Update on Scanned Images at the Polish  State Archives

Most of the 2.7 million images of actual records linked from JRI-Poland search results are supplied via the Internet from the Polish State Archives (PSA). These images of Polish, Russian (Cyrillic alphabet), German, Yiddish or Hebrew records generally do not have unique URL’s and are part of large sets that we meticulously label in order to provide you with a “click to view” option.

These are mostly vital records (births, marriages, deaths or divorces) but they may also be population and census lists, guild lists, Judenrat records, tax lists, cemetery and burial lists, notary records, identity cards and passports – in short, all types of documents. It is our volunteers who identify, organize and bring all this information to you in a digestible format.

At the beginning of November, the PSA detected an attack and quickly took down their website to safeguard their data. They have publicly stated that no data has been lost and that public access will be restored very soon. The most recent announcements indicate that that a stronger security application has been implemented and the reopening of access will be highly controlled and happen in stages. Last week, in-person access became available in Reading Rooms of Archives branches around Poland. As of this writing, the PSA has announced that it is possible to access their website https://szukajwarchiwach.gov.pl/ through the internet by users within Poland. If you use a VPN or a Polish internet provider, you may be able to access their system now as well.

For those of us outside of Poland, we may still have to wait a little while yet for access. Meanwhile, please bear with us. Understand that the JRI-Poland.org website is not broken and that the links are not working for requests TO the Polish State Archives website because of the careful implementation of an improved security system.

The AGAD branch of the PSA works on a separate computer system and server. To date, links to images of our Galician records housed in AGAD data have been unaffected by the PSA’s security maintenance work.