Maria Jadwiga Minakowska (born June 13, 1972) is a Polish historian, genealogist and demographer creator of the Polish genealogy database Wielka Genealogia Minakowskiej (en. Minakowska's Great Genealogy). In 2024 Minakowska announced her transition from male to female.
Minakowska was born as Marek Jerzy Minakowski in Olsztyn into the family of Jerzy Minakowski and Wiesà Âawa, née Kraszewska. After graduating in philosophy from the Jagiellonian University, in 1998 she was awarded a PhD for a dissertation titled Formal logic prior to Aristotle, also in Kraków, under professor .
In 2001, she founded the Polish genealogy website Wielka Genealogia Minakowskiej based on extant historical records and data submitted by correspondents. By 2022, the site contained details of around 1 million people with ties to Poland. Based on the historic Great Sejm of 1788-1792, by 2022 Minakowska had assembled details of over 130,000 descendants of the participants of partitioned Poland's outgoing parliament, some of whom have been scattered across the globe. Minakowska focuses on "mass genealogy" whose research results are published on line and in print editions.
In 1994, being formally a male, she married archaeologist (born 1963) and had a daughter together. MinakowskaâÂÂs second forename, Jadwiga, refers to Hedwig of Silesia, to whom she is distantly related. She anticipates an era when women, no longer as burdened by child-bearing or rearing, will assume their rightful place in society.
In 2016, in recognition of her work, she received the Decoration of Honor Meritorious for Polish Culture.