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* * * * * * * * * * G E N
D O B R Y ! * * * * * * * * * * Volume 1, No. 1. 30 July 2000. Copyright (c) 2000, PolishRoots. Editor: William F. "Fred" Hoffman, <WFHoffman@prodigy.net> ************************************************************ WELCOME! - to GEN DOBRY!, the e-zine of PolishRoots™.
This is a first attempt, and like most such efforts, it will probably
change dramatically as I gain experience, and especially as you react and
say what you like and don't like. For now, however, this will start out as
a quarterly "e-zine," that is, an on-line publication sent for
free by E-mail to those subscribe to PolishRoots™. The frequency and
length of publication will depend on availability of good material and on
the level of support from readers. I have tried to put together a first issue designed
to offer some helpful pointers and ideas for those researching Polish
genealogy. Of course there are plenty of publications on that subject --
the difference is that this one is designed wholly for researchers
on-line. This makes it different in several ways from print publications,
ways I'm sure you'll find obvious. (Incidentally, we're sending this in pure text
format, rather than HTML, because plain old ASCII text is the one way you
can send something and be sure everyone can read it - and it's also
guaranteed virus-free. The instant you start using something snazzier, you
eliminate those whose machines aren't set up to deal with it; we don't
want to exclude anyone. Unfortunately, the text format means you won't be
able to just point at the Web addresses given and click to go there. But
if you're a Windows user, there's a way. Get on-line, minimize your
browser, and open this file. Find an address you want to visit, and
position your mouse at the start of the address. Click on the left button
and, without releasing it, move the mouse to the right till the whole
address, and only the address, is highlighted. Press the Ctrl and C keys
simultaneously. That copies the address onto your Clipboard. Then click
back on your browser to bring it up on the screen, and click on the line
near the top that shows the address of the site you're currently visiting.
Click on that address to highlight it, then press Ctrl and V
simultaneously. That replaces the former address by pasting in the one you
copied from here. Hit <Enter> or click on "Go" and you
should find yourself spirited away to the new address.) So please, look this first effort over. Let me know
what you like, don't like, want to see, etc. If you have a piece you've
written, short or long, or just a brief suggestion or pointer, please send
it to me. Please send any such feedback to <webmaster@PolishRoots.org>,
or directly to me at <WFHoffman@prodigy.net>. ************************************************************ About the Name "GEN DOBRY!" For those of you who don't recognize it,
"Gen Dobry!" is a play on words, based on the Polish greeting
"Dzien dobry." That expression, pronounced roughly "jen
dob-ree" and meaning "Good day," is a standard way of
saying "Hello." So "Gen dobry!" is sort of a shameless
crosslingual pun, as if to say "Good gen[ealogy]!" Of course,
some spoilsport will point out that "gen" as short for
"genealogy" might be pronounced with a hard "g," as in
"go," rather than the soft "g" in
"genealogy" - in which case the pun fails. To anyone who raises
that point, all I can say is, lighten up - you'll live longer. Those
ancestors you're researching aren't THAT anxious to see you! ************************************************************ --- FINDING PLACES IN POLAND ON THE WEB --- by William F. Hoffman <WFHoffman@prodigy.net> Polish genealogical researchers often turn to the Web after they've had their first success at finding family records. They say, "Ah, I've found great-grandfather's birth certificate! Says here he came from Maly Gnojek, Poland. Hmm, I don't seem to have any detailed maps of Poland around the house. And I can't seem to find a gazetteer that gives the history of Maly Gnojek. But wait a minute, I know where I can find this info: on-line!" That's when they experience the frustration
Web-searchers know so well: you know the info you need is out there
somewhere, if you can just figure out how to find it! Well, not everything we want is on-line, especially if your research takes you beyond western Europe. You might say western Europe has a bit of a head start in terms of infrastructure, and also in terms of attitude welcoming the free exchange of information. Eastern Europe still has to catch up after decades of misrule by people who absolutely hated the notion of free exchange of information. Still, there are a lot of Poles getting in on the Internet act, and excelling at it; they've made huge amounts of info available, if you can just find it. A discussion of all Web resources on Poland and Polish genealogy would certainly exceed the scope of this article. But I wanted to mention a few Web resources I've found that I use constantly. Many of you may already be familiar with these, if not, take a look. And if you have favorites I overlooked, feel free to send me a note about them, so I can pass the word on. - GENERAL SITES AND SEARCH ENGINES - In the course of working on various
