Maria, You have many places where you can search for records. Places names: Hirschberg Gillau Lengainen Wartenburg Bischofsburg All of these places are now in Poland. People you meet today will not be using German names for Polish villages and cities. Maps are now in Polish,not in German, so your next step is to find the name of the parish and/or town where the civil registry was kept. You can use the Kartenmeister website at http://www.kartenmeister.com to find the Polish names of these places. Once you know that you can check the LDS online catalog to see if they have filmed any records by using this website: http://www.familysearch.org/Eng/Library/FHLC/frameset_fhlc.asp. After you know what film numbers you want, you can check this site to find out where the closest LDS Family History Center is to you: http://www.familysearch.org/eng/library/FHC/frameset_fhc.asp. There you can order the film from Salt Lake City to rent so you can search it. You can copy any and all records that you want. You will be dealing with Polish, German and Latin records. You can use these websites to find words found in records using those languages: http://www.familysearch.org/eng/search/rg/guide/WLPolish18.asp#1 http://www.familysearch.org/eng/search/rg/guide/WLGerman1.asp#a http://www.familysearch.org/eng/Search/Rg/guide/WLLatin1.asp#a You can use this site for words you do not find in the lists: http://translate.google.com/#. This will give you a jump start in your research. I've checked and there are records available. Please keep us posted on your progress and feel free to ask questions anytime you wish. Good luck. Tina Ellis On Sun, Mar 14, 2010 at 3:16 PM, Maria Peck <peckconstruction@interbaun.com>wrote: > Hello, > > I'm trying to track down my STOPINSKI/STOPIENSKI relatives from > Hirschberg and Gillau, Kr. Allenstein. Here is what I know at this > point. > > Jacob STOPINSKI and Elisabeth LANDSHÖFT married 25 September 1877 in > Lengainen. Parents of Jacob were Valentin STOPINSKI and Marianne > HERMANSKI. Parents of Elisabeth were Valentin LANDSHÖFT and Elisabeth > BEHREND. The family were Catholic. > > Jacob STOPINSKI was born 17 July 1852 in Hirschberg and Elisabeth > LANDSHÖFT was born 9 October 1853 in Wartenburg. They had six children: > > Johann, my grandfather, born 11 July 1892, Hirschberg, Kr. Allenstein, > died 2 May 1960 > Anton, born 9 June 1897, Gillau, Kr. Allenstein, died 13 August 1962 > Male STOPINSKI - don't know anything about him > Female STOPINSKI - her husband's last name was STEGEN. He was > Oberburgermeister of Bischofsburg, Kr. Allenstein (I don't know when) > Female STOPINSKI - all I know is that at one time she lived in > Duesberg Huching > Female STOPINSKI - all I know is that she lived in Essen, then moved > to Czechoslovakia to start a cherry orchard > > My grandfather, Johann (1892 - 1960) moved to Berlinchen-Neumark, Kr. > Soldin. He married Maria Frida Helene RÖSIKE on 24 December 1926. The > story in the family is that his father disowned him as Maria was > Protestant. > > Anton moved to Wuppertal where he married Erna. They had one son, > Heinz, who died about four years ago. He never married and didn't have > any information on his family. > > I have a photograph taken in 1946 of four couples. It is thought that > two of them are STOPIENSKI relatives. The first names are Valentin and > Lieschen, and Betty and Jupp or Juzz. That is all the information I > have. I really need help on this one. Is anyone researching this > family? Looking for any suggestions for further research. Thank you. > > Maria >

Hi Tina, Thank you very much for answering my e-mail. I already had the Polish names for my towns but I did check out the Kartenmeister website and found lots of other information such as Parish, population figures, etc. It is a very interesting site. I've never been able to find anything on the LDS family history site for Hirschberg, Gillau or Lengainen. But since the parish for Hirschberg and Lengainen is Wartenburg I will order the films for the Wartenburg church records (there are quite a lot). The parish for Gillau is Gillau but I couldn't find anything on the LDS site. There is quite a lot of information for different Hirschbergs but not Jedzbark which was the in the former Kreis Allenstein. You said there were records available. Perhaps I'm missing something. What records did you find? Regarding Bischofsburg I won't order any records yet because from family lore, Unknown Stopienski and Unknown Stegen had one child who died at an early age. She wasn't born in Bischofsburg. I was just hoping that there would be some history on the town so that I could check if Unknown Stegen was really the Oberburgermeister. I did find a very interesting site http://www.bischofsburg.de/ which listed all the employed individuals in 1939 with their position and home address. I have e-mailed the originator of the website to see if he knows anything about Mr. Stegen. I use the Google Language tools quite frequently as I still have relatives living in Germany. Unfortunately, they are not interested in family history and are unable to help me out. Tina, thank you very much for providing me with a very interesting website. I'll do as you suggested and keep the list informed about anything I find out from the LDS films on Wartenburg. Maria

Maria, In addition to the helpful websites from Tina I would suggest, if you have not looked at them already, these two for a good background to Polish research: https://wiki.familysearch.org/en/Poland http://www.donhoward.net/genpoland/polhistory.htm You could be busy for some time - it will be good to hear of your progress and try to help with further questions you may have. Kind regards, Bronwyn. On Tue, Mar 16, 2010 at 6:28 AM, Maria Peck <peckconstruction@interbaun.com>wrote: > Hi Tina, > > Thank you very much for answering my e-mail. I already had the Polish > names for my towns but I did check out the Kartenmeister website and > found lots of other information such as Parish, population figures, > etc. It is a very interesting site. I've never been able to find > anything on the LDS family history site for Hirschberg, Gillau or > Lengainen. But since the parish for Hirschberg and Lengainen is > Wartenburg I will order the films for the Wartenburg church records > (there are quite a lot). The parish for Gillau is Gillau but I > couldn't find anything on the LDS site. There is quite a lot of > information for different Hirschbergs but not Jedzbark which was the > in the former Kreis Allenstein. You said there were records available. > Perhaps I'm missing something. What records did you find? > > Regarding Bischofsburg I won't order any records yet because from > family lore, Unknown Stopienski and Unknown Stegen had one child who > died at an early age. She wasn't born in Bischofsburg. I was just > hoping that there would be some history on the town so that I could > check if Unknown Stegen was really the Oberburgermeister. I did find a > very interesting site http://www.bischofsburg.de/ which listed all the > employed individuals in 1939 with their position and home address. I > have e-mailed the originator of the website to see if he knows > anything about Mr. Stegen. > > I use the Google Language tools quite frequently as I still have > relatives living in Germany. Unfortunately, they are not interested in > family history and are unable to help me out. > > Tina, thank you very much for providing me with a very interesting > website. I'll do as you suggested and keep the list informed about > anything I find out from the LDS films on Wartenburg. > > Maria > > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to > POLANDBORDERSURNAMES-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' > without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message >