Northern California: Hungarian research, June 20

Hungry to learn about researching your Hungarian roots?

If so, the next meeting of the Los Altos branch of the San Francisco Bay Area Jewish Genealogical Society on Monday, June 20, should answer many questions.

Doors open at 7pm and the program starts at 7.30pm at Congregation Beth Am, 26790 Arastradero Road (room 5/6) in Los Altos Hills. There is no admission fee.

"Family Research in Greater Hungary" will be presented by Vivian Kahn.

Kahn will provide an overview of the history of Hungary's Jewish community and discuss resources available to those researching roots from the current and former territory of Hungary,including archival records in Slovakia, Romania, Ukraine, and Hungary and sources such as burial and military records.

She will describe and provide tips for searching JewishGen's All Hungary Database - with close to a million records about individuals living in areas today in present-day Hungary as well as Slovakia, Croatia, northern Serbia, northwestern Romania, and subcarpathian Ukraine.

In addition to describing the resources incorporated in that database, she will discuss some of the Hungarian SIG's current projects and identify other online resources.

Coordinator of JewishGen's Hungarian Special Interest Group (H-SIG), Kahn also moderates its discussion group. Her 18-year investigation of ancestral roots in pre-Trianon Hungary has taken her to Hungary, Slovakia, Israel and Salt Lake City.

Along the way, she has helped others investigate their roots, and become familiar with the wide range of resources available for learning about Jewish families from present-day Hungary as well as Slovakia, Romania and Trans-Carpathian Ukraine.

She also serves as JewishGen's Vice President for SIG Affairs.

Enjoy brainstorming about genealogical questions before and after the program. Light kosher refreshments will be served.

For more information on SFBAJGS and directions, click here.

Holocaust: New victims' assets database

A comprehensive archive of Jewish Holocaust victims' assets has been made public. The searchable, user-friendly database - known as Project HEART (Holocaust Era Asset Restitution Taskforce) - will help victims and heirs reacquire losses.

The database may also assist genealogists and family history researchers to learn more about their families.

The database includes property addresses, insurance policies, lists of homeowners, professions, lists of known confiscated properties, business directories, and other archival information that can assist potential applicants in their research.

Archivists plan to release several million records, making the database the international community’s largest single-source database of lost Jewish property assets from the Holocaust era.

Project HEART unveiled yesterday an initial set of archival records, in the presence of American Jewish community leaders.

The press release stressed the availability of new technologies in this cause.

“These new technological tools together with the official involvement of the State of Israel in this process give us the hope that this time things will be different," said Natan Sharansky.

"As a former Prisoner of Zion, I remember the difficulty that existed in transferring information in the Soviet Union. In the age of the Internet, Google and Facebook allow us to create magnificent revolutions. Project HEART’s website has received more than 700,000 hits during its first few weeks.

According to the press release:

NEW YORK, May 4, 2011 – A large-scale international effort to help Jewish victims of the Holocaust redress claims of lost property confiscated, looted or forcibly sold under the Nazi regime was jumpstarted this week with the unveiling of a large, publicly available and searchable database of more than 650,000 Holocaust era property records in its first release.

The records were compiled and made available by Project HEART (Holocaust Era Asset Restitution Taskforce), an initiative of the Jewish Agency, in cooperation and with the support of the Government of Israel, to help Jewish families identify personal property confiscated by the Nazis and to help victims seek restitution. ...

... Launched in late February, 2011, Project HEART seeks to identify Jewish Holocaust victims and their heirs worldwide whose families owned real estate, movable, immovable, or other intangible personal property that was confiscated, looted, or forcibly sold in countries governed or occupied by the Nazi forces or Axis powers during the Holocaust era. The only limitation for application is if a post-war settlement already has been made to a victim or the victim’s heirs for that property. In such cases, people are not eligible to apply to Project HEART regarding that property.

To participate, individuals need to fill out the questionnaire available on HEART’s website, www.heartwebsite.org. Since it was launched, details about Project HEART’s purpose and the application process have been translated into 13 languages, and a 24-hour call center is operational in all languages. To date, the project has received tens of thousands of requests for additional information."

For more information, click Project HEART's website.

Washington DC: Jews, magic in Medici Florence, April 13

Edward Goldberg will discuss his new book, "Jews and Magic in Medici Florence" (University of Toronto Press) at the Library of Congress on Wednesday, April 13.

The free event - open to the public - begins at noon in the African and Middle Eastern Division Reading Room, Room 220, Thomas Jefferson Building, 10 First Street SE, Washington, DC. Tickets are not required, but seating is limited. The program is sponsored by the Hebraic Section of the African and Middle Eastern Division and the European Division.

Between 1615 and 1620, Benedetto Blanis (c.1580-c.1647), a Jewish scholar and businessman in the Florentine ghetto, sent 196 letters to Don Giovanni dei Medici (1567-1621), an influential member of the ruling family.

