There are roughly 20 million people of Polish ancestry living outside Poland, making the Polish diaspora one of the largest in the world. Reasons for this displacement vary from border shifts, to forced resettlement, to political or economic emigration.A large proportion of the Polish citizens who migrated in the early 20th century were Polish Jews, and these also make up part of the Jewish diaspora. Poland was home to the world’s largest Jewish population as late as 1938, a decade before the establishment of Israel. Most survivors subsequently emigrated, since Poland was the only Eastern Bloc country to allow free Jewish aliyah to Israel upon its creation.
In the United States alone there are around 11 million Americans of Polish descent. Chicago bills itself as the largest Polish city outside the Polish capital of Warsaw. Buffalo, New York is seen as American Polonia’s second city, as it is also home to many Polish-Americans. Jobs in steel mills and automobile factories provided unskilled blue collar jobs for many Polish peasant immigrants in the early 20th century. Today there are approximately 300,000 Polish speakers in the Chicago Metropolitan Area. Chicago’s Polish presence is felt in the large number of Polish-American organizations located here beginning with the Polish Museum of America, the Polish American Association, the Polish National Alliance, the Polish Highlander’s Alliance of North America and many many more. New York, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Detroit, Milwaukee, Baltimore also have very large Polish populations. Older Polish Americans are rapidly migrating to the Southeast (Florida), Southwest (Arizona) and the West Coast (California).
There is however a large group of Americans, in whose veins flows the blood of their Polish Ancestors, they still carry Polish last names but no longer speak Polish. We decided to help them find their Polish roots, carry out a search for their family and most importantly take them to the places that their ancestors had left many years before. www.ancestrytravels.com is an initiative designed to stimulate the taste for Polish Ancestry in the midst of today’s Americans of Polish descent. We search the archives, parish registers, databases and population censuses in order to most accurately find the exact Polish origin of the people living in America today. We also have access to the databases available in the USA and Canada to trace the paths of the immigrants after they crossed the Atlantic. Once our research is completed we take our clients to Poland for a tailor made trips to the exact places where their ancestors came from. We find their family members tombs, churches where their ancestors were given the sacraments. We are even able to find the originals of documents, such as baptisms and marriages certificates, which are often more than 100 years old.
Our aim is to create a passion for Polish Americans, to promote Polish culture and the national consciousness. Thanks to us, the memories, which previously lived only in the hearts of Polish Americans become a real, living experience!