Hi, Jane <jania1938@wowway.com> wrote: > Your eyes are better than mine Fred. To me, > it's scribbling! It helps an awful lot if you're familiar with the Polish language, and especially Polish names. That way, when you look at this kind of scribbling, your mind automatically recognizes which combinations of letters are likely and which are not. If you recognize the first word is Wola, you know the second word is probably adjectival in form, which means -owska is likely. You know Rusin- is plausible, or Raniz-, but Qxblky- is not. It sounds silly, perhaps, but familiarity with the language promotes pattern recognition, and that helps you cut down the number of possibilities to something manageable. (Sometimes, at least.) I was pleased to see that Joe Armata read it the same way I did. If both of ous, working independently, came to the same conclusion, that's a good indication the conclusion is sound. Not 100% certain, but pretty darned good. > I can find out about Wola Rusinowska. Is it in > the southwest corner of > Poland? > I'm not sure what the boundaries of Galicia are. I notice others have helped you with info on the location. Lenius's _Genealogical Gazetteer of Galicia_ says Wola Rusinowska was served by the Roman Catholic parish church in Spie as of the late 19th century, and the gazetter _Slownik geograficzny Krolestwa Polskiego_ (Vol. 10, p. 28) agrees. As of the late 19th century, of the 916 inhabitants, 896 were Roman Catholic and 20 were Jewish; so unless your ancestors were among those few Jewish inhabitants, it is highly likely they went to the church in Spie to record births, marriages, and deaths. These days, however, Wola Rusinowska has its own parish church: http://www.sandomierz.opoka.org.pl/strdiec/parafie.php?p=229 The history there says Wola Rusinowska has belonged to a number of different parishes over the last century, including Miechocin, Ranizow, Spie, and Majdan Krolewski. In 1969 a pastor was appointed to serve this community, and in 1972 a new church was consecrated there; so I guess the parish in Wola Rusinowska only dates back to the early 1970s. I'm not positive where older records would be kept, in the new church or at one of the previous parishes. I don't see how they could go back into the old registers and split the entries up every time a new parish is formed; maybe they make copies of the registers for the new parish. Actually, that's something I need to look into -- it would make a good article for one of the publications I edit, unless someone has already written about this. My best advice is to write the church and ask the priest. The address is: Parafia pw Sw. Józefa Robotnika 36-110 Majdan Królewski Wola Rusinowska 49 POLAND It's in Ranizow deanery of Sandomierz diocese. If the local pastor can't help you, maybe he'll tell you where to write. If he doesn't help at all, you can try writing the Sandomierz Diocesan Archive. Normally I advise people to try the Family History Library first; if they have the records on microfilm, why bother writing to Poland? But I tried searching the FHL Catalog to see if they have microfilmed that parish's records, and as best I could tell, no records are available for Roman Catholics in that area. I understand Church authorities in southeastern Poland have generally not cooperated with the FHL's filming efforts, so many places in former Galicia have never been filmed. You might check further, but my guess is that you'll have to write to Poland, either to the parish or to the Sandomierz Diocesan Archive, to have any luck searching the parish records. If you want more info on Galicia in general and research in particular, I'd recommend www.halgal.com as a very good source of info and tips. That's the best I can tell you. If anyone can give you better info, I hope he or she will do so. Fred Hoffman