Blanis served Don Giovanni as palace librarian—organizing and cataloging the library’s contents, acquiring books from various sources and sharing his patron’s most esoteric interests. Together they ventured into dangerous and often forbidden territory—astrology, alchemy and the Kabbalah.

Discovered nearly four centuries later by art historian Edward Goldberg during his research in the Medici Granducal Archive, Blanis’ letters provide a portrait of a man struggling to survive in a strange no-man’s land between the Jewish ghetto and the Medici court. The letters also reveal the bond between two figures who strove to explain the world through the language of magical power.

Edward Goldberg holds a Ph.D. in modern history (Oxford University, 1979) and taught in Harvard University's Department of Fine Arts (1981-87). He has published widely in the course of 30 years of archival research in Florence. In 1995, Goldberg founded the Medici Archive Project to provide worldwide public access to the historical data in the Medici Granducal Archive through a fully searchable database at www.medici.org .

Established by Grand Duke Cosimo I in 1569, the archive of the Medici Grand Dukes offers the most complete record of any princely regime in Renaissance and Baroque Europe. The 3 million letters contained in more than 6,000 volumes richly documenting more than 200 years of human history (1537-1743).

WDYTYA: Gywneth Paltrow & JRI-Poland

Jewish Records Indexing-Poland played an essential part in research for the new episode of "Who Do You Think You Are?" - spotlighting actress Gywneth Paltrow - to be aired Friday night, April 1, on NBC.

Paltrow's family's original name was PALTROWICZ, a rabbinical family from northeastern Poland, specifically Suwalki, Lomza and other towns. JRI-Poland offers 90 records for the family.

JRI-Poland will appear in the credits for the episode.

Our dear friend Montrealer Stan Diamond (co-founder and executive director of Jewish Records Indexing-Poland) called Tracing the Tribe the other day to let us know about the JRI-Poland connection.

For readers not familiar with JRI-Poland, it is a continually growing resource of more than 4.2 million records used by many readers to discover family data.

The following press release provides more information:

Jewish Records Indexing - Poland

4.2 million Polish-Jewish records database is key resource for Gwyneth Paltrow episode of NBC's "Who Do You think You Are?

Actress Gwyneth Paltrow’s ancestral search, told in a new episode of NBC’s “Who Do You Think You Are?”, might not have happened if not for Jewish Records Indexing - Poland.

The April 1st episode of the documentary series features Academy Award-winner Paltrow’s search. The U.S. born daughter of producer Bruce Paltrow ("St. Elsewhere," "The White Shadow"), her roots go back to a long line of rabbis named Paltrowicz from northeastern Poland and the towns of Suwalki, Lomza and nearby shtetls.

The show’s researchers were able to tap into JRI-Poland’s online database as the starting point in documenting Paltrow's ancestry. The website has 90 record entries for Paltrow's ancestors and the WDYTYA team said "JRI Poland is a wonderful resource for anyone researching Jewish Polish ancestry and was invaluable during the research for the Gwyneth Paltrow episode."

Founded in 1995, JRI-Poland was an outgrowth of Montrealer Stanley Diamond's need for access to Jewish vital records of the former Lomza Gubernia area of Poland for research into his family’s genetic history. Diamond is Executive Director and the organization has a global board, hundreds of volunteers serving thousands of researchers, funded by groups and genealogists around the world.

JRI-Poland is creating searchable on-line indices of Jewish records from current and former territories of Poland. The vast database of records going back to the late 18th century belies the misleading notion all the Jewish records of Poland were destroyed in World War II.

The searchable database has indices to 4.2 million records from more than 550 towns, with thousands added every month, vital records and censuses from the Polish State Archives and other sources both inside and outside of Poland. The database also includes army draft lists, cemetery burial indices, ghetto death records, birth, marriage and death announcements in newspapers in Poland, and more.

JRI-Poland has been recognized by the medical and scientific communities for the potential benefit for Ashkenazic families trying to trace medical histories, particularly those at increased risk for hereditary conditions and diseases. As a result of statistical analyses indicating a high incidence of medical and genetic abnormalities in individuals of Polish-Jewish descent, JRI - Poland is creating a finding aid for those who may need answers to medical-related questions or require bone marrow or other transplants. Because of this, JRI-Poland has received commendations from the Gift of Life Foundation and the National Marrow Donor Program.

For more information,  visit JRI-Poland, or contact Stanley Diamond. And for more information on the upcoming episode, click here.

Thank you, Stan, for creating this valuable resource for so many researchers. JRI-Poland's many volunteers are also to be commended for their work over the years and in advance for their future contributions.

