I have been to the Bialystok Catholic archives several times. The priest archivist told me that he does not answer letter inquiring about records. He is very helpful when you go there in person but he does not have the staff to research and answer questions. When I went there, he allowed me to go through the record books and he copied the pertinent pages for me. He was very clear in stating that the LDS would never film his records. I certainly would try to contact him but if?does not answer then I would attempt to find a researcher in the area who you could hire to research the archives records. If possible I would try to get your letter from your parish written in Polish as I do not think that the priest speaks English. -----Original Message----- From: Fred Hoffman <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Sent: Thu, 1 Jan 2009 3:03 pm Subject: Re: [PBS] Searching for NIEWIEROWSKI Hi, Tina wrote about Lapicze: > http://dir.icm.edu.pl/pl/Slownik_geograficzny/Tom_V/590 > There is not place by this name in Poland today. The SGKP editors didn't include Lapicze in their first go-round, but they picked it up in the supplemental volume, 15-2, on page 256 (http://dir.icm.edu.pl/pl/Slownik_geograficzny/Tom_XV_cz.2/256). But all it says is that Lapicze was a village in Grodno county, Krynki district, 56 versts from Grodno, with 410 desiatinas of land. Not very helpful. There was no Belarus before World War II; much of what is now Belarus was within the borders of Poland at that time. Lapicze was in Grodno county of Bialystok province from 1921 to 1939. Today, Lapicze is in Poland, but just barely. The border with Belarus is only a few kilometers to the east. One of my sources confirms that it is, or at least was, served by the Catholic parish in Krynki, St. Anne's. The address is: Parafia sw. Anny ul. Nowa 1 16-120 Krynki POLAND I doubt the LDS Family History Library can help much, because the only records they show for Krynki are Catholic registers 1802-1818, Greek Catholic records for 1823, and Orthodox record for 1765-1878. If you write to St. Anne's parish, or to the Diocesan Archive in Bialystok, I would suggest you enclose a letter from your local pastor confirming that you are a member in good standing of a Roman Catholic parish. I am hearing more and more often that this is being required in some cases, due to the Church's directive not to cooperate with the LDS in efforts to film or digitize Church records. Bialystok Diocese is one of the places where this is, apparently, required. I don't know how much cooperation you'll get, but it woul dappear you'll get none till you can prove you're a Catholic in good standing. Tina provided a lot of good info. I hope this additional info will prove useful. Good luck! Fred Hoffman ------------------------------- 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