The night before my Polish distant family adventure, I'll share a few thoughts.
It began over 100 years ago in Poland when Alexandra Brozozwska Greloch was christened at a church in Lomza or Kozeniste, Polska. This is a picture of her, she is my great grandmother, then my grandmother (nana) Bernice (Greloch) Krogol, and my mom about 6 years before I was even around Juanita (Krogol) Steinman.
I was living in Poland for about 5 years. Around 2002-2007.
At that time doing some family looking but this summer/fall it got more intense. Well,I moved back to the states, the Boston area so not in PL anymore and my mom (Juanita) was doing more family looking with some help from some church folks I think in Rochester, NY. I told her she needed to get on it because I was heading back to PL (Warsaw) for a month and I wanted to figure stuff out.
I made a big family tree on 2 or 3 pieces of paper and gave them to her to draw out in detail and make sense of the names and all.
But she did even better, she found dates and photos and the ships ( with help from the folks in Rochester) where my great grandfather and great grandmother were on!
So, we had more details from that about where they came from.
Mom found out what Parish covered the area and they had an e-mail, cell # and website! wow.
So, now I'm back in Waw and I ask my friend Greg to call he priest and say I would like to visit and look for records. He says write an e-mail, so I do, Olga translates it, Greg and Kasia look it over and we send it along.
At about 1am I get a message back saying he found a match for my great grandmother! Still looking for Greloch but found Brozozwska!
oh my goodness this is amazing, so I write back I want to visit.he says sure and I can have copies of the records.
So I thought I would visit with Greg but then Valerie is up north working/living now and she can only visit (last weekend) so I decide to wait on Lomza (because I don't have so many details yet) and go to Torun with Valerie. So we did and it was a great trip.
But that same day I was about to leave I get another e-mail from the Priest because I wanted to know if anyone was alive in the area, and guess what there is!!!! Richard Brozozowski! And I get to meet him tomorrow!
The Priest give me his address, so I write to him with Agnieskza and my mom's help on what to say. I try to send it 2x from different post office but no help, I need a postal code, I don't have one and time is running out because I'm going back to the states on Monday and its Friday the week before now.
Now its Saturday and then Sunday, I'm back in Warsaw from Torun and Olga's aunt and Uncle are over for dinner, Olga is sick and can't go with me to Lomza and the little village where Richard lives but we are working on that as well. I'll ask Katazyna. That does not work. I ask a bunch of folks.
So, it comes to me asking more and more folks and while Wojtek is look for the code and Olga on-line, Danusia called the Parish in Lomza, tells the story a bit and then gets a name of a village that you need to send the letter to.
So, we have the village name and Olga checks the code now on-line and I put the letter in a fresh envelope.
Now sleep.zzzzzz
Monday comes around, I send the letter in the morning. Priority mail.
and wait
and wait and
wait.. Everyone asking if I had heard anything yet.
Then on Wed evening I get a Phone call while I just left Iwona's and I'm about to get into the metro.
It's Richard!!! he got the letter in a few days and called me. In my funny Polish I told him my polish is jako tako and in 1/2 hr I would be home with someone who can speak English and we would call back.
Also while all this is going on, I'm still looking for someone to go with to Lomza, Olga is sick, folks are busy with other things, and Olga thinks of calling her friend Nika! and that works out, oh that was on Wed afternoon so I had a friend who was even going to drive! before I new the Richard had called.
So we called him back and Olga said he sounds older and nice on the phone and to call tomorrow and I can stop by, so tomorrow is around the corner and I'm excited to go, nervous and excited and just wondering,
where do he live?
what does he do?
Can I see my great great grandmothers grave?
I'm bringing soil from the memorial garden at church in Rochester from where my nana is now. Soil full circle and back again from the place her mother came from.
All of this is totally amazing, I need to get some sleep.
What does looking for family look like? It looks like this.
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