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Hints and Strategies
1. How do you search a surname or town that contains accented characters?
If your ancestral surname
is sometimes written with accented characters, do NOT enter
these accented characters in the surname or town fields. If you do
try to search using accented characters, you will not get back the
results you are expecting!
There are a variety of accented characters used in Polish surnames.
In some cases, they sufficiently modify the pronunciation of a name
to also change the Daitch-Mokotoff Soundex code for that name.
For example, a vowel that contains an ogonek (a little hook) beneath
it causes the vowel to be pronounced with an "n" or an "m." Example:
the "e" in Ostroleka is written in Polish with an ogonek under the
"e" and the town name is pronounced Ostrolenka.
If your town name or surname has an ogonek, to get best results:
- Do NOT search by including the ogonek in the name. Instead, convert the name with the ogonek to the phonetic sound, then do a Daitch-Mokotoff soundex search.
- Do NOT do an exact surname search.
WENGROWOr if you search for PIONTEK you will get results for
WEGRÓW
WENGROWSKI
WEGROWSKI
PIANTEKIt is important to remember that the data entry was done based on what we saw or thought we saw in the index. Therefore, if the 19th century clerk did not put the ogonek in a name when he wrote it out, we did not do so either. There may be versions of the name in our database that do not contain the ogonek and are not phoneticized with an "n" or "m". Therefore it is best also to search for the name without including the ogonek in the spelling.
PIENTEK
PIATAK
PIONTEK
PIETEK
PIEMTEK
PIAMTEK
For example, a town search for WEGROW or surname search for WEGROWSKI will get you some listings for those names spelled without the ogonek. But it will not get you listings for WENGROW or WENGROWSKI.
The ogonek is the ONLY accented character for which one should search phonetically in the JRI-Poland database.
For example, the name JASKOLKA with a slashed L is pronounced JASKUWKA in Poland. But you should search for JASKOLKA, not the Polish phonetic JASKUWKA, even though the name contains the slashed L.
2. How do I search for my Surname in a specific town?
There are two different methods of accomplishing this. Let's search for JASKOLKA from Lomza.Method 1: Enter the surname JASKOLKA and then skip down to Search by Distance from Town of Registration? Central Coordinates. Enter Radius = 1 mile. Look up the latitude and longitude of Lomza, Poland using ShtetlSeeker and enter those numbers (5311, 2205). Click Start Search.
Method 2: Enter the surname JASKOLKA as the first parameter and enter the town Lomza as the second parameter. Make sure that "Match ALL of the above (logical AND)" is selected. Click Start Search.
3. My search resulted in too many responses. How can I reduce the number of responses?
There are a few ways to narrow your search. You need to select one of the following that best matches your search.- Select the Gubernia or Wojewodztwa where your target person lived. Click here for more information.
- Perform a radius search of 10, 20, or 30 miles from the town where your target person lived. Click here for more information.
- Perform a multiple parameter search using Surname and given name or surname and town. Click here for more information.
