For 60 years the vast store of Holocaust documents housed in the International Tracing Service (ITS) were not available to the public. That changed in November 2007.  The first group to take advantage of the new open-door policy were 40 Jewish genealogists who visited the ITS at Bad Arolsen, Germany, in May 2008 and were given full access to vast numbers of records relating to Holocaust victims and survivors.  All of these records will ultimately be shared with the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington D.C., Yad Vashem in Jerusalem, and  the National
Institute of Remembrance (IPN) in Warsaw. Learn more about the kinds of records that exist and how they may be accessed from members of the research group that visited Bad Arolsen.

Sallyann Sack, our guest speaker, has made three trips to the ITS and organized the group that visited in May. She is the editor of Avotaynu (the leading journal for Jewish Genealogy), a past president of the International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies, author or editor of seven major reference books on Jewish genealogy, and a recognized pioneer and leader in the world of Jewish genealogy. She will be joined by JGSGB members Tom Weiss and Heidi Urich, who researched the fates of family members during their week at the ITS archive.
 

Join fellow JGSGB members at our annual research night at the National Archives and Records Administration on Trapelo Road in Waltham. There will be an orientation session for those who have not recently used the NARA facilities and resources. Learn how to look up census records, Boston passenger arrival records, Canadian border crossings, and New England WWI draft registrations and naturalizations. Help will be available for both beginners and experienced researchers.
 

Some of the most exciting resources for genealogists are the online databases and microfilms of old newspapers and journals. From the scanned and digitized New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, Washington Post, and Times of London—to regional newspapers and Jewish community journals, following this oft-neglected “paper trail” will enhance your genealogical knowledge. From obituaries, birth, engagement and marriage announcements, to curiosities such as “Yesterday’s Fires,” “news of the Courts,” and articles covering Eastern European towns and businesses, you will be astonished by the unexpected appearances immigrant ancestors make in the pages of these tabloids and broadsheets.  Learn techniques for locating people and events meaningful to you, with examples of unexpected insights gained into your relatives’ lives by exploring this under-utilized research tool.

Pamela Weisberger is the program chair for the Jewish Genealogical Society of Los Angeles, Research Coordinator for Gesher Galicia, and is active in the Hungarian and Sub-Carpathian JewishGen SIGs.  Documenting her family’s history for over twenty years, she has traveled throughout Eastern Europe visiting ancestral towns and villages and conducting research in Polish, Ukrainian and Hungarian archives. A special area of interest has been late 19th to early 20th century city directories, newspapers and court records. She has also produced the documentaries “I Remember Jewish Drohobycz” and “Genealogy Anyone? Twenty-Five Years in the Life of the JGSLA,” and coordinated the IAJGS Conference’s 2006-2008 film festivals. She holds a B.A. in English from Washington University in St. Louis and an M.S. in Broadcasting from Boston University.
 

Two experienced researchers will partner for a presentation of sources available for American research and a case study of the success in using them.
Carol Clingan will give an overview of the databases offered by Ancestry.com. She will also briefly introduce some other research sources including the Steve Morse One-Step pages.
Paul Auerbach will present a case study of how he used these sources and a chance remark by a family member to identify a previously unknown great-grandfather and, ultimately contacted an entire missing branch of his family. >

Tell A Friend About This Talk

Once home to a vibrant Jewish community, former Eastern Galicia is now part of Ukraine, where all traces of a Jewish past are being eradicated in the name of a fiercely aggressive Ukrainian nationalism. This region was once part of Poland and also part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, where multi-ethnic communities co-existed before WWII.

Omer Bartov, an international authority on genocide, traces the destruction of the region’s Jewish communities under Nazi and Soviet rule, and explores the contemporary politics of memory in Ukraine.  He is the Birkelund Distinguished Professor of European History at Brown University.  His lecture draws on his most recent book, Erased: Vanishing Traces of Jewish Galicia in Present-Day Ukraine (Princeton, 2007).

This is the 2nd Annual Genealogy Lecture jointly sponsored by JGSGB and Hebrew College.  It will take place at Hebrew College, 160 Herrick Road, Newton Center on Sunday, November 23, 2008, at 3 pm in Berenson Hall.
Admission is free and advance reservation is required due to limited capacity.  Register at www.hebrewcollege.edu or at 617-559-8733.

The lecture will be followed by an intensive course in Jewish Genealogical Research at Hebrew College on Monday evenings from February 2 to March 30, 2009, taught by experienced genealogists from the JGSGB.  For more information contact

The genealogy lectureship and course are made possible with the generous support of Harvey Krueger and the Stone Charitable Foundation.

Tell A Friend About This Talk

 

Two dramatic stories of digging into lost histories and reuniting long separated families will be featured.

Experienced society researchers Stephen Denker of Brookline and Alexander Woodle of Groton will present their stories of successful family research:

• Documenting Business History in Cuba, and
• Reuniting Family Divided by 250 Years.

In the first presentation, Stephen Denker reports on seven years of research, worldwide travel and internet chats. By tracing his American family’s manufacturing business and life in Cuba early in the twentieth century, Denker unravels their genealogical history and reconnects cousins who were apart for over seventy years. In the summer of 2007, Denker spent two weeks in Havana completing his research and visiting the family’s home and factory.

In the second presentation, Alexander Woodle reports on his research that also resulted in re-tying the genealogical thread, this time after 250 years.  Woodle’s quest started with discovering a familiar surname in Austria and Romania in a search of international telephone directories. JewishGen and Familysearch database resources provided evidence of relationship. Then Woodle contacted a family in Romania, and utilizing the latest tool of genea-technology, dispatched a DNA kit. Last May, Woodle traveled to Central Europe to visit his distant cousins.

