Re: Do you know ancestors' religions?
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In reply to:
map of poland
Donna Schultz 7/20/03
Hi - just my two cents...
You will probably want to identify the religious affiliations of your ancestors. Armed with that, you can go to your nearest Family History Center (run by the LDS - Mormons - who have filmed lots of church registers from Europe) and request some microfilms to look at. Since those towns had registers written in Polish or Russian, you will be very challenged!
Please see this website -
http://www.familysearch.org/Eng/Library/FHLC/frameset_fhlc.asphttp://www.familysearch.org/Eng/Library/FHLC/frameset_fhlc.asp
This is the Latter Day Saints' website and you can do some searching for towns and then for microfilm numbers to view. You can 'rent' a microfilm for $3.25 for a six-week period. If you want to look at the film for a longer period, just renew it for another six weeks (before the date expires and they send the film back!)
On this site, press the button for Place Search. On the next screen, type in (for example) Kalisch. This is the town name and you don't need to enter anything else. Then on the next screen, select the top entry and press enter. Follow your instincts on the rest of the screens. This particular town had churches for Evangelical (Lutheran/Protestant), Roman Catholic, Greek Catholic and Russian Orthodox, as well as a Jewish population!
The word 'kreis' is a county or a province.
You are very lucky to have the documents that you do have.