Polish birth records online for free: where to find them
Many Polish parish and civil registers from before the 1920s have been scanned and are free to view. They are spread over several websites, each run by a different body and each covering different places. Below are the sites we use in our own work, what each one holds and how to start.
We checked the details of each website on 23 October 2026. The record counts the sites show change every day.
1. Which years can be online at all
A Polish register office keeps birth records for 100 years and marriage and death records for 80 years, counted from the end of the year in which the record was made. Within two years after that it hands the books to the state archive. This is article 28 of the Civil Status Records Act of 2014. A birth or marriage record of a person who is still alive stays at the office until the death is registered.
In 2026 a birth register can therefore be in an archive only if it closed in 1925 or earlier. A marriage or death register can be there only if it closed in 1945 or earlier. Scanning comes later still, so many books from the 1920s are not online yet. For younger records you write to a register office.
Registers from the former eastern lands of Poland are a separate case. AGAD, the Central Archives of Historical Records in Warsaw, holds almost 8,500 older register books, nearly all from today's Ukraine. Others are in archives in Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania, for example the Lithuanian State Historical Archives in Vilnius. Younger books are kept by the Warsaw register office and pass to AGAD when their time is up.
- Up to 1925Births: in a state archive or still with the parish. Many of these books are scanned and free online.
- Up to 1945Marriages and deaths: in a state archive or still with the parish.
- 1926 and laterBirths at a register office (USC). Marriages and deaths from 1946. You order a copy, called an odpis.
- Every yearThe line moves one year forward as more books pass to the archives.
2. Find out which partition the village was in
From 1795 to 1918 Poland was divided between Russia, Prussia and Austria. The records look different in each part. They are also kept in different places.
A US census that gives the birthplace as Russia means the Russian Empire, which also covered today's Lithuania, Belarus and Ukraine. Poland (Russ.) or Russian Poland points to central Poland, with Warsaw, Łódź and Lublin.
- 1784Galicia: parishes must keep their registers in columns, in Latin
- 1808Duchy of Warsaw: civil registers, usually kept by the parish priest
- 1826Kingdom of Poland: civil-religious registers that open with “Działo się”
- 1868Kingdom of Poland: registers switch to Russian, in some parishes later
- 1874Prussian lands: civil register offices (Standesamt) on German forms
- 1915 to 1918Central Poland: registers return to Polish, at different dates in different parishes
- Russian partition (the Kingdom of Poland): from 1808 civil registers were kept, usually by the parish priest acting as civil registrar. From 1826 each parish kept civil-religious registers, written in Polish as a short report that opens with “Działo się” (It happened in...). From 1868, in some parishes a little later, they are in Russian, often with two dates, one by the old Russian calendar and one by ours.
- Prussian partition (Poznań, Pomerania, Silesia): from 1 October 1874 every birth, marriage and death went to a civil register office, the Standesamt, on printed German forms. The parish books continued alongside them.
- Austrian partition (Galicia, with Kraków, Rzeszów, Przemyśl and Lwów): the parish books counted as civil records. They are kept in Latin, in columns, with Polish appearing alongside Latin later.
3. Szukaj w Archiwach: the scans of the Polish State Archives
Szukaj w Archiwach (szukajwarchiwach.gov.pl) is run by the National Digital Archives for the Polish State Archives. On 23 October 2026 it showed 122 institutions and 89 million scans and other items. It is free and you do not need an account. The site has English, Polish, Russian and German versions.
The site lists register books, not people. You search for the place, open the set of records (called a fonds) and page through the scans. The list of vital records shows the number of scans for each set. Many sets still show 0.
Type the name of the parish town with Polish letters (ł, ż, ó and the rest). The site sits behind a security check, so if it does not load, try another browser.
4. Geneteka: an index of names
Geneteka (geneteka.genealodzy.pl) is run by the Polish Genealogical Society. Volunteers copy names from the registers into it. On 23 October 2026 it held 68,451,397 entries from 6,294 parishes, from all of Poland and from parts of Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania. It has an English version.
Geneteka gives the year, the record number and the parish, not the image. With those three you can find the page in the scans quickly. The search has two useful options: search in parishes within 15 km and search for a husband and wife together.
5. Metryki: scans from the Polish Genealogical Society
Metryki (metryki.genealodzy.pl) is the society's own library of register scans, 14,202,508 images on 23 October 2026. You browse it by voivodeship, then by county and parish.
6. FamilySearch: a free account and some locked films
FamilySearch holds microfilms of many Polish registers. To see the records you need a free account (since 13 December 2017). Search the catalogue by place, then open the films for your parish.
Look at the camera icon next to each film. A plain camera means you can view it at home. A camera with a warning sign means the film has restrictions. Some films open only at a FamilySearch center or an affiliate library.
7. Regional sites
Some regions have their own indexes, kept by local societies. They are often more complete for their area than Geneteka.
- BaSIA (basia.famula.pl) for Greater Poland and the Poznań area: 6,761,761 records with links to the scans, free, in English, Polish, German and French.
- PomGenBaza (ptg.gda.pl) of the Pomeranian Genealogical Society for Pomerania and Kashubia: 6,765,292 entries.
- Lubgens (lubgens.eu) for the Lublin region: an index of parishes of several faiths, in Polish only.
- AGAD (agad.gov.pl) for Eastern Galicia and Volhynia, now in Ukraine: about 8,500 register books, mainly from the former Lwów, Stanisławów, Tarnopol and Wołyń voivodeships, with scans on its own site and on Szukaj w Archiwach.
- epaveldas (epaveldas.lt) for Lithuania: church registers from the Lithuanian State Historical Archives among more than 710,000 items.
8. Where people get stuck
In questions on genealogy forums the same problems come back again and again. These are the most common, with what usually helps.
- The record is in Russian. From 1868 most registers in central Poland are in handwritten Russian. Names are usually still readable once you know the Cyrillic letters. The record number stands in the margin in ordinary digits.
- Nobody knows the parish. A village and its church were often in different places. Search the village name in Geneteka with the 15 km option, then check the parishes it shows.
- The surname looks different. Search without Polish letters, with one letter changed and in the female form (Kowalska for Kowalski). Look at the parents' names to be sure it is the same family.
- The index has the name but no scan. The book may be scanned on another site. Sometimes it exists only on a FamilySearch film. Check Szukaj w Archiwach, Metryki and the FamilySearch catalogue before you give up.
9. Registers and records in our own catalogue
Our own catalogue holds 150,714 scans of registers and other records in 521 units, most of them from the Lithuanian State Historical Archives in Vilnius and from FamilySearch films. They cover parishes around Vilnius and Švenčionys, the Dobrzyń land near Rypin in the Russian partition and Kashubia in Pomerania. For other regions, Galicia included, we work from the archives' own scans.
Polish words you will see in the catalogues
- akta stanu cywilnego
- civil status records, the name of most register sets
- urodzenia, małżeństwa, zgony
- births, marriages, deaths
- parafia rzymskokatolicka
- Roman Catholic parish
- księga
- register book
- zespół
- fonds, a set of records from one parish or office
- sygnatura
- reference number of a book
- skan
- scan
- Urząd Stanu Cywilnego (USC)
- register office
Stuck on one record?
Send us the name, the village as your family remembers it and the years. The first assessment is free. If the record is in a scanned register, we find it and send a clipping from the scan, the text in the original language, an English translation and the archive reference.