FamilySearch: 'Indexing the world's records,' March 24 bloginar

FamilySearch has scheduled a free bloginar, "Indexing the World's Historic Records: The Global Phenomenon Continues," for Thursday, March 24, at noon MDT.

News writers, genealogy media professionals and bloggers  are invited to attend the event, presented by FamilySearch indexing Workforce Communications Manager Katie Gale and FamilySearch Product Manager Scott Flinders.

The FamilySearch indexing program, fueled by incredible volunteers, has become a worldwide phenomenon since its launch in 2006, producing hundreds of millions of free, searchable, online records. Online crowds of volunteers, from all walks of life, in seven languages, pore over millions of digital images of historic records, 24/7, to provide free online indexes for the world community. Thousands of new volunteers continue to join the initiative each month.


In this exclusive FamilySearch event, featuring the FamilySearch indexing workforce managers, you will discover:


-- Who are these volunteers? Where are they located?
-- What drives the growing sea of volunteers to continually donate their time and talents?
-- How much data is being produced today?
-- What are the greatest challenges?
-- What are the latest enhancements to the software tool?
-- What are the 2011 production and software goals?


Participants will see demonstrations on their computers over the Internet and interact with presenters by phone or a live, e-text or chat forum.

For more information, click FamilySearch Bloginar Online.

NEHGS: Jewish cemetery database growing

A growing Jewish cemetery database, with records dating from the 1840s, is being made available by the New England Historic Genealogical Society (NEHGS), the American Jewish Historical Society of New England (AJHSNE), and the Jewish Cemetery Association of Massachusetts (JCAM).

The online database currently includes 13 Massachusetts Jewish cemeteries, with some 5,000 records. By the end of the year, according to the press release, all 106 JCAM cemeteries, with more than 100,000 total records, will be online.

Here's the press release for more information:

NEHGS PROVIDES ACCESS TO MASSACHUSETTS JEWISH CEMETERY RECORDS

Access Program Part of collaboration with Jewish Cemetery Association of Massachusetts and American Jewish Historical Society

Boston, MA–March 2, 2011 –The New England Historic Genealogical Society (NEHGS) today announced that, together with the Jewish Cemetery Association of Massachusetts (JCAM), and the American Jewish Historical Society of New England (AJHSNE) have made available for the first time online access to a growing database that currently includes 13 Massachusetts Jewish cemeteries, with approximately 5,000 records. More records are being added weekly until all 106 JCAM cemeteries, which include more than 100,000 total records, are online.

The names in this extensive database cover the years 1844 to the present, and, when completed later this year, will offer access to more than 100,000 names of Jewish Americans buried in Massachusetts.

NEHGS President and CEO, D. Brenton Simons, said, “For genealogists and researchers, this database is a tremendous resource and provides unique access to a set of names vital to Jewish family research. We are pleased to work with AJHS and JCAM in this way. The Jewish Cemetery Association of Massachusetts is a marvelous society for those with Jewish ancestry and we know countless people will benefit from having it available online.”

“This is one of the first of many benefits that will accrue as a result of our strategic partnership with NEHGS,” said Justin Wyner, chair of the Boston Board of Overseers of the American Jewish Historical Society. “This additional resource is of significant genealogical importance. AJHSNE now makes its home inside the NEHGS research center in downtown Boston.

According to JCAM’s Executive Director Stanley Kaplan, “This partnership with NEHGS and AJHS provides people with access to where their loved ones are resting, a source that is known for genealogy,” said Kaplan. “We have broadened …our reach within the community.”

For more information, visit the NEHGS website at www.AmericanAncestors.org , the American Jewish Historical site at www.ajhsboston.org or visit the Jewish Cemeteries Association of Massachusetts at http://www.jcam.org/.

About NEHGS

Founded in 1845, New England Historic Genealogical Society is the country's leading resource for family history research. We help family historians expand their knowledge, skill, and understanding of their family and its place in history. The NEHGS research center, located at 99-101 Newbury Street, Boston, houses millions of books, journals, manuscripts, photographs, microfilms, documents, records, and other artifacts that date back more than four centuries. NEHGS staff includes some of the leading expert genealogists in the country, specializing in early American, Irish, English, Italian, Scottish, Atlantic and French Canadian, African American, Native American, and Jewish genealogy. Our award-winning website, http://www.americanancestors.org/, provides access to more than 135 million searchable names in 3,000 collections.

Readers with Massachusetts connections may well find information on their families at the links above.

Poland: JRI-Poland adds many new records

JRI-Poland executive director Stanley Diamond (Montreal) has informed Tracing the Tribe about two new additions - nearly 74,000 entries - to the JRI-Poland database. The database currently holds some 4.1 milion records.

