New exhibits at the virtual Museum of Family History

Steve Lasky never rests. His Web site is continually updated.

Some new exhibitions in his virtual museum:

"The Life of Nina Finkelstein: Recollections of a Friend" tells the story in photographs and text about Nina Finkelstein, who survived the Kovno Ghetto.

"Holocaust Memorial of Canada" is Steve's third exhibit on Holocaust memorials and includes photographs and inscriptions of Holocaust memorials in the provinces of Quebec, Ontario and British Columbia. It includes English inscriptions and the translated Hebrew inscriptions.

He's added descriptions of the Holocaust Memorial in Miami Beach, Florida and the Holocaust Memorial Park in Brooklyn, New York.

The Web site now includes a page of concentration camp records at the Northeast (New York) branch of the National Archives (NARA). He has found actual registration cards for people he has interviewed. Adds Steve, "For the inmates who tragically perished at Buchenwald, or at other camps they might have been transferred to from Buchenwald, there are often notations on the registration lists as to the location (camp name) and exact date of their death, i.e. whether it took place at Buchenwald or at another location."

He was able to learn the death date of an inmate transferred from Buchenwald to Bergen-Belsen in early 1945 from the microfilmed registration list at NARA. He contacted the people at Bergen-Belsen who told him when the person actually arrived there.

His latest update has added photographs of Holocaust memorials in Poland and Belarus to the Holocaust Memorials of Europe exhibition.

There are also pre-war photos of 14 Polish synagogues, in addition to family photos of the same era.

New Web pages now provide links to parts of the site about certain regions of Eastern Europe: Belarus, the Bialystok region, Gesher Galicia, Lithuania and Ukraine

Steve advises visitors to periodically check the Recent Updates page to see what's new and use the Site Map page as an index or table of contents for the entire site.

Remember that Steve depends on the Jewish genealogical community for photographs, stories of family life before and during World War II, etc. Let him know if you have appropriate materials.

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New shoah drama: Eavesdropping on Dreams

The play Eavesdropping on Dreams tells the story of three generations of women affected by the Holocaust, interweaving dreams and historical material from the Lodz Ghetto.

The new play, by Rivka Bekerman-Greenberg, will have a reading at 7 p.m. on February 20 at the Bronfman Center for Jewish Studies at New York University.

For more information, click here.

Barcelona: Sephardic cooking workshops

Get a head start with your Passover cooking with these neat classes.

I met Janet Amateau in Barcelona last year at the first meeting of the Jewish Genealogical Society of Catalunya -- Dr. Jeff Malka was the speaker. A former New Yorker, she is a Sephardic cooking expert and lives in a small coastal town between Barcelona and Girona.

The dishes she's planning for her annual spring Sephardic cooking workshop are mouth-watering.

Each two-day workshop combines demonstrations and hands-on practice in making some 14 dishes.

Here's the menu, with Ladino spellings and brief descriptions:

Supa de gayina: Chicken stock with spring herbs and vegetables; Avgolemono: Greek chicken soup with egg & lemon; Harosi: A version using dates, apples, toasted nuts and wine; Ouevos haminados: Hard-cooked velvety-textured onion-flavored eggs; Mina: Savory pie of ground beef and spring herbs with matza; Cuazhado de spinaca: Baked casserole of fresh spinach, eggs, aged/fresh cheeses and toasted sesame; Keftes de prasa: Delicate leek pancakes; Gayina: Salt-baked chicken; Andjinaras con avas: Braised artichokes and fava beans with fresh dill & garlic;
Fasuliya: Turkish-style haricots verts stewed in rich tomato sauce; Arros pilaf: Rice pilaf with sauteed onion & toasted pine nuts; Birmuelos de Pesah con arrope: Matza fritters with raisin syrup; Masapan: Hand-rolled almond-paste hazelnut, pistachio, lemon and rosewater varieties; Mustachudos: Toasted hazelnut pyramid cookies with cinnamon, clove and orange; Gateau de tia Rachel: Nut flour, cocoa & orange cake; and Turkish coffee.