publications, I find I constantly need to be looking up info on some place
in Poland. Sometimes I have no luck at all; but often I find at least some
useful material on-line. Of course you can always start out by looking at some
of the better Websites for general information on Poland. There's the
official site of Poland: Another one I've found that has a lot of good links
is "Polish Connections (UK)":
http://www.zem.co.uk/polish/index.htm
PolandGenWeb has a number of excellent links with
more direct relevance to genealogy:
http://www.rootsweb.com/~polwgw/polandgen1.html
They include: Links Found on the PolandGenWeb Site;
MultiGen - Search Multiple Genealogy Databases; Poland Genealogy Forum;
Post to the Poland Unknown Town Queries Board; and Where did the former
province of xxxx go? If you're doing Polish research and haven't checked
all these resources out, you're doing things the hard way! Some have luck finding places by visiting the Yellow
Pages of Polskie Ksiazki Telefoniczne (Polish Telephone Books). It's no
good for finding people, but if you use your imagination you may find ways
to coax useful info out of it. The English version is at this address:
http://www.pkt.pl/index_en.shtml
(So far as I know, there is no site with on-line
information from what we'd call the White Pages, i. e., addresses and
phone numbers of private individuals.) Of course, you should never overlook the simplest
things of all: search engines. I remember once I was trying to find a bit
of info on a rather obscure village near Bydgoszcz, Solec Kujawski.
Recalling that age-old bit of wisdom, "Keep it simple, stupid,"
I went to <www.altavista.com> and just typed in "Solec Kujawski."
I didn't get many hits, but one of the ones I did get was the city and
_gmina_ home page at <www.soleckujawski.pl>. (I swear, sometimes brains get in the way. The folks
who succeed are the ones who aren't afraid to try the obvious -- and who
never, never give up!) It's worth mentioning that you may get different
results from the same search engine if you specify a search in the Polish
language. This can be unpredictable, especially since such a search brings
into play the diacritical marks on the distinctly Polish characters. In
other words, searches in English or all languages usually let you find
pages where the writers intentionally avoided the use of, say, the Polish
slashed L or dotted z, to make them easier for non-Poles to find. A search
specifically in Polish, on the other hand, is aimed at people fluent in
that language, and thus will expect you to use those letters correctly. If
you don't know the correct spelling of a word, that can complicate things.
So searches in Polish are probably best left to those who know a little
about the language. (Still, no harm in trying!) If you do know the correct spelling of Polish words,
and you want to be able to key them in using the appropriate Polish
characters, below is a list of the codes generally associated with them on
a Windows machine. (You Mac guys are always telling us how Macs are so
easy to use that you don't need help, so I won't insult you by offering
any). You need to make sure NumLock is on: press Alt, and, while still
holding it down, key in 0 followed by these numbers ON THE NUMBER PAD (not
the numbers above the QWERTY row of keys). This is not for everybody, but
if you can master it, using these codes will sometimes pay off: a~ - 185 (on English-configured pages = superscript 1) c~ - 230 ("" = ae as a single letter) e~ - 234 ("" = e with a caret ^) l~ - 179 ("" = superscript 3) n~ - 241 ("" = n with a tilde ~) ó - 243 ("" = accented o) s~ - 156 ("" = oe as a single letter) z~ - 159 (the accented z, on English-configured pages = Y with umlaut)
z* - 191 (the dotted z, on English-configured pages = upside down
?) So if you want to type "Kraków" and think
having that accent over the o might make a difference in what you find
(and it might!), you'd want to make sure NumLock is on, hold down the Alt
key with one hand, and with the other key in 0243 on the number pad. Even
on browsers configured for English, that should produce the accented o. If
you key in Alt 0241 when your browser's expecting English, the character
that will show on-screen is the n with a tilde over it. But if you search
Polish pages, they should interpret that code as the Polish accented n;
and if you enter that character in a search box on a Polish page, it will
usually show up as the accented n... It probably sounds more complicated
than it is -- experiment with it and you'll catch on. While we're talking about search engines, I should
add that Tom Wodzinski <tomwodz@pcug.org.au> once posted a note on
one of the Polish lists, recommending that when looking for Polish places
or things, it is often wise to use specifically Polish versions of the
search engines. Here are addresses of a few: Polish Infoseek - http://infoseek.icm.edu.pl Info Pol - http://www.info.pl Poland on the Net - http://pl-info.com/pl As Tom says, "It's always worth doing your
keyword searches (names, towns, etc.) on both the standard Internet search
engines ... and the Poland-specific one -- you'd be surprised at the
additional hits you get with these Poland-specific search engines."
