There’s a free, volunteer-built database that has indexed nearly two million 19th-century marriage records from the Poznań region of Poland — including the full names of every party to every marriage, their parents, and their witnesses. For anyone researching Polish ancestors from western Poland, it’s one of the most powerful tools available.
The Poznan Project focuses on a specific geographic area and a specific record type, but within those parameters it goes deeper than almost any other Polish genealogy database. This guide explains what it is, what it covers, how to search it effectively, and how to use it alongside other research tools for western Polish genealogy.
Table of Contents
- What Is the Poznan Project?
- What Does It Cover?
- Why Marriage Records Are So Valuable
- How to Search the Poznan Project
- Reading and Using the Results
- From Index to Original Record
- Using the Poznan Project Alongside Other Tools
- Tips for Getting the Most From the Poznan Project
- Final Thoughts
What Is the Poznan Project?
The Poznan Project (poznan-project.psnc.pl) is a volunteer indexing initiative run by the Poznań Supercomputing and Networking Center in cooperation with the Polish Genealogical Society. Its goal is to index every marriage record from 19th-century civil registration districts in the historical Poznań region — the area that was part of the Prussian partition and is now the Greater Poland (Wielkopolska) voivodeship and surrounding areas.
What makes the Poznan Project distinctive is the thoroughness of its indexing. Unlike databases that capture only the primary parties’ names, the Poznan Project indexes every named person in each marriage record: groom, bride, groom’s parents, bride’s parents, witnesses, and sometimes officiating clergy. This makes it possible to find ancestors not just as the marrying couple but as parents or witnesses in other couples’ records — a genealogical goldmine for building out entire family networks.
What Does It Cover?
The Poznan Project covers civil marriage records from approximately 1800 to 1900 for the Poznań region. The geographic coverage corresponds to the historical Prussian province of Posen (Poznań) and overlapping areas — broadly speaking, the western-central region of modern Poland including the cities of Poznań, Gniezno, Kalisz, Leszno, and their surrounding rural areas.
The index currently contains close to two million entries and is actively growing as volunteers continue transcribing records. Not every parish and civil district is fully indexed, and coverage varies — some areas are comprehensively indexed through the entire century; others have partial coverage. Check the project’s coverage map before assuming a negative search result means no records exist.
Why Marriage Records Are So Valuable
Marriage records are among the most genealogically information-dense documents in the 19th-century Polish record system. A civil marriage record from the Prussian partition typically contains: the full names and ages of both parties, their places of birth and residence, their occupations, whether previously married (and if widowed, the deceased spouse’s name), the full names of both parties’ parents (with mothers’ maiden names), the names and occupations of witnesses, and the date and place of the marriage. In a single record, you can potentially gain the names of four grandparents of the couple — two entire preceding generations.
By indexing all named parties rather than just the couple, the Poznan Project also surfaces ancestors who appear as parents or witnesses — people who may be completely absent from other searchable databases but who show up here as supporting characters in someone else’s marriage record.
How to Search the Poznan Project
Navigate to the Poznan Project website and use the search form. The interface is available in English as well as Polish. Fields include:
- Surname — the family name you’re searching. The system supports phonetic searching for German and Polish name variants.
- Given name — optional; narrows results on common surnames
- Role — you can specify whether you’re searching for someone as a groom, bride, parent, or witness. Leave as “any” for a comprehensive search.
- District — narrow to a specific registration district if you know the area. Otherwise leave blank for a regional search.
- Year range — narrow by approximate marriage year
The phonetic search option is particularly valuable for surnames that were recorded differently in German and Polish (the two languages used in Prussian partition records). A surname like Kowalski might appear in records as Kowalski, Kowalsky, or even a German phonetic rendering. The Poznan Project’s phonetic engine handles most of these variants automatically.
Reading and Using the Results
Search results appear as a table listing each matching record with: year, registration district, record number, groom’s name, bride’s name, groom’s father, groom’s mother, bride’s father, bride’s mother, and witnesses. The richness of this information — all visible in the search results without even viewing the original — is what makes the Poznan Project so powerful for building family networks quickly.
When you find a record that appears to match your ancestor (as any party — not just the couple), note the registration district and record number. These are the references you’ll need to find the original record.
Strategy tip: Search for your ancestor’s surname across all roles. Your great-great-grandfather might appear as a groom in one record, as a witness in a sibling’s marriage, and as a parent in his children’s marriages — potentially across a span of 40 years of records, building out a detailed family picture from marriage records alone.
From Index to Original Record
The Poznan Project links through to scanned images where available — typically hosted on Szukaj w Archiwach or a partner platform. When a scan link appears, clicking it takes you directly to the original register page. Our guide to Polish state archives online covers how to navigate the image viewer and download what you find.
When no scan is available, use the registration district and record number to request the original from the relevant state archive. Records from the Poznań region are primarily held at the Archiwum Państwowe w Poznaniu (Poznań State Archive), which accepts remote records requests.
Using the Poznan Project Alongside Other Tools
The Poznan Project covers marriages only — not births or deaths. For a complete family picture, combine it with other resources:
- Geneteka — indexes birth and death records from the Poznań region alongside the marriage records the Poznan Project specialises in. Use both for comprehensive coverage.
- Szukaj w Archiwach — for scanned images of birth, death, and any non-indexed marriage records in the region.
- FamilySearch’s Poland collection — strong coverage of the Poznań region, particularly for records not yet indexed by the Poznan Project.
- Archion and Matricula — for some pre-civil-registration church records from the Prussian partition that may not appear in Polish archive portals.
Tips for Getting the Most From the Poznan Project
- Search maiden names — the database indexes mothers’ maiden names, making it possible to trace through the female line
- Search witness networks — witnesses at 19th-century Polish marriages were almost always close relatives. If the same person appears as a witness in multiple family marriages, they’re almost certainly a relative — and finding all the marriages they witnessed builds out the extended family network
- Check the coverage map before concluding a negative result — if your parish isn’t yet indexed, the absence of results means nothing
- Cross-reference with Geneteka — some records appear in one database but not the other due to different indexing projects covering the same area
Final Thoughts
The Poznan Project is a remarkable resource — the product of thousands of volunteer hours and a genuine contribution to accessible Polish genealogy. Its depth of indexing (every named person, not just the couple) makes it more valuable per record than almost any other Polish database for the families it covers.
If your ancestors came from western Poland, make the Poznan Project one of your first stops. Pair it with Geneteka for birth and death records, and use our Complete Beginner’s Guide for the full research framework. Subscribe to our newsletter for weekly Polish heritage guides.
