The Remembrance Museum of the Land of Oświęcim Residents invites you to a “Meeting with History” dedicated to exploring family ties in practice. The first session will take place on Thursday, February 20 at 5:30 p.m. It will be led by certified genealogist Agnieszka Kuś. Admission is free.
Stories about our ancestors often appear during birthdays, name days or anniversaries. We browse through albums and realize how little we can say about people in the old photographs we look at: our great-grandmothers and great-grandfathers, their mothers, fathers, sisters and brothers.
The most important question – how to start?
Searching our for family roots and history is becoming increasingly popular. This is largely because of the access to the Internet. More and more scanned pages of parish registers are being uploaded online, and various databases in different institutions are continuously updated, such as the International Center on Nazi Persecution (Arolsen Archive) or the Polish Institute of National Remembrance.
Once we decide to seriously start looking for family connections we will face a basic question: how to start?
Genealogist Agnieszka Kuś will answer this and many other questions on February 20.
The hardest part is to get some information from people who are still alive
Agnieszka Kuś was born Oświęcim and still lives there. She has been involved in genealogy for about 7 years. She is a graduate of the postgraduate studies “Genealogy in Theory and Practice” at the Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński University in Warsaw (year 2022/2023). In her search for the ancestors, based on the discovered records, she managed to go back to the 17th century and through chronicle entries, she has even found ancestors dating back to the…. 15th century.
„The most challenging part of genealogical research is obtaining information from living people, who often either no longer remember the past or, for reasons known only to them, choose not to speak about it,” emphasizes the specialist.
There will be a Prize Contest
– Every family has its own history, its own secret – this history is a tale about the people who made us who we are, who manifest themselves in our lives through our personality traits, behaviors, emotions, passions, talents, and even our appearance. It is fascinating to discover a passion within yourself and years later learn that your ancestor was engaged in exactly the same thing. Perhaps someone in your family once played chess with Albert Einstein?” Agnieszka Kuś intriguingly asks.
After the meeting, the organizers have planned a knowledge competition with exciting prizes for the participants. One of them will be a private consultation dedicated to building a family tree with the speaker herself.
MEETING WITH HISTORY
“Genealogy: Exploring Family Bonds in Practice”
February 20, 2025 (Thursday) at 5:30 PM
The Remembrance Museum of Land of Oświęcim Residents.
Maksymiliana Kolbego 2A in Oświęcim
www.muzeumpamieci.pl
FREE ADMISSION
At the same time, the museum invites you to a second genealogy-focused meeting. During this session, participants will learn about practical examples of searching for family ties presented by local history enthusiasts. A key aspect of their stories will be the role of local residents whose relatives helped prisoners of KL Auschwitz. March 20, 2025 (Thursday) at 5:30pm. Free admission.