Yesterday, JRI-Poland's sshtel Co-Op Coordinator Hadassah Lipsius (New York) let us know about the addition of more than 28,000 entries indexed from LDS (Mormon) microfilms, including data from Wawolnica, as well as Checiny, Chelm, Kepno, Kozienice, Krzepice, Miedzyrzec Podlaski, Opole Lubelskie, Skierniwice, Sulejow, and Szydlowiec.

Today, Stan noted the new batch - records NOT filmed by the LDS - which are now online as part of JRI-Poland's PSA Project

Jewish Records Indexing - Poland, says Stan, creates indices of Jewish vital records from two prime sources:

• LDS (Mormon) microfilms of Jewish records, generally ending1860s-1870s and indexed under the Shtetl's CO-OP project.
• Index pages purchased from the Polish State Archives or created by archival staff (prior to November 2006). These are the PSA project.

Towns covered in this addition are: Brzesko, Czyzewo, Frampol, Gostynin (Books of Residents), Grabowiec, Hrubieszow, Jarczow, Jozefow Bilgorajski, Krasnobrod, Krasnystaw, Lancut (1910 Census), Laszczow, Leczna, Nowy Sacz, Nowy Wisnicz, Nowy Zmigrod, Raciaz (Books of Residents), Radymno, Sokolow Malopolski, Szczebrzeszyn, Tarnobrzeg, Tomaszow Lubelski, Turobin, Uchanie, Warszawa, Wysokie (in the Zamosc area), Zamosc and Zolkiewka.

Except as noted, the new/updated data are indices to birth, marriage and death records.

Some of the above towns' records are in the Zamosc branch of the PSA. A separate announcement by Zamosc Archive Coordinator Shelley Pollero is forthcoming.

SEARCHING

Search by surname AND town OR surname AND geographical area. For hints on maximizing your search results by using geographic coordinates, click here. TIP Don't search by town name only as this will not generate results!:

THANK YOU

Stans thanks JRI-Poland's database manager Michael Tobias, associate director Hadassah Lipsius and our support team of Howard Fink and Meira Putterman, dedicated Town Leaders and Archive
Coordinators and contributors whose efforts and generosity have helped the JRI-Poland database grow.

Towns for which there is no online data yet: Go to the "Your Town" link on JRI-Poland to contact the Town Leader for your town. If a Town Leader is not listed, contact the Archive Coordinator for that town. If your town is not listed, send an email.

DONATIONS

To support indexing of your ancestral town or help JRI-Poland's efforts to index Jewish records from all areas of Poland, click here.

Museum of Family History: Yiddish Theatre name index transliterared

Steve Lasky of the virtual Museum of Family History has transliterated from Yiddish to English the 2,700 names of individuals and organizations in the six volumes of the "Lexicon of the Yiddish Theatre" by Zalmen Zylbercweig.

Read more here at Steve's blog and do look at the Museum of Family History's offerings as new information is frequently added.

His list includes an individual's surname, given name, alternate name, dates of birth and death, town and country of birth (if listed in the Lexicon). Steve used YIVO orthographic (name spelling) standards in his transliteration.

There are more than 2,700 individual names, and 30 organizations are also included in the master list. The most-frequently listed place of birth is Warsaw (with 213 mentions), more than twice the number of the second most-frequently listed birth place of Lodz. Others include Odessa, Lemberg, Vilna and Iasi.

There is also much biographical information for personalities that remains to be translated. Contact Steve if you'd like to volunteer in this respect.

The Lexicon volumes were published in New York City, Warsaw or Mexico City from 1931-1969.

He's hoping to create a free, searchable database where those interested can look up the more than 2,700 names and organizations listed. The Lexicon also contains many photos (individual portraits of the individuals and also of Yiddish productions).

Click here to find the six-volume set of the "Lexicon" and search for Lek?sik?on fun Yidishn teater, the Yiddish title transliterated.

Those who have an interest in Yiddish theatre and its personalities should contact Steve for more information.

Thank you, Steve, for another fascinating contribution to making Yiddish culture more accessible to a wider audience.

UK: Manchester research session, January 30

The Manchester branch of the Jewish Genealogical Society of Great Britain is planning a research afternoon on Sunday, January 30.

The meeting starts at 2pm at the Meade Hill Road (United) Synagogue, 88 Meade Hill Road, Manchester.

The program will provide access to the group's reference library. The plan is to have small groups working on the rich content and information available on  JewishGen, JGSGB, National Archives, Manchester Central Library Jewish Archives, Jewish Chronicle, Historical Directories, various BMDs and other resources.

An advance list of books is available. Write to Lorna Kay to receive the list and to make reservations for the day.

Lorna informs Tracing the Tribe that CD copies of John Cowell's book on the history of the Jews of Preston are available for purchase for £5.25 plus £1.50 if ordered by e-mail. Copies will be available at the meeting.

Admission: JGSGB members, free; others, £5.

