The request contained a very valuable information – the name of the place of origin of the family that emigrated to the US in early 1900’s. However, our client hit a brick wall – he could not locate that place on a map. That’s a very common challenge because of misspellings, boarder changes, etc. In such cases we usually try to reach the first documents issued in the US – the ship manifests, and spend some time to decipher names of towns and villages.
All we knew was “Grudnik” near Lwów (Lviv). We eventually found a ship manifest from 1912 listing in fact “Grudnik” as the place of origin, but “Bialogora” as the last place of residence.
![](https://genealogytour.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Socha-Eva-Franciszek-2-1024x73.jpg)
Using pre-war military maps and our databases we found a small viallage called Białagóra, located in the district of Gródek (what was close enough to Grudnik). The viallage cannot be found on current maps.
![](https://genealogytour.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/google-map.jpg)
![](https://genealogytour.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/mapka-grodek.jpg)
The next step was to locate vital records from that parish and checking if our customer’s ancestors were in fact registered there. As you may guess – they were and it made another American family really happy because the place of origin of their Polish ancestors was successfully traced.
![](https://genealogytour.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/b-1899-Franciszek-Socha_37-1-634x1024.jpg)
As a result they visited Poland & Ukraine a few months later.. See related tour