The Wandering Borders of Europe -

Ralph Bloch will try to explain the changing political geography of Europe over the past 300 years that confuses today’s genealogists. Maybe, your grandfather, born in 1914 had an Austrian birth certificate written in German. His marriage certificate (1938) was issued by the Polish Republic in Polish, and his first daughter has a birth certificate issued by the Ukrainian Soviet Republic in Cyrillic script. Yet, he had never lived outside of the ghetto of Lemberg/Lwow/Львів. Does that make sense? Yes! Although your grandfather never moved, the political borders of Europe did.