Indiana records digitizing, soon available

I saw this post on "Dear Myrtle" this week. (Oct 23rd)

 http://www.indystar.com/story/news/2014/10/23/indiana-partners-ancestrycom-digitize-records/17778547/

Here's the first paragraph on that page:  "The Indiana Commission on Public Records has approved a contract with Ancestry.com to digitize more than 13 million birth certificates, death certificates, and marriage records, Gov. Mike Pence announced Thursday."

A large number of people started moving from Chicago (About WWII time period) to Indiana, to places like Gary, and LaPorte Indiana. The family of Jozef Sanetra and Rozalia Mrozek moved from Chicago to LaPorte, Indiana. Kazimierz Bazarnik and his wife Matilda Malinowski lived in Chicago, married in Gary, got their citizenship in Chicago then later moved to Gary, Indiana, I believe spending the rest of their lives there. Kazimeirz was the nephew of Alfreda Mazurkiewicz who was the second marriage of Adam Sanetra. Alfreda, Kazimierz and his mother Anna immigrated together. .

This is great news for those looking to do more research about their ancestors!

Inquiries to the Red Cross, after WWII

I discovered an amazing collection of records at the Holocaust museum. Joseph Sanetra wrote to the Red Cross to find our family, and they found us in about 1961. Thousands of people wrote letters like his stating when they last saw their family member, info that could help identify a relative (like a birth date) and sometimes sent in a picture.

I was told that just after the war, the Red Cross gave the letter inquiry info to the Army, and the US Army and British Army did the searching. Stalin made mail inquiries, (such as this) stop in areas he controlled, which affected mail inquiries in other areas as well. Then after his death in 1953, mail inquiries searching for family started getting easier.

I was told the inquiries late 1950's and in 1960's, those records would be held by the Polish Red Cross. (Since the inquiries I'm looking for are Polish). The searches just after the war, investigated by British and US Army are in a database now. And the Holocaust Museum has access to this database. They looked up a few names for me during my visit, and I took home a copy of one case.