PLAN AHEAD:

The Manchester group's Ninth Full Day Conference is set for Sunday, May 8. I will be speaking there - my first time in that city - and looking forward to seeing many UK genealogy friends.

An event highlight will be the release of new databases for Manchester records.

Questions? Write to Lorna at the link above.

JewishGen: Worldwide Burial Registry update

JewishGen has added to its Online Worldwide Burial Registry (JOWBR) database with 171,000 new records, 32,700 new photos, 360 new cemeteries, updates/additions to another 213 cemeteries in 21 countries.

Total holdings now include more than1.57 million records from more than 3,050 cemeteries or sections in 47 countries.

To check the database, click here. Learn how to use it here.

Donors of material include individuals, Jewish genealogical societies, historical societies and museums, including dedicated transliteration by JewishGen volunteers. Here are the highlights:

• Lodz, Poland.  Added some 39,000 making a total of some 50,000 records from the “Organization of Former Residents of Lodz in Israel” burial registers. The next update will include surnames beginning with K, P, R and S. These will also be added to the JRI-Poland database.
• Melbourne, Australia.  The Melbourne Chevra Kadisha submitted more than 29,000 records from 49 cemeteries in Melbourne and environs.
• Wisconsin, USA.  The Jewish Museum Milwaukee submitted some 27,000 records from 50 state cemeteries
• South Africa.  Stan Hart submitted nearly 17,000 records from more than 135 cemeteries, and hope to add photos in future updates.
• Virginia / Maryland, USA.  The Jewish Genealogy Society of Greater Washington, Inc.  (DC) and a volunteer team (coordinated by Marlene Bishow, Ernie Fine and Harvey Kabaker) for 5,000 records and 4,800 photos from Arlington National Cemetery and more than 1,500 records from the B'nai Israel Congregation Cemetery (Oxon Hill, Maryland).
• Ontario, Canada.  Allen Halberstadt (lead contributor, Jewish Genealogical Society of Canada, Toronto’ Cemetery Project) submitted and updated some 120 cemeteries with 5,000 records from Bathurst Memorial, Lambton Mills, and Mount Sinai cemeteries. More than 4,000 photos from Dawes Road Cemetery are included.
• Georgia, USA.  Ruth Einstein (special projects coordinator, The Breman Jewish Heritage & Holocaust Museum; Atlanta, Georgia) submitted 4,000 new and updated records from 17 Atlanta area cemeteries.
• California, USA.  Peggy Hooper (California Genealogy and History Archives) submitted 3,400 records with photos from sections of Eden Memorial Park, Temple Beth Israel, Home of Peace (LA), and Home of Peace (San Diego) cemeteries. Eden Memorial photos were taken by Dr. William A. Mann.
• Czeladz – Będzin, Poland. Jeff Cymbler submitted more than 3,200 records and 3,100 accompanying photos.
• Florida, USA.
• Susan Steinfeld (cemetery project coordinator, Jewish Genealogy Society of Broward County) and her team submitted more than 3,000 record and photos from selected sections in Miami's Star of David Cemetery.
• Ina Getzoff (JOWBR coordinator, Jewish Genealogical Society of Palm Beach County)  submitted 150 new records and 450 photos from the South Florida National Cemetery.
• Petah Tikvah / Segulah, Israel.  Gilda Kurtzman refined records and added 3,000 new photos. Current holdings for this cemetery are now nearly 60,000 records and 17,000 photos. .
• Sighetu Marmaţiei, Romania. Vivian Kahn (H-SIG coordinator) for 2,950 records from the Sighetu Marmaţiei cemetery register, with more to come.
• Roman, Romania.  Claudia Greif and Rosanne Leeson submitted 2,100 records from the Roman cemetery register from Roman (Moldavia region, Romania).
• El Paso, Texas, USA.  Sandy Aaronson updated and photographed B’nai Zion and Temple Mt. Sinai cemeteries with 450 records and 2,100 photos.
• Ferndale, Michigan, USA.  Stuart Farber submitted 2,000 records from Beth Abraham Cemetery Association.
• St. Joseph, Missouri, USA.  Deena Sandusky submitted more than 1,700 records from Adath Joseph and Shaare Sholem Roches cemeteries.
• Latvia / Lithuania / Ukraine.  Christine Usdine permitted JOWBR to include various Latvian, Lithuanian and Ukrainian cemetery records and photos from her site at http://usdine.free.fr/ Translations are by Sarah Mages.
• St. Paul, Minnesota, USA.  Eileen Wegge (eighth grade public school teacher) who during her Holocaust history curriculum coordinated a cemetery indexing project with her students at Chesed Shel Emes Cemetery.
• Greensboro, North Carolina, USA. Gene Baruch indexed and photographed 1,000 stones at the Greensboro Hebrew Cemetery.
• South Carolina Cemeteries. Ann Hellman (president, Jewish Historical Society of South Carolina) for 1,000 additional records from various South Carolina cemeteries.

