Finding records in the United States

Finding Records in the United States

The examples on this page, are some records in the United States that have helped me learn more about my ancestors born in Poland. As you can see, many of the names are misspelled, and Anglicized.

Birth, marriage and death records are kept by the States. Each state has different dates when they began keeping records and how to access the records. Records are also kept on a county level. Churches also kept birth, marriage and death records. The FamilySearch research wiki is a great help finding when records began and where records are kept, often including links to digitized collections.

Women took the surname of their husband when they married. They used the name they currently had, on their records, not their maiden name. For example, Karol Janik’s wife was born with the name Julia Pantera. Her first husband was Wladisław Kwiatkowski. The marriage record below for Karol Janik, lists his wife’s name as Julia Kwiatkowska.

Newspapers listed dates that marriage licenses were granted and announced marriages. Sometimes families announced a birth of their child. Obituaries gave information about the funeral and the burial. Sometimes obituaries included things about a person’s life, and where in Poland the person was born.

It can be challenging to find family on the census records. I usually do a search by the address that I find on city directories. I use Fold3 to find Chicago directories to help with my census searches. This page has instructions on how to manually find census records.

Birth Records