Testimonials

August 2020

Thank you so much for the report! It’s really amazing stuff. PolishOrigins has really helped to solve some old family mysteries. Please pass on my thanks to Kinga! She has done an amazing job with this research. I am really looking forward to coming once the pandemic is over, and I am excited to meet some relatives. If any of the relatives were interested in writing me an email, I am ok with you sharing my contact information with them. I don’t speak Polish, but there’s always google translate.

I’ve just finished going through all of the research reports and I have to tell you how impressed I am. There is so much information here! Until receiving these reports, my family history in Poland was a total mystery. Now my family tree on the Polish side is even more complete than the British side! These reports not only give me the names of my ancestors, but they paint a picture on how they lived. I was surprised to see how many people lived at the same house, and the infant mortality rate paints a picture of how difficult life must have been for them. My grandfather never spoke of his life in Poland, other than to say that life was difficult.

October 2019

I didn’t set any goals because I didn’t know what to expect, BUT finding close to 40 birth, marriage or death records of my ancestors that dated back over 200 years was amazing. And then standing in the villages and churches where they stood and actually meeting descendants (my 2nd or 3rd cousins) of the brothers of two of my grandfathers was out of this world.

October 2019

Now that we are home, and almost readjusted to the nine hour difference of Pacific Daylight Time, I wanted to drop you a note to tell you what a wonderful experience the Genealogy Tour and Prussian Poland Tour were for Marilyn and I. Although we only spent one day with Michał we found him to be extremely pleasant and accommodating. He was strategic in chatting up strangers in our designated ancestral villages asking about Nitecki and Wesolowski’s living and dead. Perhaps unsurprisingly, some were still in the area and we took a photo with a man in Klodawa with the Nitecki surname who is sure to be a distant cousin. We talked to the parish priests in Zbojno kolo Rypina and Novogrod who took time from starting their services for us. The priest in Novogrod, where my grandfather listed as his residence before coming to America, said my grandparents couldn’t have gotten married there because the church burnt down in 1900 and a new one was not built yet in 1902. (more…)

September 2019

Thank you for your outstanding tour guide Tomasz Laskowski. Tomasz was able to determine in a very short time my interests, objectives and desires. He made it very personal in his descriptions at the churches what items would have existed during my ancestors time, etc. The museums he chose were very intimate and had excellent docent’s. Tomasz was able to change our tour schedule to accommodate for many personal meetings with priests, potential family members and museum director’s. (more…)

September 2019

Our guide was very good, knowledgeable, personable, engaged with various people to get help for us, translated, gave good navigation help while one of us drove. We couldn’t have been happier with Ulla Modzelewska. We had a few serendipitous moments, such as when stopping at a church on a Sunday at 6 p.m., finding a choir practicing, and discovering one of the choir members had gone to school with our family member. This choir member then proceeded to guide us to two houses our family lived in in this village. We were thrilled. In two family churches, Ulla spoke to the priests who came into the church, told us a short history of the parish and church buildings and were most gracious to us. It was moments like this that made the tour very special to us all.

September 2019

We had two guides Mateusz and Daniel, they both served us well as they concentrated on the primary purpose of touring the areas in which the families lived. They provided additional information on research as the information became available which had not been expected. Mateusz concentrated more on the touring geographic information while Daniel was more interactive in contacting local residents and in obtaining local information.  Mateusz’s strength was finding the areas where the families lived and Daniel’s strength was contacting local residents and authorities.

The tour went very well and exceeded the expectations. Before the tour I thought we would have  more difficulties in finding the respective villages. I believe that major reason for this success is the preliminary planning with PolishOrigins to establish the location of the villages.

September 2019

Kasia was our guide for the first part of our tour. She was very informative, enthusiastic, and made every effort to make sure we saw as much as we could each day. We would most definitely enjoy having Kasia as a guide again!

Lucjan helped me achieve my goals and some! The research he did prior to the trip was SO beneficial. On the tour he was phenomenal! With a few pictures and an address, he managed to find 5 living relatives. He was very persistent in searching in the churches and archives and did everything he could to help me find the information I needed.  Of course with ancestry “answers” come additional “questions.” I have many more and I plan to actively continue my research. The care he took in providing me with the research info, photographs, notes, and summary of my trip was deeply appreciated. I will definitely be contacting Lucjan for additional research help in the future. (more…)

September 2019

I give PolishOrigins  a “10”.  I’d go 10+, if it was allowed.  Everything was handled perfectly throughout the entire process-from the first time that I submitted our trip request online, to the prompt & courteous updates that progressed along the way prior to our overseas trip to Poland.  Payments were easily done online, too, and the trip itinerary matched exactly as I requested.  Trip information was timely provided and someone was always available to answer our questions.  We heard from both of our guides prior to our trip and they welcomed us.  My daughter and I got to experience touring around present day Malopolska while our main expectation was being able to discover our roots in this same area.  I’m so happy to say that not only were we able to find up 4-5th generations of grandparents; we also found and visited living relatives that we didn’t know existed.  (more…)

September 2019

Aleksander, thank you so much for your expert assistance to make our trip to Poland such an amazing adventure. Everything about the trip was first class including the wonderful cities, towns and small hamlets we visited, the guides who provided compelling and interesting narrations and insights, the transportation services, restaurants, hotels, and most importantly, the wonderful Polish people we met on the trip. From our arrival at the Krakow airport to our departure in Warsaw, everything went smoothly and effortlessly thanks to your attention to detail and the quality of the services your company and contractors provided.  (more…)

August 2019

We want to thank you for arranging our amazing trip to Silesia. Everything was perfect and you gave so much attention to detail. Our hotels were excellent and the guides for Mt. Snezka and Wroclaw City were experienced, well informed and spoke perfect English. We really wanted to climb Mt. Snezka, and it wasn’t easy, but Christof gently urged us on to the top. Martin, in Wroclaw, knows so much history and explained it very well.

But the best part of our trip must be Mateusz – we cannot say enough great things about him. He certainly knows the history of Silesia and many interesting places to stop. He prepared for every visit so that priests and others were expecting us. Perhaps his best accomplishment was to convince the priest in charge of Wroclaw Archdiocese Archives to open the office for our visit. None of us knew before that this priest, the only person with a key, would not be available. Fortunately he was not far away during this vacation. We found several important records and learned from this priest that so many were destroyed when the Russians came.

Mateusz was a great companion for us and we appreciate his time and talent. Of course, we are also excited to have his drone videos that will help us remember all of our places visited.