This response will provide a procedure for anyone who wants to know what
records over 100 years old for your town HAVE NOT been indexed by JRI-Poland
and where they can be found.

Step 1: Go to the JRI-Poland website at www.jri-poland.org and click on
"your town." Find your town and look at the table entitled "Source of
Records: Online Database" to find out what records are available and their
indexing status. If you are not sure, email the Town Leader or Archive
Coordinator listed on this webpage.

Step 2: Check the Polish State Archive Pradziad database (the inventory for
the parish and civil vital records) at
http://baza.archiwa.gov.pl/sezam/pradziad.php?l=en. Entering Zgierz results
in:
Zgierz mojzeszowe alegata 1830-1831, 1838-1844, 1846-1877, 1880-1894,
1897-1899
Zgierz mojzeszowe malzenstwa 1826-1896
Zgierz mojzeszowe urodzenia 1826-1895
Zgierz mojzeszowe zgony 1826-1895

where mojzeszowe = Jewish, alegata = marriage banns, malzenstwa = marriage,
urodzenia = birth, and zgony = death.

This shows you what records and years are held by the Polish State Archives
and, when compared to the list on the JRI-Poland website, will tell you what
records at the Archive have not been indexed by JRI-Poland.

The database search engine appears to handle searches using just the 26
letter keyboard without the special Polish letters.

Step 3: Any Jewish vital records later than the dates in Pradziad that
survive will be found at the local Urzad Stanu Cywilnego (USC), the local
civil records office. To correspond with any civil record office in Poland,
you should write in Polish. To find contact information, just search
("Google") "Your town name" urzad stanu cywilnego. In this case, searching
Zgierz urzad stanu cywilnego results in finding
http://cms.miasto.zgierz.pl/index.php?page=urzad-stanu-cywilnego&;hl=pol
which shows the address, phone number, and email address of the Zgierz USC
office.

These USC offices are not archives. Their holdings are protected >from public
use by privacy law. Usually, you can acquire an official extract of a record
if you can provide enough information for them to find it (year of death,
name of subject. names of parents, etc.). However, this extract does not
provide all the information on the record. Usually these official extracts
are delivered through the nearest Polish Consulate. You may want to first
contact your nearest Polish Consulate to inquire. However, it never hurts to
write to the USC office in Polish explaining that you want a full copy of
the original records and explain why you want the copy. If they find the
record, they may not provide a full copy, but they will prepare the official
extract. The charge to get the copy is about $35 US.

One other alternative is to hire a researcher in Poland to visit the USC
office. With your Power of Attorney, he or she can obtain official extracts.
And, this personal visit could help find out more information about your
family in that town.

Mark Halpern
AGAD and Bialystok Archive Coordinator