Słowniki biograficzne – źródła z XIX i XX wieku w Archiwum Narodowym w Krakowie

Biographical dictionaries may seem outdated, yet they remain indispensable sources of reliable knowledge that can verify the results of Internet search engines. The resources of the State Archives, including the National Archives in Krakow, enable the retrieval and verification of information found in biographical entries. The primary sources are civil status records (parish records of baptism, marriages, and deaths), supplemented by documentation kept by the Health Office of the City of Krakow. Useful for establishing connections to Krakow are the city’s population censuses (1847–1921, conducted every 10 years) and those of Podgórze (1857–1910, which became part of Krakow in 1915), as well as printed lists of officials and Krakow’s address books. Additional helpful resources include the incomplete documentation related to the population register during the interwar period, court inheritance and guardianship records, records from secondary schools, and personnel files of employees of offices, institutions, and companies which employed individuals with higher education. An unexpected source of information on the beginnings of scientific activity in Galicia may be the estate archives, which contain, among other things, memoirs and translations from foreign languages.