Polish America: Genealogy Guides by City and Region

Guide 3 of 5 · Polish Genealogy Guides

Polish immigrants built their own America: parishes, halls, newspapers and whole neighborhoods in the industrial cities of the Northeast and the Great Lakes, and farming settlements from Texas to Wisconsin. Each community left its own records. These guides explain where Polish families lived, city by city, and where their records are today.

Why the city matters

Vital records in the United States are kept by states, counties, cities and in New England by towns, and each keeps them differently. Parish registers belong to a particular diocese, naturalizations to a particular court, and Polish newspapers and societies to a particular community. Once you know the city where your family first settled, you know which archives, parishes and societies to search, and often which part of Poland the neighbors came from.

The main centers of Polish America

Region	Main communities	Guide
Illinois	Chicago, the capital of Polish America	Polish Chicago
Michigan	Detroit’s east side and Hamtramck	Detroit and Hamtramck
Western New York	Buffalo’s East Side and Cheektowaga	Polish Buffalo
Wisconsin	Milwaukee’s South Side and rural Portage and Trempealeau counties	Milwaukee and Wisconsin
Western Pennsylvania	Pittsburgh’s Polish Hill and the mill towns	Polish Pittsburgh
Ohio	Cleveland’s Warszawa and Tremont	Polish Cleveland
Eastern Pennsylvania	Scranton, Wilkes-Barre and the anthracite towns	The coal region
New York and New Jersey	Greenpoint, Jersey City, Passaic and Bayonne	New York and New Jersey
New England	Chicopee, Webster, New Britain and the Connecticut valley	Polish New England
Texas	Panna Maria and the Silesian settlements	Polish Texas

What every Polish community left behind

• Polish national parishes, whose registers often name the village in Poland
• Polish-language newspapers with death notices
• Fraternal lodges of the Polish National Alliance, the Polish Roman Catholic Union, the Polish Falcons and many local societies
• Catholic and Polish National Catholic cemeteries with Polish inscriptions
• Naturalization records in the local courts

Families rarely stayed in one place. Many moved from a first job in a coal town to a steel city, or from Chicago to the Detroit auto plants. The birthplaces of the children in the census are the best map of that route.

City and regional guides

Related records

Polish-American parish records

US census records for Polish immigrants

Fraternal societies and US passports

How we can help

Immigration & Passenger Records works through the parish, court, vital and newspaper records of the community where your family lived, and Ancestral Village Identification carries the search to Poland.

Next guide: US Records