Zenon – wonderful experience. He was prepared. He listened to my input and invited me to collaborate with the research. Zen knew how to contact people, ask the right questions, and follow up on leads. He was also an excellent interpreter – I felt very engaged with the person as he interpreted. He exceeded my expectations for the tour of the north when he was able to negotiate with a tough city clerk at the archives and eventually located a living Lelinski relative! I wasn’t expecting that! I look forward to receiving his Tour summary with follow up details because I was not taking notes of our meetings with people.
Artur (Warsaw guide) – very knowledgeable and interesting. Excellent experience. I would recommend you use him again.
Ula (Winnica guide) – very nice and personable. Enjoyable experience. Attentive to our needs. My expectations for my visit to Winnica were met. Critical feedback: she is inexperienced as a genealogy guide (which we already knew). She was able to stop and ask people for contacts in search of living relatives, but once we made contact, she didn’t seem to know what questions to ask in order to arrive at a next step. I am sure this skill will develop with more experience. She was also a bit timid and unsure about driving in the countryside, but that will probably change as she gains more experience. I recommend you use her again – perhaps let her follow along with a more experienced guide to get the hang of the process.
Lucjan (Dynow and Jasionka) – Lucjan updated the tour information each day, so it was completed and ready for my review the day after our tour ended. I appreciated his organizational skills and how quickly the information was available for me. I especially liked the contact information for people we met and the follow up list he created to keep me on track. With these tools, I will be able to complete some tasks and send some notes to the people who helped us. 2) Lucjan helped me to arrange the purchase of my ancestor’s grave rental with the city of Dynow and also helped me to interact with the tombstone makers to rebuild the grave as a memorial for the entire Bielec family who are buried at the cemetery. Furthermore, Lucjan sat down with me one morning to design the memorial headstone with proper grammar, notations, and phrasing. He said he would also help me to complete the transaction with the tombstone maker by offering translation services after I return home. Buying a grave to rebuild as a family memorial site was totally unexpected and a very meaningful experience to me. The opportunity suddenly presented itself and when we decided to take that opportunity, Lucjan was flexible and extremely valuable in brokering the transactions. Thank you, Lucjan!
Kasia (Krakow): she was wonderful. Very personable, very knowledgeable, and very interesting. I recommend you use her again.