Here again, use of the correct Polish spellings, with the correct letters,
can affect the success of your search. - ON-LINE MAPS - I'm constantly hearing from people who've found
documents with the name of a place their ancestor came from, but can't
find the place. Sometimes the spelling of the place is correct, sometimes
it's way off. I usually advise them to visit the JewishGen Website, which
has teamed up with Mapquest to offer a particularly valuable service at
this address:
http://www.jewishgen.org/shtetlseeker/loctown.htm
While there are many on-line map providers, this
service is especially helpful because of its search options, which give
you your best shot at finding garbled names. You can choose to search only in Poland, another
specific country, or all of central and eastern Europe. You can choose to
search within so many miles of a given place. You can search using a
precise spelling, if you're sure it's right. If you're not sure the
spelling is right, you can use the Daitch-Mokotoff Soundex, which applies
the basic principles of Soundex to eastern European languages and
maximizes your chance of finding a place with a mangled name. Once you've
set your search criteria, you click on "Start the search," and
after a moment you'll see a list of places that match your criteria. If
you find one that seems promising, click on the blue numbers next to it
(the latitude and longitude), and you'll get a map showing that location.
You can print the map, save it, zoom in and out, etc. With some names this site may return too many
possible hits to do you much good -- I mean, there are tons of Dabrowas
and Wolas in Poland -- and it doesn't have every little village in Poland.
But it does have a surprising number of them, and gives you a chance to
find them even when thick-tongued Anglo-Saxons have massacred the name
you're looking for. That's why I consider it the most valuable map-site
on-line for researchers, and especially beginners. There are, of course, other sites with good maps,
including the following:
http://www.lib.utexas.edu/Libs/PCL/Map_collection/Map_collection
http://maps.expedia.com/quickmaps.asp
http://feefhs.org/maps/indexmap.html These are all excellent sites, well worth
visiting. I just happen to like the ShtetlSeeker/Mapquest combination
because it's more forgiving if you don't have the name of the place
spelled quite right. And let's face it, that happens a lot! - SPECIFIC VILLAGES OR DISTRICTS (GMINY) - Many of our ancestors came from fairly small villages
-- not the sort of place likely to have a home page. And yet, you might be
surprised. The number of villages with at least a minimal on-line presence
is growing rapidly. Even if the village itself is not represented on-line,
chances are good its _gmina_ is. For those unfamiliar with that term, a
gmina is an administrative subdivision, consisting usually of several
villages and settlements and administered by an official called a _wojt_.
In the Polish administrative set-up, a _wojewodztwo_ or province consists
of a number of _powiaty_ or counties, and a powiat consists of a number of
gminas. Even though the term is not familiar to English-speakers, and is
difficult to define because we don't have anything in our political set-up
that really corresponds closely, gminas are important in Poland as the
most basic government entity. They're also important to researchers because they
can help us keep straight places with the same name. There are many, many
villages in Poland that have the same name as other villages, a situation
potentially very confusing. It's confusing to Poles, too, so often they
differentiate places by gmina. Searching for a specific village by finding
the gmina first is often a good idea from a practical point of view -- it
minimizes time wasted looking at a wrong place with the right name. Marek Duszkiewicz <metro@polandmail.com> posted
a note on-line some months ago about a server that lets you find local
E-mail addresses of potential on-the-spot researchers on the gmina level.
They're teachers at local Polish schools who are on-line and interested in
talking with others. It can't hurt to write, you might run into a teacher
who'd love to practice his English and, in return, will help you with some
local info you couldn't get any other way! The basic address of all these gmina pages consists
of <www.szkoly.edu.pl/> followed by the name of the village where
the gmina offices are located. For example: for the gmina of Rudnik n.
