Links - more interesting pages

The goal of this link collection is to give a brief overview of web pages that might be of help in getting your own researches started. This choice is certainly incomplete and a result of subjective preferences.

Archives / Libraries / Collections

The most important sources for your research are primary sources. The sources of the Polish State Archives can be searched on szukajwarchiwach.

The sources that have been filmed by the LDS - Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are searchable in their database using the LDS Filmsearch pages. An annotation because of a frequently asked question: It is a catalog of the microfilmes that can be viewed at one of the LDS Family History Centers, not a direct access to digital church book pages.

Lutheran Church books of the former German East Territories as well as those of the "Dobriner Land" are kept in the Evangelisches Zentralarchiv Berlin (EZA).

The German Bundesarchiv keeps historic German state records and makes them publicly available. They still have the filmed records of the Polish areas occupied in 1939 (the original records have been handed over to the Warsaw Archive of New Records).

Some German libraries are specialized on Eastern Europe. So the Herder-Institut at Marburg, the Martin Opitz Bibliothek at Herne and the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek at Munich.

A remarkable data collection is offered by the Odessa Projekt. The focus of this Digital Library is German-Russian genealogy. But they also provide data for Central Poland.

Genealogical Websites

The exchange of genealogical information between researchers is supported by web pages and mailing lists run by involved private researchers and some genealogical societies.

The dobriner-land.de web site covers the area of the 'Dobriner Land' or 'Ziemia Dobrzyńska'.

The area of Volhynia is subject of the German Wolhynien.de web page and of the English volhynia.com web page.

The Canadian "Society for German Genealogy in Eastern Europe" - SGGEE also covers Central Poland and Volhynia.

Related Areas

There are several websites, which cover the settlements in the area of the Bug river: The local website Neudorf - Neubrov, the website of the Bugholendrysociety and the website Bugholländer.

There is an excellent website covering West Prussia.

Information about places in Eastprussia, Westprussia, Brandenburg, Posen, Pomerania, and Silesia can be found on Uwe Krickhahn's Kartenmeister site.

Maps up-to-date and online

Looking for a place in Poland? The online map MapaSzukacz can help with current vector based maps.

Extremely interesting is the Polish Geoportal, providing detailed orto photos and additional land register information.

If the spelling of a place name in Central or Eastern Europe is uncertain ShtetlSeeker will support you with a sophisticated phonetic search engine. The results are displayed using Mapquest.

Historical Maps - free download

The remarkable project Map Archive of Wojskowy Instytut Geograficzny 1919 - 1939 offers of a broad range of very detailed Polish maps in great quality for download.

A similar project exists for maps of western Poland: Archiwum Map Zachodiej Polski.

The Department of Cartography and Geoinformatics of Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, Hungaria offers 267 sheets of the Map of Central Europe as of 1910 (scale 1:200 000) for download.

An interesting map can be downloaded from the ambitious Digital Library of the University of Łódź. The Special Karte von Süedpreussen by David Gilly might be of genealogical interest. This map was published 1802-1803. But it shows the borders of South Prussia before the Third Partition of Poland.