The Birth Record

Recently, I found one of the records I have been looking for since I started my genealogy research in 1999, the birth record of Frank Zalewski.

Here is an excerpt from the post I made about how I found it on my main genealogy site:

I quickly was able to find the location of this birthplace, Krottoschin. It is now Krotoszyny, Biskupiec, Warminsko-Mazurskie, Poland. What I couldn’t find were any church records for this location. Civil records were available at the other site, but those didn’t start until 1874. Frank was born in 1858. FamilySearch has always been helpful at finding records for almost any location I’ve thrown at it, no matter how small, but for some reason Krottoschin wasn’t even listed on their site. I was at a loss.

I decided to just post about my conundrum in the Polish Genealogy! Just Ask! Facebook group I belong to. Someone might know something. Well, they did and a few comments later someone told me to try records for Schwarzenau, West Prussia, Germany. I had no reason not to, so I did.

Fortunately, the records around 1858 had an index for baptisms. When I jumped in and browsed, I immediately saw a Frantz Zalewski born on his exact birth date! Jackpot!

From there I found a few more generations and I am still processing everything.