TY - JOUR
TI - The Role and Importance of Family Archives in Research. A Few Pages From the Archive of the Kotkowski Family...
AU - Majkowska, Rita
TI - The Role and Importance of Family Archives in Research. A Few Pages From the Archive of the Kotkowski Family...
AB - 
	On the basis of a few selected groups of materials (correspondence, texts of memoirs, albums with photographs, documents and personal writings) from the family archive, the author shows how much information taken from it can be used for various kinds of historical research. The paper is an encouragement to draw the attention of an ordinary citizen to the necessity of preserving family souvenirs, particularly archive materials. This is particularly important in the period when, due to its speed, technical revolution makes it possible to record information in new forms while causing a limited possibility of preserving documentation, e.g., correspondence. The paper serves as a response to the “Become a Family Archivist” workshop – a campaign that has recently been promoted by the National Management of State Archives. The history of the branch of the Kotkowski family from Dzierzkowice, which is related and affined to many families (Zaborowski, Loegler, Lelek, Lubich, Szaniawski, Iłłakowicz, Gombrowicz, Zopoth, Rössner, Strzałkowski, Herman and other families), shows that, in spite of the occasional incompleteness of preserved archive materials, we can find there many research topics opening areas for further queries, but we can also be enchanted by the beauty of family souvenirs. The author also draws our attention to the possibility of handing archive materials over to public collections (archives, libraries). The paper reminds researchers of the importance of heritages (personal archives) of not only important persons, but also of those waiting to notice them. The latter include also persons presented in the paper from two generations of families living in the second half of the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century. The paper described the fates of Józef Kotkowski (1843–1914), a participant of the January Uprising and an engineer in Buchach, Stryi and Lviv; Mieczysław Kotkowski (1881–1946), a judge in Sanok, Dobromil and Przemyśl, or distinguished officers of the First World War: August, Artur and Erwin Rössner.
VL - 2019
IS - LXIV (2019)
PY - 2019
SN - 1642-2503
C1 - 2544-0500
SP - 257
EP - 275
DO - 10.4467/25440500RBN.19.013.14156
UR - https://ejournals.eu/en/journal/rbn-pau-pan/article/rola-i-znaczenie-i-archiwow-rodzinnych-w-badaniach-naukowych-kilka-kart-z-archiwum-rodzinnego-kotkowskich
KW - family archive
KW - archival heritage
KW - the Kotkowski family
KW - the Rössner family
KW - insurgents
KW - soldiers