Without dedicated volunteers in all spheres of Jewish genealogy and history, researchers would have many fewer records to work with.

If you live in or near a Jewish cemetery or section that has not be catalogued, researched, photographed, now might be the time to start a project, either on your own or in conjunction with a local genealogical or historical society. These types of records and photos are invaluable to researchers living around the world who may never make it your town, city, state or country. Your contribution of material can potentially help thousands of researchers globally.

You might even belong to or know of a local group or organization which may already have such records or photos in their own archives. Perhaps they may wish to donate that material so that a wider audience might find it useful.

For more information, check out the JOWBR link above or contact JewishGen's vice-president of data acquisition (and JOWBR coordinator) Nolan Altman through that link.

Vienna: 342,000 Jewish records

Looking for family from Vienna? Wondering why some branches simply disappear?

This resource can help in diverse ways.

GenTeam.com is an organization of genealogists or historians who produce databases on their own or as a part of a group, and who offer these databases to all researcher without any fee.

A non-commercial organization, the geographical focus of this work is present-day Austria and adjacent lands. No fee is required to search the databases, only a simple registration for the site.

The newest additions total some 550,000 new records.

about 342.000 records of the Jewish Community in Vienna (1826-1910). This index contains births and marriages from 1826, death records from 1866, all through 1910.

about 18,000 records of those who left the Jewish Community in Vienna (1868-1914). Some were baptised, some didn't belong to any denomination. Sources include official resignations and the leaving protocols of the Jewish Community Vienna City, Ottakring and Sechshaus. Other data came from records of the Jewish Community, Roman Catholic and Protestant Churchs as well as civil records, Jewish community conversion protocols and protocols of surname changes of the NiederOsterreichische Statthalterei.

about 5,000 records of Protestant Parish Vienna AB (1783-1860). Since 1783, two different Protestant Parishes existed in Vienna: AB and HB. Indices of parish AB marriages are available now. These records are not on microfilm or digital, but only in the parish office.

about 16,200 obituaries in the NFP - Neue Freie Presse Wien. An index of all NFP obituaries appeared in the paper (186401938). They are now in a GenTeam database. Search for surnames, given names, maiden names and year. There is a link which directs you to the obituary in the newspaper, which can be viewed free via Internet (site by ONB - Oesterreichische National Bibliothek/Austrian National Library). Included are obituaries of people who also lived and died in crown lands, not only in Vienna, and include important genealogical information on family members. 

about 142.000 new records of Roman Catholic Church records (1606-1896). n Lower Austria, Upper Austria, Moravia and Bohemia. New from Lower Austria: Munichreith, Langschlag, Pernegg, Schweiggers, Blumau, Messern, Plank, Lichtenau, Zoebing, Obermeisling. Upper Austria: St. Oswald bei Freistadt, Reichenau im Muehlkreis, Wartberg an der Aist, Schoenau im Muehlkreis, Leopoldschlag, Neumarkt, Gruenbach, Sandl, Rechberg. Moravia: Prossmeritz. Bohemia: Schwabitz, Niemes.

about 1.100 entries of Jewish community marriages in Grossmeseritsch, Moravia

The entire collection holds some 2.7 million records and is continually updated.

Other databases, in addition to those above, include:
- Gazetteer of Czech, Austrian and Slovenian Republic (with South Tyrol)
- Index, Roman Catholic marriages, Vienna and parishes (1542-1860)
- Owners, houses in Lower Austria (1817)
- Death Cards, soldiers, both World Wars
- Index, Roman Catholic church records
- Index, Protestant church records- Leavings from Viennese Jewish Community
- Index, Viennese civil records
- Directory, mills and mill-owners in whole Austria (Cisleithanien)(1876)
- Index, Wurzbach
- Obituaries, Pester Lloyd, Budapest

For more information or questions, email the GenTeam.

Individuals at GenTeam include professional genealogist Felix Gundacker, Traude Triebel and other volunteers.

Poland: JRI-Poland, Museum of History of Polish Jews sign agreement

In a new development, Jewish Records Indexing-Poland and the Museum of the History of Polish Jews have signed an agreement which will enable each of JRI-Poland's "Your Town" pages.

JRI-Poland executive director Stanley Diamond of Montreal announced the new agreement:

We are delighted to announce that Jewish Records Indexing-Poland and the Museum of the History of Polish Jews have signed an agreement where each of JRI-Poland's "Your Town" pages will have a link to the Museum's Virtual Shtetl pages for the same towns -- and vice versa.

This will enable those reading about their town in the Museum's Virtual Shtetl site to learn about surviving records for their families by clicking on the link to the JRI-Poland page for the same town.

There will be more than 1,000 linked towns and villages.