Sanem, visit
http://www.szkoly.edu.pl/rudnik/
You can find links to gminas such as Grebów or
Zaleszany: http://www.szkoly.edu.pl/grebow/ http://www.szkoly.edu.pl/zaleszany/ You can also search by first letter of your gmina
name at this address:
http://www.szkoly.edu.pl/cgi-bin/osi/real/real.cgi?od= 0&st=
Marek noted that for this to work, the village you're
looking for must have at least gmina status, and maybe not all gminas are
covered yet. But he says they will be sooner or later. Of course no one
can guarantee a response, but the people whose addresses you find this way
are on-line, and are interested in using the Internet to communicate.
That's what that server was created for. So an answer is fairly likely. Another source I found of links to gmina and town
Websites was at this address:
http://www.gn.ids.pl/miasta_i_gminy.htm
This page breaks its entries down by name into four
sections, A-F, G-L, L~-R, and S-Z. It is clearly a work in progress, as a
lot of links listed are not yet connected. Still, I found links for
interesting places such as Niedzwiada gmina in Lublin province <http://www.niedzwiada.ug.gov.pl.htm>
-- its main page has a note of welcome from the wojt who runs the gmina,
and 4 options, including a tourism page and an E-mail link. The site for
Walcz <www.walcz.ug.gov.pl.html> has a choice of 12 pages, including
one on infrastructure, trade, services, education, culture, general info,
tourism, and economy. Another site handy for finding some places -- but not
all places in Poland are listed -- is the following: Its simple, well-planned layout is particularly easy
to use. You can search for a place, or go through the index and pick
specific spots. Once you find a particular town, its entry takes the form
of an open scrapbook, with different pages giving photos of the town's
arms and noteworthy sites, a page on its history, one on its economy, etc. Also worth a look is this site: For the English version, click on the English flag at lower left. It allows you to search for all kinds of different firms and organizations by various criteria, including location in the old provinces (1975-1998) or the new ones (1998-), by year of founding, number of employees, etc. You enter various codes in the boxes labeled SIC or NACE. I have found all kinds of information by playing around with the various options, including addresses of parishes, so I discuss it a bit more in the next section. Clearly this site has a lot of info, if you can take the time to get familiar with how to get the most out of it. I'm sure you'll find these sites overlap to some
extent in their coverage and contents. But I wanted to mention them
because at this point, searching for info on places in Poland can be
hit-and-miss. The more sites you have available to search at, the better
your chances of finding one that has info you can use. - PARISHES AND DIOCESES - Since the most basic documents we need -- birth,
marriage, and death certificates -- were usually drawn up at churches, we
often have particular need of finding a specific parish. Usually when
writing small villages it's enough to address your envelope with "Parafia
rzymsko-katolicka" [Roman Catholic parish], followed by the name and
postal code of the village in question; there's only one church there,
everyone knows where it is. For postal codes try this address: Still, having the right address can speed things up,
and is especially important if it's a larger town and there's more than
one church there. The most useful site I've found for help with this is
at PolandGenWeb:
http://www.rootsweb.com/~polwgw/parish.html
It contains a number of valuable links and
references, including info on how to use the Website we just discussed,
<http://www.teleadreson.com.pl>, to find parish churches. Read the
instructions carefully, and I think you'll find this site as helpful as I
do. Guido Buldrini <buldrini@tin.it> pointed out
how that we can get info on parishes from a site mentioned earlier,
connected with the Yellow Pages:
http://www.pkt.pl/index_en.shtml
You can get parish church addresses by keying in the
name of the place you're looking for in the box captioned
"town/city" and choosing "churches" in the box for
"product/ services." Thus I keyed in Niedz~wiada (using Alt 0179
to get the accented z right -- using plain z brought no hits). After a
moment back came the address: Parafia rzymskokatolicka Najswietszego Serca
Pana Jezusa (Roman Catholic Parish of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus),
21-104 Niedzwiada, telephone 0-81-851-20-10. This is almost too easy! Sometimes we have no luck contacting a parish church
-- the priest may turn out to be uncooperative, the records are missing,
etc. In such cases it never hurts to take a step up the ladder and contact
the archive for the diocese in which that church is located. In theory
it's generally true that priests are supposed to supply the diocesan
archives with copies of all such records; so what may be missing or
unavailable at the church itself just might survive at the archive. Not all Polish dioceses are on-line yet, but here are
two Websites that help you connect with those that are:
http://www.amen.pl/diecezje.html
http://www.opoka.org.pl/struktury_kosciola/diecezje/index.html
Offhand I have no preference for one over the other.
