Custom Polish Genealogy Tour of Poland
Are you one of the 60 million people worldwide with Polish ancestry? Are you Polish American or Polish Canadian or are you the descendants of Polish immigrants who settled down under in Australia? Have you ever dreamed about visiting the places where your Polish ancestors were born and raised? Do you wondered if living relatives still exist in Poland and if it’s possible to meet them personally? Have you dreamed of taking a Polish Genealogy Tour? How many questions about your Polish heritage remain unanswered?
PolishOrigins, a registered Poland tour company since 2004 is here to help you realize these dreams and find answers to those family history questions you always wondered about with our Polish genealogy tour. PolishOrigins organized its first genealogy tour in 2004. Since then, it has become our core competence and our most significant source of pride and passion.
Our Polish genealogy tour covers all of today’s Poland, as well as Western Ukraine, Belarus, Lithuania and Slovakia. All of our Polish genealogy guides speak fluent English and can read and interpret Polish birth, marriage, death and other records written in Polish, Latin, Russian and German.
During your tour, you will be walking on the very grounds of your Polish grandparents and your ancestors who came before them. Walking along the roads or village streets, shopping in the village markets, you get to see, touch, smell, hear the language and think about what life may have been for them. It sometimes has a very emotional and profound impact on our guests.
Planning
Each Polish genealogy tour is a unique and personal experience, but there are some core components of our tour services that we will always provide for you.
We create and prepare your Poland tour itinerary for you at no charge. You have access to our tour management team, and your genealogy tour plan is made together with you based on your expectations and the information you provide before you start the tour. You are assigned a private tour guide in Poland who is an expert in Polish ancestry research.
Polish Genealogy Research Preparation
Knowing your Polish family history is helpful but not necessary. The minimal amount of information you should know is what places your Polish ancestors lived prior to immigration. If you need assistance in tracing your polish ancestors, we can help you. You may have the opportunity to discover so much more about your Polish ancestry by doing on-site genealogy research and hopefully finding living Polish relatives. From the very start of your Polish genealogy project we analyze all the information you provide us to prepare to begin the search to locate the correct villages and parishes where genealogy research can be performed during your visit.
Together we may be able to perform research during your visit at church parish offices, civil registry offices, state archives, historical societies, and on online databases. We can also do interviews with local residents and sometimes quickly discover we are talking to one of your Polish cousins! We will not perform any actual research before the tour unless you request us to do so.
Drivers & Polish Tour Guides
Your Polish genealogy tour guide is also your tour driver. On all of our escorted tours in Poland you have access to a passenger car at your disposal for the entire tour. We do not recommend driving in Poland on your own during the visit as Polish roads are sometimes in very poor conditions, not paved or dirt. Some of the Polish countryside roads are not always well marked. Most cars in Poland are still manual stick shift. We want you to be able to focus your attention on the beautiful Polish countryside and the villages of your ancestors instead of having to concentrate on driving.
During Your Polish Genealogy Tour
Your genealogy guide will conduct the following services throughout the tour.
- Contacting, negotiating, and establishing relationships with the local civil and church offices to perform genealogy research and learn local history.
- Research your family records and different kinds of institutions such as parish offices, diocese archives, Polish state archives, several registries, cemeteries, and digital archives.
- Searching for living relatives based on information we may be able to discover in conversations with residents.
- We provide oral and written translations of your family documents, letters, photos, and descriptions, and, of course, they act as a translator during meetings with your relatives. (If we can find them)
Recommended Dates
We recommend that you do not schedule your genealogy tour to Poland in July or August. This is the summer vacation months, and many archives have restricted opening hours, and many priests are on vacation. Research is difficult, but of course, it is still possible if you do not have a choice as many of the Polish genealogy records are now available online.
If you decide to take a Poland genealogy tour only for a couple of days, this should happen on weekdays as on weekends the archives are closed.
Last-minute changes
This tour is about you and we allow you to make changes to your tour plans within minutes or hours. Unscheduled stops and side trips along the way are always welcome and often add to the excitement of the genealogy tour. Especially when it leads to an ancestral village where you discover living relatives.
Accommodations
We include all accommodations in our offer. In the bigger cities, we can offer 3 to 5-star hotels depending on your budget and tastes. We recommend and cooperate with smaller boutique hotels rather than the big international hotel chains.
In smaller towns and villages, we advise you to stay in small inns, B&Bs and Agro tourism houses where you can see everyday life in Poland. Here you will have the opportunity to experience real Polish hospitality.
We are always flexible and open to your genealogy tour suggestions and expectations and can add local tourist attractions, local tour guides, and other services to the itinerary. This is your tour!
Testimonials
Read some of the testimonials from our past guests:
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- “I can’t emphasize enough, to anyone considering a trip to Poland, how it will excite and change you. Just beware that once you go, you may want to return many, many more times. My third visit is already planned out.”
- “Something magic or spiritual comes into play that makes it unlike other journeys.”
- “This was a trip of a lifetime and the gift of family was more than I could have hoped for from this trip.”
Cost
The total price of the tour is entirely dependent on the specific itinerary. All costs will be included, such as accommodations, transportation, guiding services, etc. You will receive a detailed price of the trip before you arrive in Poland. If you have any questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to contact us.
Our fees, as well as our prices in Poland, are in Polish zltys (PLN).
If you are a returning guest, you will be entitled to a 5% discount off the final price. Discounts cannot be combined.
Contact PolishOrigns
To contact us about a custom genealogy research tour, please fill out our tour request form
Download our booklet about preparations for our Polish genealogy tour.
We invite you to contact us by email: [email protected]
Phone: 0048 664 407 089 (6.00 AM – 4.00 PM EST)
Blogging
If you want to record and share your genealogy tour with others, we would be happy to help you with this and share it on our blog. Past PolishOrigins clients who have blogger tours have found it to be a unique way to express her thoughts during the trip rather than writing about them when they return home. Blogging also gives your friends and family a daily update of your Polish genealogy tour. This is not obligatory in any way to do so. You can also always do this after your tour is completed.