Hi, Judy <elista@telusplanet.net> wrote: > I have recently found where my ancestors came > from! (Hamburg Passenger > List - 1857) and that was a town called Exin in > the Prussian province of > Posen, ( about 22 miles SW of > Bydgoszcz)[Bromberg] which I was told is now > called Kcynia, in the county of Naklo n. > Notecia, and in the province of > Kujawsko Pomorskie. I'm still confused (sorry) > about one map having 16 > provinces and another having 49 provinces. Are > they from different time > periods? Would Exin/Kcynia be in WR - Wroclaw ? Poland has changed its administrative subdivisions several times since World War II ended. There was one set of 17 provinces 1945-1975; from 1975 to 1998 there were 49 provinces; and the new setup with 16 provinces went into effect in 1999. Here's a page with a map that shows the 49 provinces and indicates how they were fit into the 16: http://www.rootsweb.com/~polwgw/49provs.html This side-by-side map is also helpful: http://www.staff.amu.edu.pl/~zbzw/ph/pro/plpro.html It gets confusing because the Family History Library set up its categories according to the 1945-1975 provinces; most reference works available came out during the period 1975-1998; and of course the most recent sources use the current setup. So you often have to juggle three different setups when dealing with any one place -- plus deal with totally different setups during the Partitions (1772-1918) and Poland as it existed between World Wars I and II. So don't be surprised if your head occasionally spins! Kcynia was in Bydgoszcz province 1975-1998; but as you say, now it's in Kujawsko-Pomorskie province. Wroclaw is down in southwestern Poland, quite a distance south of Kcynia -- relatively speaking. Poland's not that big a country, so the distance isn't really all that great. But in terms of culture, history, administration, etc., Kcynia and Wroclaw differ significantly. Wroclaw is in the region called Silesia (German name Schlesien, Polish Slask), whereas Kcynia is located in the borderland region between Pomerania [German Pommern, Polish Pomorze] and Kuyawia [German Kujawien, Polish Kujawy]. If I'm not mistaken, under German rule Kcynia/Exin was in Posen province of West Prussia. The catalog of the Family History Library shows that the FHL has microfilmed Exin/Kcynia church records of the Protestant and Catholic churches there, but you need to check the catalog for dates to make sure they have the records for the time-frame you need: http://www.familysearch.org/Eng/Library/FHLC/frameset_fhlc.asp You'll need to establish whether your ancestors were Protestant and Catholic; that can make a big difference. Still, knowing they came from Exin/Kcynia is the most important thing. Once you can pin down the area they came from to a specific town or village, your chances of being able to learn more improve dramatically. Good luck! Fred Hoffman