You might try using both and see which you find easier, or which has more
complete info. Well, obviously I could go on and on with this topic
-- there are surely jillions of good resources I've missed. Feel free to
write and tell me about those you've found, and I'll be glad to include
your info in future issues. But I hope this brief introduction will prove helpful
to you when you ask the question most Polish researchers end up asking at
one time or another: "OK, now that I've found it, where the hell is
it?" ************************************************************ --- FREE LUNCH IN CYBERSPACE - WHO PAYS? --- --- A Cautionary Note for Genealogists --- by Stuart Nixon, <info@hearthstonebooks.com> [Editor: This article was written by the proprietor
of Hearthstone Bookshop in Alexandria, Virginia <http://www.hearthstonebooks.com/>,
a store that specializes in genealogy and related subjects. It appeared
originally in _Missing Links: RootsWeb's Genealogy Journal_. It's one of
the most intelligent pieces I've read on the subject of what we have a
right to expect from the Internet, but also of the unintended harm that
can result from unreasonable expectations, and a sense of entitlement to
instant gratification. I feel all on-line researchers should read it and
think about what it says. I hope you agree.] No one reading this needs to be told that the
Internet is changing the pursuit of genealogy in exciting new ways. Who
can resist the opportunity to access databases, contact other researchers,
exchange information, and publish findings in a short period of time, at
little or no cost, without leaving home? Like all new technology, the Internet can be a mixed
blessing. For genealogists, I see some problems developing that could have
long-term implications. For example, the Internet is creating what I call
a new psychology of entitlement. Access to the Internet may not be free,
but once you log on, there is a sense that you have entered a toy store
where all the toys are either free or heavily discounted. Genealogists are
coming to the Net with the expectation that with sufficient time to
browse, they can find virtually anything they want, without the
inconvenience or expense of writing letters, making long-distance phone
calls, visiting courthouses, reading microfilms, buying books, etc. In
other words, the Internet seemingly delivers one-stop shopping at
give-away prices. Everybody knows that if something seems too good to
be true, it probably is, but the Internet appears to be an exception.
There is, in fact, an enormous amount of information that's free for the
taking, or almost so, in cyberspace. So what's the problem? The problem is that even the Internet can't get
around common sense. Common sense tells us there is no substitute for
careful, methodical, grass-roots research, the kind any genealogist has to
do to construct an accurate family history. Information on the Internet
may be a pointer to truth, but rarely is it proof. In other words, the
Internet is not a source of information; the information originated
someplace else. You still need to go behind the Internet to verify the
information. You still need to consult the source. Common sense also tells us that technology costs
money. Sooner or later, directly or indirectly, somebody will have to pay
for all those databases, bulletin boards, mailing lists, chat rooms, etc.
out there on the Web. In most situations, that somebody is going to be the
user of the information, not the provider. If you think I'm wrong about
this, keep in mind that the true cost of a product or service is not
always obvious. It is possible to pay for something in a coinage other
than money. In the case of genealogical records, somebody has to
organize, compile, or abstract those records before they can be put on the
Internet. If the records are public -- that is, if they were created by a
public agency -- the public, by law, has a right to see them (with some
exceptions), but not necessarily on the Internet. If the agency in
question puts the records on the Internet, that is a public service, not
the fulfillment of an obligation. In other words, we as researchers are
not "entitled" to view public records on the Internet, however
convenient (and cheap) that may be. We are not "entitled" to view any kind of
records on the Internet. The Internet is simply a new means of
communication that lends itself very handily to the needs of genealogists.
It does not create entitlements that did not previously exist. An example
of this is the question of whether a person has the right to look up
information in a book and post that information on the Internet for the
benefit of others. On the face of it, this seems reasonable enough. If a
person is willing to do lookups for other people, why not? The answer depends on what information we are talking
about. Most books, including those published by nonprofit organizations,
are copyrighted. The contents of the book are protected against
republication. Generally speaking, if you choose to share a small amount
of information from a copyrighted book with another person, either
verbally or in private correspondence, you are free to do so under the
concept of "fair use" of the material. But if you start cutting
and pasting, photocopying, or otherwise transmitting entire paragraphs or
pages from the book, you are no longer making fair use of the material,
you are now republishing it. That's why most copyright notices say
something to the effect that "no portion of this book may be
reproduced in any form without written permission from the author or
publisher." The Internet is effectively a giant copy machine.
When you post information on the Web, you are reproducing it.
