Speaker: Paul Rakow

Finding records of serfs in the eastern provinces of Prussia

When I was at school we learned about serfdom as a system that faded away during the middle ages. However in eastern Europe, in the areas east of the Elbe River, there was a so-called "second serfdom," which lasted into the 19th century. If your ancestor was a farmer or peasant (Bauer) in this area, they lived under this feudal system. 

Serfs were "attached to the land." They were not free to leave. They had numerous obligations to their lord, including duties to work without pay for a certain number of days, and to give part of their crops to their master.   

Estate records kept lists of the serfs and the duties they owed. If these records still exist for your ancestor's village you should be able to find interesting facts about their life, telling you details you won't find in church books.

In Prussia serfdom formally ended in 1810. "From St Martin's day 1810 there will only be free people." In reality it took several decades to make the transition. Abolishing the various feudal obligations generated a lot of paperwork, giving another place to look for your relatives.

I will talk about where to look for estate records, both online and in archives. I will give examples of the sort of records I have found for my own family. 

I grew up in England and Scotland, studied physics at Cambridge University, and worked in Germany for 14 years. (I was in Berlin when the Wall fell). In 2002 I returned to England, to teach at the University of Liverpool. I semi-retired in 2025.

I have been researching my family's genealogy since the mid 1980s. My father's family were from the east of Pomerania (now in Poland). My mother's family were from Volhynia, and before that from the Prussian and Russian partitions of Poland.

Speaker: Jessica Aldrich Strassman

The Photograph That Connected Us: Genealogy and the Search for Family Story

This presentation shares my personal journey into genealogy and the unexpected connections that unfolded through SGGEE. 

It began with one old family photograph posted online and a message from a genealogist helping a family in Berlin search for American relatives. That single connection led me to relatives I did not know existed, family reunions in Germany, archival research in Poland, and a much deeper understanding of my family’s displacement from Lipno, Poland, at the close of World War II.

Along the way, genealogy became much more than a search for names and records. It became a source of meaning, belonging, community, and connection. It also became a shared journey with my father, giving us a way to search, remember, and make meaning of our family story together.

What began as a personal search ultimately inspired my doctoral research, oral history project, and publications and presentations throughout the United States and internationally on how family stories are discovered, remembered, and carried forward.

This presentation reflects on the powerful role genealogy — and organizations such as SGGEE — can play in helping us uncover hidden histories, build community, and better understand the stories that shape our lives.

Jessica Aldrich Strassman, DSW, LCSW, is a social worker, researcher, and Assistant Professor of Social Work at Samuel Merritt University in Oakland, California. Her research focuses on displacement, intergenerational storytelling, and the ways individuals and communities make meaning of complex historical experiences.

 

Speaker: Joseph B. Everett

 Q&A on Resources for German Research in Congress Poland and Western Ukraine

View the recording.

This session will be a question and answer follow-up to the March 2026 presentation on the same subject. Attendees are invited to watch or re-watch the presentation and come prepared with questions about resources for searching your German ancestors in Russia-Poland, Eastern Galicia, and Volhynia, including online records, research tools, reference aids, and genealogical society resources.

 Joseph B. Everett is the Senior Librarian for Family History, Local History, and Microforms at the Brigham Young University Harold B. Lee Library. He has over 30 years combined experience at BYU, the FamilySearch Library, and Ancestry.com. 

He teaches courses in Russian paleography and research in the former Russian Empire/USSR.  His past work includes cataloging Eastern European records, content acquisitions and content product, genealogical databases online, including the Hamburg Passenger Lists. Joe earned a degree in Russian Language and in Family History/Genealogy (with a Germanic emphasis) from Brigham Young University.

An Accredited Genealogist in German and Russian Empire research, he has lectured and published articles on family history research, historical geography, and migration.