Regarding researching of your ancestral Polish roots, you may like to do a search on the Internet by typing "resources for exploring polish ancestral roots" into Google or other search engines. One of the sites that came up is this one "pgsa.org" which may get you started.

I have found that younger Polish speak English but that older ones do not but hopefully your labors will provide what you are looking for.

As an example say your search is to begin in the province of Podkarpackie and a place called Nawsie Kołaczyckie (a village in the administrative district of Gmina Kołaczyce, within Jasło County, Subcarpathian Voivodeship, in south-eastern Poland. It lies approximately 3 kilometers, 2 miles, south-east of Kołaczyce, 6 km, 4 miles, north of Jasło, and 47 km 29 miles, south-west of the regional capital Rzeszów), is very easy to get to from the UK with many flights from here to Krakow or Rzeszów. Lots of small buses travel to the outlaying towns and villages from Krakow and Rzeszów. I use a site "en.e-podroznik.pl" to find them. They travel from all different places in the cities so you will need to locate where they start and where they drop off. Sometimes a driver will help but as with every place this is not guaranteed. This is where a good mobile phone is useful. According to en.e-podroznik.pl it takes about 3 hours by bus from Krakow or about 2 hours from Rzeszów.

The city of Krakow is a great place to visit but getting ever more popular and losing a little of it's Polishness. Sadly, many European cities are going the same way and becoming very similar to each other with what I call junk bars, night clubs and rip off places. Finding original places to sleep and eat gets more and more difficult. To explore the real Poland you need to travel to smaller less known towns of which there are many.

Good luck with your search and if you would like to write an article for David's Travel Guides on your search I would be happy to include it for the benefit of others.