JRI-Poland contains an index to more than 4 million records of the Jewish presence in Poland - mostly birth, marriage and death records.

The Museum of the History of Polish Jews will open in 2012 on the site of the former Warsaw Ghetto.

For more information on the agreement, click here and here.

Israel: Montefiore Censuses online database launched

The online website of the 19th-century Montefiore Censuses of the Jewish population of the Holy Land, Alexandria, Beirut and Sidon has been launched.

There are five censuses of the Holy Land (including Beirut and Sidon), and one of Alexandria. Currently, the censuses of 1839, 1840 (Alexandria) and 1855 are online. Work continues on the remaining censuses.

The Montefiore Endowment had the censuses scanned in stages.

In 2008, it commissioned the Israel Genealogical Society to transcribe them into a modern Hebrew font, transliterate names and translate data into English. IGS genealogists Mathilde Tagger, Rose Feldman and Billie Stein are in charge. The project is being conducted by teams of dedicated volunteers with good language skills and knowledge of Hebrew scripts.

For more information and to search the database, click here. It can be searched in English or Hebrew, making it accessible to linguistically-challenged researchers. Each entry is linked to the original scans permitting researchers to view the transcribed Hebrew and English in addition to the original document. Families are cross-referenced where relevant.

BACKGROUND

These censuses were compiled by Sir Moses Montefiore during his visits to the area, 1839-1875.  between the years 1839 and 1875. Recorded details include personal and family information, occupations, countries of origin, and surveys of Jewish religious institutions. Together, this database is a unique sociological and genealogical record of Jewish life in the area at a specific time.

Montefiore Endowment chair Lucien Gubbay said “The censuses are unusually comprehensive as it is estimated that fewer than 1% of the Jewish inhabitants of Eretz Israel refused to participate because of religious scruples.”

Sir Moses had undertaken to distribute charitable funds collected throughout the world, together with money of his own, to the Jewish poor. Each applicant received a gift of coins (Spanish dollars), according to a fixed scale, from Sir Moses himself. The documents indicate that almost all members of each community participated, not just the poorer ones.

The handwritten manuscripts, in a variety of scripts, belong to the Endowment and can be seen by appointment at its London library. Many entries are difficult to read and - without an index - lacking an index - tracing of individuals is very difficult.

Each entry is linked to the original scans giving the user ability to see not only the transcribed Hebrew and English script but the original document as well. Cross references are also used to link one family with another where relevant.

In all, there are 5 censuses of the Holy Land (including Beirut and Sidon), and one of Alexandria. At present, the censuses of 1839, 1840 (Alexandria) and 1855 are on line. Work is continuing on the remaining censuses.

Montefiore's census of 1839 is probably the first head count of the Jewish population in Eretz Israel since biblical times. He sent standardized forms for information collection but not all the registrars used them. Thus information varies from town to town and community to community. Other censuses were conducted in 1849, 1855, 1866 and 1875, with Alexandria in 1840.


DATABASE INFORMATION

Every adult and child mentioned - even without a name - is listed individually. Parents, if known, were added to the child's listing.

To read more about the various fields and explanations, click the IGS link above. There are notes on orphans, widows, sages and leaders of communities, abbreviations used as surnames, spelling, various languages and accents. For example, the name Yehuda is spelled at least three ways: יהודה, יהודא, יאודה. Hebrew spellings were kept as the scribe wrote it.

Most Sephardim have surnames, while Ashkenazim rarely do. Names of birthplaces of Sephardim changed little over years, while Ashkenazi birthplaces changed many times, due to historical events.

On the air: Irish Jewish genealogy, Oct. 9-10

Stuart Rosenblatt of Dublin is the keeper of the faith. Irish Jewish genealogy faith, to be more exact.

Ireland's National Radio and Television (RTE Radio 1) notes that Rosenblatt - a Dublin resident - is the subject of "The Keeper of the Faith," to be aired at 6.05pm, Saturday, October 9, and repeated at 7pm, Sunday, October 10.

The radio documentary maps and explores Jewish Ireland with Dubliner Stuart Rosenblatt (photo left).

Listen to it now or hear the podcast here. Thanks to RTE's Sarah Blake for the links.

Enter the world of Jewish Ireland past and present with genealogist Stuart Rosenblatt as guide. Stuart is the author of the 16-volume Rosenblatt Series, the most comprehensive collection of genealogical material ever compiled on an entire Jewish community in any country.

Stuart's database contains details on over 44,000 people and their family relationships. These and other facts you'd expect, and might even find elsewhere - but Rosenblatt's work usually takes a step or two further.

Rosenblatt devotes "two weeks out of every one" to this unpaid, unacknowledged work. His daughter Sonia tells us how family life has suffered. As a businessman, Stuart is first to admit it's an expensive hobby.

