Welcome Home’s 2025 Lecture Series
Non-Vital Records - New Sources
Speaker Biographies
Dr. Andrzej Marek Nowik
Dr. Andrzej Marek Nowik was born in Warsaw. He is an academic teacher, doctor of humanities in philosophy. In 1997-2001 he participated in the work of the Ministry of National Education on the reform of the education system; in 1999 he received the first-degree award of the Ministry of National Education. In 2001-2013 he served as the assistant professor at the Institute of Philosophy of the Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński University in Warsaw, has been a member of the Archikonfraternia Literacka since 1997, and collaborates with the T. Manteuffel Institute of History of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw. Dr. Nowik is a founding member of the Polish Genealogical Society and served as its vice-president in 2009-2012 and 2015-2018. He is currently conducting research in the field of history of philosophy and methodology of history, regional history and genealogy.
Dorian Olszewski
Dorian was in Ostrołęka and currently residing in Warsaw. He graduated from the University of Warsaw with a master’s degree in Library and Information Science in 2019. His genealogical research focuses primarily on the Kurpie region (northeastern Mazovia). In 2021, together with Waldemar Chorążewicz, he launched a dedicated search engine for this area, known as ProjektKurpie. In his free time, he travels to various archives to gather additional sources for indexing.
Ewa Majdecka
Ewa Majdecka has a PhD in sociology. Ms. Majdecka is a researcher and the manager of the Digital Tools Development Department at the Center of Community Archives. The Archive developed and maintains an open archiving system, which includes the Community Collections Portal.
Iwona Dąbrowska
Iwona is the Senior Archival Curator at the Information Centre on Victims of World War II at the Institute of National Remembrance (IPN) Archive in Warsaw where she conducts queries concerning Soviet and German repressions in the years 1939-1945. She was responsible for preparing many workshops, exhibitions and projects for commemorating the victims of World War II, including: “Stolen Memory” (Arolsen Archives), straty.pl, and “Uncommemorated burial places of Polish citizens who died and were murdered in Soviet Russia in the years 1939-1945.” She has also served as the coordinator of the Index of the Repressed database, documenting the fate of Polish citizens repressed by the USSR.
Maria Rągowska
Majka Ragowska was born in Wrocław and has been interested in the history of the Wrodłąw for many years. She is a graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Wrocław and a member of the Silesian Genealogical Society, serving as its CEO since 2015. In 2014, Ms. Ragowska, helped with some friend, began scanning the collection of the State Repatriation Authority, in cooperation with the State Archive. In 2016, she was awarded a badge of “Merit for Archival Science”. Currently, she is the editor-in-chief of the annual “Parantele”, published by the SGC.
Mateusz Rujner
Mateusz Rujner comes from a small village of Biały Bór in the Kuyavian–Pomeranian Voivodeship. Around ten years ago, Rujner embraced the Slavic Native Faith and worship of Slavic gods. His other interest include the history of the early Middle Ages, the culture of the Polish countryside and Polish folk music. I’m a member of the Polish Association of Rodnovers “Ród” and works as a professional masseuse.
Monika Florek-Mostowska
Monika is a publicist and theologian. Popularization of science is her passion. For many years she worked in the “Science and Health” section of the weekly “Wprost”. Her publications appear, among others, in “Tygodnik Powszechny”, weeklies: “Idziemy”, ‘Do rzeczy’ and in the pages of the daily newspaper ‘Rzeczpospolita’. Within the framework of scientific cooperation with the Pontifical Faculty of Theology “Bobolanum”, she deals with the analysis of bioethical issues and their social transmission within the framework of Catholic Social Teaching. She translates her knowledge of man and the Universe, considered in the light of the latest scientific research, into philanthropic activities. She is vice president of the Pallottine Missionary Foundation Salvatti.pl, and organizes educational and medical aid to African countries, trying to introduce new scientific and technological achievements there.
Tadeusz H. Pilat
Tadeusz H. Pilat, known as “Teddy” to his American friends, holds a Master of Library and Information Science from the University of Marie Curie-Sklodowska, Lublin, Poland. At the University, he studied “supralibros” -the coat of arms applied to the book covers to identify the book owner. He has extensive knowledge of family coat-of-arms.
In 2003, Mr. Pilat became an Accredited Genealogist specializing in Polish research. In addition to Polish, Mr. Pilat does research in German, Russian and Latin records. He is a frequent visitor to the United States to speak at genealogy conferences. For his clients that chose to visit Poland, he will accompany them to look for living family and provides translation services. He is currently working on both a Lemko extraction project and a Silesian database. He is an active member of the Polish Genealogical Society of Texas.
In addition to his genealogy work, Mr. Pilat performs heir tracing for lawyers both inside and outside of Poland.
Contact information for Tadeusz Pilat:
thpilat@gmail.com