Both presentations exhibit another important facet of genealogical research: the importance of the historical context.  Denker describes the circumstances of Jewish immigration to Cuba.  Woodle’s review of Jewish history in Central Europe yields clues to the dispersal of his family from 18th century Bohemia to Banat (now partially in Romania) in the southern reaches of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

Tell A Friend About This Talk

One of the largest genealogical databases compiled in recent years is the All-Lithuania Database, containing more than half a million records of Litvak ancestors. This talk will describe the continuing efforts to procure, translate, and make available vital records (birth, death, marriage, and divorce), census records, tax and voters lists, candle and box tax lists, etc.

Joel Ratner has been responsible for the LitvakSIG Vital Records Translation Project since 2004. This project's goal is to translate records that the Mormon Church microfilmed as part of its worldwide ancestry endeavors. Joel Ratner was also the Vilna District coordinator for the LitvakSIG Research Group from 1998 to 2006. LitvakSIG can be accessed at www.litvaksig.org.

Tell A Friend About This Talk

This course will provide serious adult students with a strong foundation in Jewish genealogy to enable them to research their family origins.  The course will include introductions to relevant  world history, geography, methodology, and knowledge of resources.   Students must have basic computer skills.

Course Schedule:

1. Feb. 2nd

• Getting Started: Basic Steps, Strategy and Skills

2. February 9th

• Technical Tools and Online Resources for Genealogy
• Optional Supplement:  Internet Research Workshop for Beginners, 9 – 10 PM

3. February 23rd

• History of Jewish Migration, the Diaspora and Changing National Borders

4. March 2nd

• Identifying Your Immigrant Ancestors: Methods and Resources for Researching Family Members in the U.S.

5. March 16th

• Finding Your Families in European Records and Learning about Their Lives: Researching Polish Ancestors.
• Individual Help Session

6. March 23rd

• Finding Your Families in European Records: Researching German, Lithuanian and Austro-Hungarian Ancestors
• DNA Research: The Next Frontier in Genealogy

7. March 30th

• Identifying Holocaust Victims and Survivors
• Finding Family Members Living in Israel

8. April 6th

• Using Your Research: Making Connections and Publicizing Your Findings
• Individual Help Session

Note:  No classes Feb.16 (Presidents Day) & March 9 (Purim)

The course will be taught at Hebrew College by experienced researchers from the Jewish Genealogical Society of Greater Boston (JGSGB) led by Heidi Urich, President of the JGSGB,  and Jay Sage, former Co-president of the JGSGB.

Limited to 25 students
Tuition: $250, payable to Hebrew College

Click here to register.
For more information, contact or call 617-796-8522.
 

Jewish genealogists around the globe seek information about their ancestors, yet few realize that one of the greatest sources for research lies in Israel. It is not generally known that Israeli archives and internet sites have amassed collections of historical and contemporary information about Jews from around the world, including Poland, Russia, Spain and China. Furthermore, recent advances have been made in facilitating access to this data and finding Israeli family.

This presentation will offer general guidelines about contacting and accessing Israeli archives.  Interesting case studies will be shared on how family mysteries were solved by accessing some lesser-known Israeli archives. Archives to be discussed include shtetl tax rolls, migration records from Galicia to New York, ketubot from the world over, Polish vital records, Yad Vashem resources, and even data on assets owned by ancestors who never left Russia.

Michael Goldstein, the featured speaker, is a Jerusalem-based genealogist who carries out worldwide Jewish research and guides North Americans in locating and connecting with their Israeli family. He is the current president of the Israel Genealogical Society, as well as a member of the Association of Professional Genealogists.

ChaeRan Freeze's talk will examine everyday Jewish life in tsarist Russia as a site of interaction with modernity, where Jews confronted the unfamiliar and negotiated their environment in strategic and creative ways. She will present several fascinating archival documents from the former Soviet Union and rabbinical responsa that reveal the daily struggles of ordinary Jews as they confronted changes in the areas of family life, religion, sexuality, and health. The discussion will also reveal how to find new sources for genealogy that go beyond vital records and census materials, and highlight the rich diversity of the Jewish experience in the Russian Empire.

ChaeRan Freeze is an Associate Professor in the Near Eastern and Judaic Studies Department and Women's and Gender Studies program at Brandeis University. She has focused her research on the history and culture of the Jews in Russia, Jewish family history, and women's and gender studies. She is the author of Jewish Marriage and Divorce in Imperial Russia, which received the Salo Baron Award for the Best First Book in Jewish Studies. She also edited Polin: Jewish Women in Eastern Europe with Paula Hyman and Antony Polonsky. She is currently finishing her book, Everyday Jewish Life in Imperial Russia, 1825-1914: Select Documents (coauthored with Jay Harris, 2010) and working on her second monograph, Sex and the Shtetl: Gender, Family, and Jewish Sexuality in Tsarist Russia.

Last year Mr. Marx presented advanced search techniques that make Google searches more relevant and more efficient. His current talk continues the “advanced Googling” theme and introduces other features and tools Google offers to aid your genealogy research. For example, he will demonstrate how to find photographs and images of your ancestral town, get maps for towns and regions of interest, connect with other researchers with similar interests, find unique resource materials which can be downloaded, and some of the new tools and finding aids coming out of Google Labs that allow you to customize Google to your specific interests.

Marx has been researching his German roots since 2001 and can now trace his ancestors back to the mid- 1600. Much of his success has come from searching the World Wide Web, and his primary tool has been Google. He is the treasurer of the JGSGB.