Consequently, copyright law still applies. The Internet does not magically
redefine the concept of "fair use" to include detailed lookups,
quotes, extracts, etc. If someone gets on the Internet and asks whether
certain information appears in a copyrighted book, you are free to respond
by confirming that the book contains the information in question (with the
page number or full citation, if you wish), but beyond that you can only
advise the person to buy the book or consult it in a library and do his or
her own research. If that seems an unreasonable restriction, consider
the alternatives. If a person creates, collects, edits, or otherwise
prepares material for publication, that effort usually constitutes
original work protected by copyright. The publisher recovers the cost of
the work from sales of the book. Even if the author or compiler does the
work as a "labor of love" for a nonprofit organization (such as
a genealogical or historical society), the person does so to benefit the
organization, which therefore copyrights the book to protect its
investment. Obviously, no publishing house or nonprofit group can continue
to underwrite publishing projects if the genealogical community feels free
to republish those books in whole or in part on the Internet. Researchers,
therefore, need to recognize that misuse of the Internet in the name of
"fair use" represents a real threat to all of us who look
forward to a continuing flow of information into the marketplace. There
are a lot of valuable data out there (such as cemetery and church records)
that do not fall in the public domain. Another Internet-related problem with consequences
for genealogists is the devaluation of personal service. One of the
appeals of the Internet is that you don't have to write a letter, attend a
class, go to a library, shop at a store, wait on hold on the telephone, or
put up with any other inconvenience or special cost to access information
or order products relevant to your research. In other words, the Internet
enables you to bypass a lot of people to get what you want. But bypassing
people runs the risk of creating what I call an environment of diminishing
expertise -- that is, an environment where there are fewer and fewer
knowledgeable people to consult if you suddenly discover that the Internet
doesn't answer all your questions. Yes, I realize there are various
genealogical Web sites where you can "talk" to specialists. But
chat rooms and e-mail are no substitute for getting help with certain
genealogical problems or issues, such as selecting the best resource for a
particular task or identifying resources you might not know about if
somebody didn't tell you. That's when personal service becomes important. But personal service is going out of fashion, due in
part to the influence of the Internet. Look, for example, at the mortality
rates for small bookstores these days. Small bookstores are going out of
business in record numbers because consumers are increasingly trading off
personal service at "Mom and Pop" stores for deep discounts on
the Internet or stacks of best-sellers at chain stores. For genealogists, this trend is not great news. I speak from personal experience. One incident will illustrate the point. Last February, a woman posted a message on RootsWeb recommending a book about Britain. She had made what she thought was an important discovery. Actually, the book has been in print for 10 years, but it is not a genealogical book, so you would not be inclined (at least for genealogical reasons) to pick it up if you saw it in a library or a bookstore. Yet people like myself who are professionally involved in genealogy have been recommending and "hand-selling" this book for a long time to people we know who are researching immigrant groups discussed in the book. That's part of our job: to act as a broker of information for our clients or customers. Devaluation of personal service leads to another
problem: an increase in consumer disloyalty. At the same time that the
Internet is creating an environment of diminishing expertise, it is also
encouraging consumers to shop price, not product. That means you can't
expect merchants on the Web (or, for that matter, in the superstores) to
know exactly "what's in the box" or to help you make the right
choice for your needs among a large array of items. Consequently, shoppers
are still seeking out small businesses for advice on products, but those
shoppers are then buying on the Web (or at a superstore) instead of buying
from the dealer who helped them. Obviously, this process can't go on very
long before shopkeepers have to stop dispensing free advice or, worse yet,
have to shut their doors. So let's be candid about the way the marketplace
works: as consumers, we don't vote with our mouths, we vote with our
wallets. Therefore, I offer this friendly reminder: Loyalty is not an act
of charity; it is an investment in access to expertise. If your local,
independent drug store (or hardware store, or bookstore, etc.) is willing
to take 10 or 15 minutes assisting you, the store probably cannot afford
to give you the same rock-bottom prices advertised by a store where the
clerk (if you can find one) does not know the merchandise. In the age of
the Internet, we still need to reward people who care about their trade. This lesson comes home to me almost any time I get in
a discussion about genealogical software. Genealogical software is being
peddled on the Internet largely as a "throw-away" item. That is,
vendors are pricing most of the programs so low, you won't feel bad if you
end up throwing the product away if you don't like it. But throw-away
prices can be deceptive; typing data into a program you purchased mainly
because it was a bargain is not necessarily the best use of your time. And
we all know that time is money. Likewise, companies that sell products at
cheap prices may not be inclined to throw a lot of dollars at after-sale
support. Which brings us back to the question of personal service: how
important is personal service for genealogists who welcome the
availability of "high tech" research tools but who also want to
make informed choices among many ever-changing options? Taking the longer
view of the Internet, perhaps all of us as family historians need to
remember that free lunches can sometimes get very expensive. [Written by Stuart Nixon, info@hearthstonebooks.com, http://www.hearthstonebooks.com/.
