Research How-To · Polish State Archives
Millions of Polish parish and civil registers have been scanned by the Polish State Archives and put online for free on a site called Szukajwarchiwach, “search in the archives”. The site is in Polish and organized the way archivists think, not the way genealogists search, so a few terms go a long way.
How Polish vital records reach the archives
Polish civil registry offices, Urząd Stanu Cywilnego, keep birth records for 100 years and marriage and death records for 80 years. After that, the registers are transferred to the regional state archive. This means most records from before about 1925 for births, and before about 1945 for marriages and deaths, are in a state archive, and many are online. More recent records are still in the civil registry office and can only be ordered by relatives who can prove their descent.
Key Polish terms
| Polish term | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Archiwum Państwowe w … | State Archive in a given city, for example Archiwum Państwowe w Kielcach |
| Akta stanu cywilnego (ASC) | Civil registration records, including parish registers that served as civil records |
| Parafia rzymskokatolicka | Roman Catholic parish |
| Zespół | Fonds, the whole collection for one parish or office |
| Sygnatura | Reference number of one volume, usually one year |
| Urodzenia, małżeństwa, zgony | Births, marriages, deaths |
| Alegata | Supporting documents filed with marriages, often including the bride’s and groom’s birth records |
How to search Szukajwarchiwach
- Go to szukajwarchiwach.gov.pl and type the name of the parish town, not the village, into the search box
- Limit the results to materials with scans, so you only see registers you can open
- Open the fonds named like Akta stanu cywilnego Parafii Rzymskokatolickiej w …
- Choose the volume (jednostka) for the year and record type you need
- Browse the scans to the entry number you found in Geneteka, or read the annual index at the back of the volume
PRADZIAD: what exists and where
Before you search, check PRADZIAD, the database of vital records held by the state archives and some diocesan archives. It does not list names, but it tells you which years survive for each parish and which archive holds them. If a year is missing from PRADZIAD, it may still be in the parish or a diocesan archive.
When the records are not online
Many volumes have not been scanned, and diocesan archives rarely publish theirs. State archives answer written requests for specific records, in Polish or English, and charge for searches and copies. They do not carry out general family research. A clear request names the parish, the year, the record type and, ideally, the entry number.
The two-copy system in the former Russian partition means that the same register may exist in the state archive and in the parish or diocesan archive. If one copy is missing or illegible, ask for the other.
How we can help
Parish & Civil Record Research works directly with Polish state, diocesan and parish archives, including the records that are not online, and delivers each entry as an image with a full translation.