‘We Found Each Other’: MyHeritage Helped Me Reconnect with My Grandmother’s Polish Family After Decades of Silence
My grandmother — we always called her Busia — left Poland in the 1920s to start a new life in the United States. She left behind her parents, her siblings, and the family farm, but stayed in contact with her relatives in Poland for decades through letters and photos, many of which she sent with the help of my mother. That connection slowly faded after Busia passed away in the 1980s, and eventually, all contact was lost. For years, I thought the link to her side of the family was gone forever.
Becky Lemke
But I never stopped wondering about the family we had left behind in Poland.
A single name unlocked the past
Years later, as I started exploring our family history through genealogy, I asked around — but no one had names or addresses that could help me reconnect. Except for one small detail: my mother remembered the name of her uncle, Szymon Nowosadzki. I wrote it down, not knowing it would eventually be the key that unlocked the door to a whole new part of my family.
One day, while searching on MyHeritage, I came across a family tree with the name Szymon Nowosadzki. My heart skipped a beat. Could it be the same person? I reached out to the tree owner through MyHeritage, and after several message exchanges, we connected via Facebook Messenger and eventually in person. That tree was managed by the wife of one of my second cousins. It turns out, I had found my Busia’s family — and they had been looking at photos of us just as we had been looking at theirs!
From Grand Rapids to Warsaw — and back in time
When I traveled to Poland a few years ago, I finally met the family I had only just reconnected with: my second cousin Zbigniew, his wife, their son Piotr, Piotr’s wife Joanna (who had been the one messaging me), their two children, Ilona and Witold, and Zbigniew’s brother and sister-in-law, Andrzej and Joanna. We met at a Greek restaurant in Warsaw and later shared a traditional Polish meal at Zbigniew’s brother’s home. The welcome I received was heartwarming. Zbigniew greeted me with a kiss on both cheeks, exactly like my Busia used to. It was an emotional moment that made me feel like a little girl again.
Meeting cousins in Warsaw. My second cousin Andrzej and his wife Joanna hosted us at their apartment.
Joanna and Piotr even let us stay in their daughter’s apartment while we were in Warsaw. They also shared incredible gifts: old family photos and stories that helped me finally identify people in mystery photographs I had inherited. One of the photos — a boy on a farm — turned out to be either Zbigniew or his younger brother. They looked so alike at that age that even the family couldn’t say for sure.
A missing letter
Through our conversations, I also learned a heartbreaking detail: my Busia’s brother, Szymon, had died in a car accident in the late 1970s. The family in Poland had written to inform her, but she never received the letter. She had recently been moved to a senior home from the only other home she’d live in in the U.S. That lost letter marked the last attempt at communication, and the family had no idea what became of her.
The reconnection made through MyHeritage brought peace to both sides of the family. I now know the rest of the story: where she came from, the people she left behind, and how much they still remembered and loved her.
Full circle
My trip to Poland wasn’t my first — I had been there a few years earlier, before reconnecting with my family — but returning and walking on the land of my ancestors with people who share my blood felt like a homecoming. I saw the places from the old photos, met the people behind the names, and added dozens of new photos to our family archives.
Looking at old photos and family papers
One especially touching detail: the family in Warsaw still had the photos my mother had sent decades ago: wedding portraits, First Holy Communion photos, and everyday snapshots. They had lovingly kept them all these years.
A legacy restored
I often think about how happy my mother would have been to know that we found them — to know that her mother’s story didn’t end in silence, but came full circle through determination, memory, and technology.
To anyone wondering if it’s worth digging into the past: it is. You never know who might be waiting on the other side of a single remembered name.
Thank you, MyHeritage, for helping me find the rest of my family.
Many thanks to Becky for sharing this wonderful story with us! If you’ve also made an amazing discovery via MyHeritage, we’d love to hear about it. Please send it to us via this form or email us at stories@myheritage.com.
