Great-grandfather supposedly came from Nowa Wieś ‘somewhere near Lviv’. Documents use another spelling, while a modern search finds several villages in different countries. Choosing the first matching name and immediately searching its registers would be a serious mistake.
The examples are illustrative. Sources checked on 16 September 2026. This article concerns Polish law and records.
Identify a place through its surroundings
List nearby towns, districts, parishes, denomination, offices, neighbouring villages or estate references. Attach the date to each clue. Two documents may use different names for the same place.
Create a locality profile with spelling variants and a source for each. ‘Near Lviv’ narrows an area but cannot identify one parish by itself. Keep that gap visible until further evidence appears.
Find the institution that created the record
AGAD’s genealogy guide emphasises identifying the place and the responsible parish or office. Denomination and historical administrative boundaries may matter. A current municipality may not match the institution’s former territory.
A locality’s appearance in AGAD’s index does not guarantee a complete run of registers. It may be mentioned in another document. Open the relevant archival description and check actual contents and dates.
Basis: [1] Relevant guidance and reasoning [2] Relevant guidance and reasoning
Use a comparison table rather than intuition
If three villages are possible, give each a row. Compare distance from the named town, the family’s denomination, institutional names and available years. A blank cell means unknown, not confirmed.
The table helps set a reasoned search order. Keep weaker hypotheses but explain why one seems stronger. When another record supplies a district, revisit every candidate.
Keep historical names in source descriptions
Preserve the historical form and add a confirmed modern equivalent separately. This makes the record retrievable in catalogues using older names. House numbers likewise need a time context before agreement or difference is interpreted.
The outcome should identify the place, explain the evidence and list appropriate collections. Only then is the surname search focused. Correct locality identification can save hours in registers belonging to an unrelated family.
What to prepare
- Exact historical place spellings from each document.
- Dates, districts, parishes or offices, and denomination.
- Candidate places with evidence for and against.
- Relevant archival units, coverage and accessibility.
Remember
First identify the place at the relevant time. Then choose registers where the surname may refer to the right person.
Sources and references
Official legislation, judgments and institutional materials. The relevant sources are identified below each section.
- AGAD — practical guide to genealogical research — opens a new windowRelevant guidance and reasoning
- AGAD — locality index for historical registers — opens a new windowRelevant guidance and reasoning