAND-ROOTS@rootsweb.com> Message-ID: <001f01c89624$76922f20$68542552@your3hcef8q6j0> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" I am new to the mailing list and so hope I don't break any rules. I am looking for information about my maternal grandfather, Edmund Milling.I would like to be able to trace his parents. He was born in Koloni Zabloty on 13th December 1897. His birth was registered at Zdunska-Wola, and the entry number was 139. I am uncertain which Archive to approach, in Poland, for a copy of his birth certificate. Poland has been reorganised so many times that I have become very confused! I wondered if the registers would be in the Lodz branch office of the State Archives. If they are not, I am unwilling to go on a red-herring chase there if they're unable to trace the record. Because of the birthplace, Koloni Zabloty, could it be that he was born in one of the German colonies that dotted Russian Poland at the time? I have been trying to find out if there was such a Colony near Zabloty: on an old map I found the village itself, and then just to the south and east was an area marked as 'Koloni' I get the feeling that Edmund was not a native Russian Pole, but from a family of German settlers. I understand that Germany had quite a few colonies in this area of Imperial Russia, and that they all subscribed to German rather than Russian law, and spoke German, not Russian or Polish. On the other hand, I could be totally wrong and he could be a native Pole. Edmund left his home in the early years of the 20th Century, as a young man, judging from his passport photo, and eventually settled in Bottrop, Westphalia. There he married my maternal Grandmother, Johanna Strohschein, who was originally from West Prussia. Edmund died on 3rd January, 1943, at the young age of 46. My mother rarely spoke of her family, but one of the things she did tell us was that he died of 'miner's lung' - pneumosilicosis.She also always called him Polish. I have a copy of Edmund's marriage certificate, and that also includes the entry into the Death register, which was made at Bottrop with the number 8/1943. Would it be easier to try Bottrop first, to get a copy of the death certificate? I'm not sure if that would tell me who his parents were though. Can anyone guide me to the best place to look? Anne ------------------------------