Previously published by Julia M. Case and Myra Vanderpool Gormley, CG,
Missing Links: RootsWeb's Genealogy Journal, Vol. 4, No. 38, 15 September
1999. RootsWeb: <http://www.rootsweb.com/>. Reprinted with
permission.] ************************************************************ JEWISH RESEARCH TRIP TO SALT LAKE CITY Jewish researchers will want to give serious thought
to attending the forthcoming research trip to the LDS (Mormon) Family
History Library in Salt Lake City, October 26-November 2, 2000. It is
offered by veteran professional genealogist Eileen Polakoff and Avotaynu
publisher Gary Mokotoff, both of whom are well known to anyone interested
in Jewish genealogy. Details are available at this Website: http://www.avotaynu.com/slctrip.htm ************************************************************ LANGUAGE & LINEAGE PRESS PUBLISHES POLISH TRANSLATION GUIDE For more information visit this Website: ************************************************************ --- RUSSIAN LANGUAGE CENTRE OPENS WEBSITE --- "We would like to inform you that Moscow M. V.
Lomonosov State University Russian Language Centre has opened its site in
Internet: http://www.rlcentre.com, where you can find all information
concerning Russian Language classes, accommodation, invitation and visa
support, all extra services, etc. You can also find information concerning
possibilities of coming to Russia with any other purposes. Hope that it
will be helpful to you. If you have any questions or requests, please, do
not hesitate to contact me directly." Prof. Vladimir Pautov, Director ************************************************************ *** SOME MORE USEFUL WEB ADDRESSES *** http://members.xoom.com/agadadm/
- Archiwum Glowne Akt Dawnych in Warsaw http://ciuw.warman.net.pl/alf/archiwa/
- Polish State Archives; take a look specifically at the new policies
affecting foreigners http://www.polishroots.org/genpoland/index.htm
- "Genealogy and Poland: A Guide" http://www.man.poznan.pl/~bielecki/roots.htm
- the Discovering Roots Society of Poznan http://www.ktl.mii.lt/heritage/lfcc/howfind.html
- information for Lithuanian research http://www.ancestry.com/library/view/news/articles/1523.asp
- Discovering Those Ancestors from Poland: Helpful Publications, Joseph F.
Martin http://www.rootsweb.com/~polwgw/links.html
- the PolandGenWeb list of hundreds of useful links ************************************************************ *** OTHER FREE E-ZINES OF INTEREST TO GENEALOGICAL
RESEARCHERS: *** * MISSING LINKS and ROOTSWEB REVIEW: to subscribe,
send an e-mail that says only SUBSCRIBE in the message area to: <Rootsweb-Review-L-request@rootsweb.com>
(Back issues of MISSING LINKS are available for download from <ftp://ftp.rootsweb.com/pub/mlnews/>
and BACK ISSUES of ROOTSWEB REVIEW from <ftp://ftp.rootsweb.com/pub/review/>). * "NU? WHAT'S NEW," e-zine of the Jewish
genealogical publisher Avotaynu, Inc. To be added to the mailing list, go
on the Internet to http://www.incor.com/avotaynu.htm and follow
instructions there. ************************************************************ To be added to or removed from this mailing list,
contact <webmaster@PolishRoots.org> YOU MAY REPRINT articles from GEN DOBRY!, PROVIDED:
(1) the reprint is used for non-commercial, educational purposes; and (2)
the following notice appears at the end of the article: Written by [author's name, e-mail address, and URL,
if given]. Previously published by GEN DOBRY!, Vol. 1, No. 1, 30 July
2000. PolishRoots: http://www.polishroots.org/. ************************************************************ Copyright 2000, PolishRoots, Inc. All rights
reserved. |
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