But, we have known for a long-time that searching only by Gubernia and Province might lead to missed records. After all, internal borders were arbitrary and rarely affected everyday life. Let’s take a family living in Tykocin in the Lomza Gubernia. One son might marry a local young woman and the marriage would be recorded in Tykocin. Another might marry someone from Bialystok just 26 km to the east but located in the Grodno Gubernia. And, in many parts of Poland, three Gubernias intersected. For these and other reasons, searching by political boundaries can be misleading.
