This blog post was originally published by the author on https://www.space-city-mike.net/poland/poland_2025_yt.html. It is reposted here with Michael’s permission.
August 2025
Welcome
This website is intended to document our (Michael and Maura Mackowski) trip to Poland in August 2025. I invited other members of my family to join us on this adventure, but for various reasons, no one else was able to join us.
Background
My wife, Maura, is a genealogist and has traced her roots back many generations. That inspired me to look into my family background. Many decades ago, my uncle Frank Mackowski (one of my dad’s two brothers) shared some documents and information he had about his father, my grandfather, Louis (aka “Ludwik”) Mackowski. In 2010 my cousin, Diane, shared some research done by our second cousin, Connie (nee Mackowski). Over the course of a couple of years, using online resources, I was able to gather a lot of information about the Mackowski family. Ludwik (and two of his brothers, Franciszek and Stanislaw) emigrated to the US in 1913. Another brother, Wladyslaw, stayed in Poland. For various reasons, Stanislaw had to soon return to Poland. This resulted in families from two brothers in the US and two brothers in Poland. There were other siblings and I may cover that later.
Research
Around 2019, I decided to get serious and organize all the info I had from my uncle and the data I found online. I obtained “Mac Family Tree” software to manage the data and create family tree diagrams. I made some posts on a couple of genealogy sites and in 2020 I got a reply from Lucasz R. He told me he is descended from Wladyslaw. The proof was the cell phone images he sent of photos of my Uncle Frank and Aunt Evelyn’s wedding (from 1947) that they sent to his aunt in Poland. That blew me away. Lucasz sent me info on that branch of the family, and a few other names. Soon I was in contact with Danuta J., a second cousin in Stanley’s branch, as well as Honorata Mackowská, wife of my second cousin, Christopher Mackowski, also descended from Stanley. This eventually resulted in a family tree I was able to create, which can be found in this link (as a pdf download). Note I have an updated, post-trip tree posted at the end of this site. Take a look at the file, as it will get you oriented to figure out who is who.
The Trip Plan
Danuta and Honorata sent me holiday greetings (via Facebook Messenger) and occasionally some news about local events. There are four towns of interest when considering the Mackowski ancestors. The location is about an hour’s drive eash of Poznan. Currently, the largest town, Słupca, is where Danuta lives. Honorata lives in the village of Imielno, which is about two miles from the tiny farming village of Łomów, where the brothers Ludwik, Wladyslaw, Franciszek and Stanlislaw were born. In between is Zagórów, where the parish church is for Imielno and Łomów. The brothers were all baptized at the church of St. Peter and Paul in Zagórów.
Honorata is very involved in local events in Imielno. They have an annual harvest festival on August 15, the Feast of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary. Poland is very Catholic, and August 15 is also a national holiday. They invited me to come to Poland and see their festival. It happened that this year (2025), Maura had a conference to attend in Dulles, Virginia from July 29 – August 2. I had a hobby convention in Hampton, Virginia from August 6 – 9. Our two daughters live in Silver Spring, Maryland (adjacent to Washington DC). With us being on the East Coast and the dates lining up, we decided to add Poland to this trip. Since we don’t speak Polish, and based on recommendations from others doing family research trips, we used the Polish Origins travel service to help make the arrangement and provide guides for the visit.
Meanwhile I made progress in researching my mother’s ancestors. Her father was Bernard Ulezelski and my grandmother was Wanda Polczynski. It turned out that their ancestors, my great-great grandfather, came to America around 1867. His name was Antoni Ulezelski, born in 1830, and was baptized and married in the town of Jaktorowo, about an hour’s drive northeast of Poznan. He had siblings that were born in a nearby larger town of Margonin. So I added those to the places I wanted to visit.
