Join Sussex County Genealogical Society (SCGS) in-person at the library or online for a presentation by Julie Roberts Szcepankiewicz.

Finding vital records for one's family in Poland is a critical step in exploring Polish ancestry but can sometimes be confusing. After a brief overview of the Polish partitions to introduce beginners to the history and geography of Poland, Julie will illustrate the use of church records, passenger manifests, naturalization records, and other documents from U.S. sources, to determine one's ancestral village accurately. She’ll suggest resources and strategies to help you decipher misspelled place names and discuss the next steps in your research: determining the parish and civil registry office using gazetteers, and obtaining birth, marriage and death records. Julie will rely heavily on online sources throughout her presentation and show how you can trace your Polish ancestry without having to cross the ocean.

Julie Roberts Szczepankiewicz is a genealogist, writer, and speaker with nearly 30 years of experience in researching her family's origins in Poland, Germany, the U.S. and Canada. She holds a bachelor's degree in biological sciences from the State University of New York in Buffalo and a master's degree in endocrinology from the University of California, Berkeley. She currently volunteers as administrator to several genealogy-related Facebook groups, and serves as President of the Polish Genealogical Society of New York State, Vice-President for the New England Regional Genealogical Consortium, Inc., and previously was the Secretary for the Polish Genealogical Society of Massachusetts. Her articles have been published in the journals of the Polish Genealogical Society of America, the Polish Genealogical Society of Massachusetts, and the Western New York Genealogical Society, and she is the author of a genealogy blog, From Shepherds and Shoemakers.

SCGS is a non-profit organization and its mission is to promote genealogy and educational work in a professional manner, encourage and instruct its members in genealogical research through careful documentation and maintain quality genealogical standards.

NOTE: this session is available to attend in-person or through Zoom. Request a Zoom invitation link by sending an email to programs@scgsdelaware.org.

If you have need assistance with registration or getting your Zoom invitation, please email SCGS. Basic written instructions for using Zoom may be found here and a brief video tutorial may be found here.

For more information, visit the SCGS website. This program is co-sponsored by the Lewes Public Library.