Case study - Elli

Elli is a 38 year-old, part-time accountant and full-time mother to a gorgeous 9 year-old son. Since becoming a mum, she has grown passionate about finding her family's origins and passing this information down to her descendants. Of particular interest to Elli was her family's medical history, since her son was diagnosed with a hereditary disorder.

Before contacting Polaron, Elli tried to collect information about the Polish side of her family herself. She was able to tell us that both her grandparents died shortly after arriving in Australia and that her mother was adopted. Apart from this, very few details were available. Elli had a feeling that some family members were still alive in Poland, but she did not know where or what their names were.

"I've always been aware of my Polish origins but it was a topic that my mother tended to avoid at all costs. She'd been adopted as a child after her parents died. She was only 11 years old and had a brother who was 3 years younger. I've tried talking to her about it but we never seemed to get anywhere and sometimes ended up fighting! I suspected that there must have been some sort of traumatic childhood event that she was not prepared to talk about. I felt that not knowing affected everybody's lives because mum would go in and out of these depressive - withdrawal states and we could never understand why. I just wanted to get some answers for the sake of our family."

"Despite my mum's reluctance, I did manage to get some old letters and photos from her. But no matter how much I tried, I couldn't make sense of them because the letters were written in a foreign language and the photos were full of strangers. I was stuck. I carried the little pile of documents around in my handbag for a few months. From time to time I would take them out and imagine who these people were and what their letters said. Soon, it felt like they were burning a hole in my bag: I was sure the letters were full of answers and I just didn't know how to read them. Finally, I decided to get the letters and inscriptions on the back of the photos translated in the hope of getting some clues. I contacted a few companies for help, but I was quite disappointed at their lack of interest and compassion. It seemed that nobody had the time to talk to me and really comprehend what I wanted. It wasn't until my good friend David referred me to Polaron that I finally felt that I was being listened to and understood. Not only did Eva translate my letters and writing on the back of my photos, she was also able to provide me with historical context, meaning and conclusions that enabled us to proceed further."

I was beginning to get very excited about all of this because now I had a list of family members' names, towns and significant dates to work with. The answers, for which I naively was hoping for, weren't there, though. The letters were addressed to my grandparents and were signed Julka and Franek, they talked about some people called Gienek, Jerzyk and Arek who migrated to America and that they were doing well. There was a mention of their wives and children, the fact that they'd settled in New York and Lucyna. They had survived the war and were living in Lodz. The authors and the recipients of the letters knew who they were talking about but I still didn't! As exciting as it was, all we had was a very patchy picture and I knew this was only a start of a long, somewhat unpredictable process. It was then that Eva put together a detailed plan of action for me. She called it an initial family research package. It clearly outlined the price, timeframe and what I could expect. As part of this plan, I was told to do some homework, that is, to go back to my family and get as much information from them as possible. Polaron briefed me on how to handle any family resistance and we also discussed strategies on how I could tackle family dynamics involved.

"I decided to talk to my uncle who, after much discussion on what I was doing and why, became very supportive.I showed him all the documents that I had so far and we spoke for hours about what he remembered from his childhood, of his parents and his sister, my mother. His memories were quite fragmented: he was only 8 when their parents died. Apparently, he went to live with an elderly aunt, whereas my mother was taken to an orphanage. They were eventually reunited and adopted by the same family when he was about 10. I passed all this onto to Polaron, who by mid November 2004 managed to confirm the correct spelling of my grandparents' names. By then, I moved onto their advanced research package. Once again, this allowed me to set a budget on how much and when I had to pay for Polaron's services and Eva was very clear on what I would be getting in return. Within a month, I received the documents, and to my amazement discovered that my grandfather's name was not Leon, but in fact Lejb. My grandmother's name, which I always believed to be Hannah, was actually Chana. My uncle Henry's birth certificate had him listed as Herszel. Their surname was eventually Anglicised. Polaron was also able to confirm that my grandparents were born in Lowicz, near Lodz, in 1912 and 1917 respectively. They did this by locating my grandparents' birth certificates at the Civil Registry Office in Lowicz. Polaron also found my grandparents' marriage certificate, which stated that they were married in Lodz in 1937. They have even provided me with a map of Lowicz, its history and photos of the city, including the street where my grandparents lived prior to leaving Poland."

"We discovered that my mother was born in February, not January. She has never seen her birth certificate, so when her 60th birthday approached, I requested for Polaron to put together a commemorative album and a CD-ROM which contained all the certificates and other family documents."

"With my uncle, my father and my sister, we organised a surprise party for my mum. I was so unbelievably nervous, I just didn't know how she was going to react. Well, she cried. We all cried. And then we laughed that she celebrated her birthday on the wrong day all her life and that she never knew she had a second name, Sara, after her grandmother. It was the first time in our life that we talked, really talked about things that mattered, about how we felt and who we were. What we had was priceless and I can't thank Eva and her staff at Polaron enough for finding my mum and her life story for me. We pieced together a very comprehensive dossier of our family, including a family tree. We are going to Poland in July: my mum, my sister and my uncle. We still don't know if there is anyone left in Poland, in fact we doubt it but we're going to Lowicz where my great-grand parents are buried. Apparently, the house they owned is still there, so we're going to visit that, too. And we're going to spend some more time in Poland, going to Lodz, Warsaw, Krakow and Gdansk. We did get in touch with the family in New York who are quite keen for us to meet. Unbelievably, they came to Melbourne, back in 1999, but didn't find us because of the change of surname. The plan is for them to join us in Poland in July but we'll see how it goes. For now, we've been corresponding over e-mail, exchanging photos and life stories. To be honest, I am a bit apprehensive about meeting them. Through this whole experience, I've learned that not everything has a happy ending so I am going to proceed with a bit of caution. They sound like lovely people and I do hope we meet them soon.

"I've applied for a Polish passport, too. Eva was able to help me with all the paperwork. It took several months but for me, it concluded a long, frustrating and rewarding journey. "