For dates and reservations, go to the Sephardic Cooking Web site.

When is my flight?

The care and feeding of your CDs

Sally Jacob's Practical Archivist blog offers great tips. Her latest posting provides information on CD-ROMs, which are an important storage medium for genealogy data and software.

Don't we all protect the bottoms of our CDs? The tops are actually more important, says Sally:

Just below the thin protective layer on top of your disc is the precious dye layer. The dye layer is where your data is stored. Scratch the top, and you've got a serious problem. If you puncture the data layer you will cause irreversible damage to your disc.

She provides a neat cut-away diagram of a CD to illustrate the problem, and offers six tips for handling these important items.

Do read the complete article and her other postings. Sally also has a newsletter and you can subscribe online (information is at the bottom of her blog page).

Australia: new list of essential genealogy Web sites

A new Australian genealogy blog is focused on New South Wales research.

The latest posting, "Five essential websites for NSW genealogy," offers information on:

*NSW Registry of Births Deaths and Marriages Historical Index Search, allows searching for 1788-1906 births by name and/or parents’ names; 1788-1976 deaths in the same manner, and 1788-1956 marriages. If an entry is found, you can order the certificate and pay for it online, $AUS$25.00.

*NSW State Records (formerly the Archives Office of NSWA)offers many such indexes as: some censuses; Colonial Secretary Correspondence; Convicts; Court; Police and Prison records; Deceased Estate files; Education and Child Welfare; Immigration and Shipping; Indigenous Australians; Insolvencies; Land records and Naturalization. This is a work in progress, and additional records are added as indexing projects continue.

*Society of Australian Genealogists (Sydney) is an Australian resource (especially for NSW). Online databases include Convicts’ Tickets of Leave, Electoral districts for Sydney Streets, Soldiers and Marines (1787-1830) and NSW Ships Musters (1816-1825).

*State Library of NSW has resources for both Australia and the UK, and it has collections of maps and plans, photos, pictures and newspapers.

*NSW Department of Lands allows limited property searches, and has historical Parish Maps. First find the correct parish using the Geographical Names Board. Towns are included to the street level, and portions have the original owners' names. Map CDs are also available.

Read the complete article for more information, and for another on Australian land records.

Of course, Don't forget about the Australian JGS groups in Sydney and Melbourne. Each society's Web site offers information on local Jewish resources.

The best-dressed genealogist award goes to ...

The award for best-dressed genealogist must go to Dick Eastman, whose recent article on the Scott eVest was enough to make me check it out.

This piece of clothing seems to hold everything any researcher would want or need. A small laptop will even fit into a special pocket. It seemingly cancels the need for a computer bag, a backpack, and the other paraphernalia we seem to lug around. The sleeves even zip off for warmer weather.

One of the best things about the jacket, according to Eastman, is that it can be removed to be x-rayed with all of your high-tech items in one place so you can go through airport security without removing items from pockets and compartments scattered throughout multiple items of clothing, carry-ons, etc.

From the Web site:

Now, it's easy to connect cell phones and music players to PDAs, power sources, and/or listening devices, such as earbuds and headphones. In addition to connectivity, special pockets are designed to accommodate digital cameras, portable keyboards, GPS devices, small laptop computers, two-way radios, bottled water, airplane tickets, magazines, wallets, keys, and much more.

Now you know what to get the genealogist who has everything.

U.K.: JGS Manchester conference in June

Planning to be in England in June?

The Jewish Genealogical Society of Great Britain's all-day Northern Conference is set for Sunday, June 3, 2007, at the King David High School in Manchester.

Speakers will include:

*Sam Aaron, author of A Guide to Jewish Genealogy in Lithuania, one of the JGSGB's series of genealogical guides.

*The Assistant Superintendent of Registrars from the Manchester Register
Office who will discuss applications for vital records (birth, marriage, death) and other information.

*Meyer Rose will present "The Genealogy of Jewish Food, from the archives of Evelyn Rose."

More information will be available, but save the date if you'll be in Manchester then, says Lorna Kay, who is chair of the Manchester Regional Group of the JGSGB.