He got the genealogy bug fifteen years ago with a curiosity about his mother's family, the Jacksons. We discover the Jackson family had roots in a village called Ackmene, and this tiny Lithuanian village was the one most common place of origin for Irish Jews. They did not leave and arrive in Ireland en masse when their migrations began in the 1880s - no one really knows why they arrived here but their descendants give us a few clues.

So the story of Jewish Ireland is the story of a global village called Ackmene. It's a quintessentially Irish story - where everybody knows everybody else - and there are nothing like six degrees of separation. It's the story of a fast disappearing world. Rosenblatt estimates the community, those who come to Shul (Synagogue), at no more than 380 with the majority from the older generation.

Anyone can access Stuart's work in the National Archive or National Library through the 16 printed volumes of the Rosenblatt Series, which he has donated to the nation. And the work continues with Stuart desperately looking for some missing bits of his jigsaw, such as several volumes of Alien Registration Files from the start of the 20th century and details of Jewish school children in schools records all over Ireland.

The show was produced by Clare Cronin and funded by the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland's Sound and Vision funding scheme.

Thanks to Louise Messick for this pointer.

Lithuania: Discoveries, databases and more!

Tracing the Tribe is always looking for records for the elusive BANK family in Kaunas and environs.

My maternal great-grandmother - Riva bat Tsalel BANK - had relatives in Kaunas (known as Kovno back then) city and surrounding shtetls, as well as close family (most went to South Africa) in Kedainiai (Kedain). Tsalel's family lived in Petrniskey, Kovno gubernia, a community listed in the Black Book of Destroyed Communities.

While we know numerous bits of information linking the family groups, such as Riva's younger brother Chatzkel marrying Traina Leah, daughter of Tsalel's brother Gedalia of Kedain, and Traina Leah's contacts with her South African siblings, we are still missing much information.

When LitvakSIG announced the completion of the Kaunas Family List project, with 18 files (23,000 lines of data) added to the Kaunas Family List, I checked to see what was there. View the surname list here to see several files, disovering two BANKs in one file and 18 in another.

In the actual Excel spreadsheets of records, I discovered additional details for future research. As genealogists know, tiny details often lead to much larger discoveries, and the 18-name file provided clues to Taurage as well as Gaure (Rasainiai uyezd). 

The KFL list is important as information recorded came from various documents presented to authorities. It includes former shtetls of residence, details of extended families and confirms family details of moving to Kaunas or moving elsewhere. This may well solve some mysteries of history for some researchers looking for their Lithuanian roots in the area.

While LitvakSIG finds the information, it is the group's supporters and contributors who make it possible to hire translators and make the data accessible. Thanks to those who contributed, the project was completed in less than two years and researchers like myself have more to see.

Readers with ancestors in the Kaunas area should consider contributing to the Kaunas District Research Group for access to this important data. The minimum qualifying contribution is US$100, which provides access to the data which will not appear on the All-Lithuania Database for another year. All funds raised go towards translating more vital records for Kaunas , Vilijampole and tax lists for Kaunas district shtetls.

LitvakSIG is an independent nonprofit membership organization, with its All Lithuania Database and Daily Discussion Group hosted by JewishGen.

Kaunas District Research Group coordinator Dorothy Leivers is stepping down, and Ralph Salinger (Kibbutz Kfar Ruppin, Israel) is taking over. Well-known for his work on Jewish cemeteries in Vilkaviskis and Kalvarija, he's been researching his family for some 25 years, tracing them back to western Poland in 1732.

Latvia: Riga Ghetto Museum opens, Sept. 21

The Riga (Latvia) Ghetto Museum opens September 21.

More than 70 000 local Jews and nearly 20 000 Jews deported from Western Europe were executed in Latvia in the World War II. The Museum is located in the historical part of the city near the borders of former ghetto.

The opening of the first exhibit includes the names of more than 70 000 Latvian Jews who faced the Holocaust, with stones from the streets of Riga Ghetto. A photo exhibit includes anti-Semitism propaganda, Holocaust in Latvia, the Resistance and the Righteous Among the Nations.

Jewish history in Latvia dates back some 450 years, and a section of the exhibit documents this history.

According to director Rabbi Menachem Barkahan:

Riga Ghetto Museum is not just a museum. I do hope that it will become the significant memento of the dreadful events that occurred in the history of Latvia and should never ever be repeated again. The Museum is becoming a center of culture and education, a source of tolerance and mutual respect.

Earlier this month - on September 1 - a new Jewish calendar was released and dedicated to the history of Jewish development during Latvia's First Republic.

There is also a database with the names of Jewish children who perished during the Holocaust in Latvia.

Click here for more information about the Jewish Culture Festival 5771 in Riga, with a video and photos.

For more information about the community organization Shamir in Riga, send an email.

Jewish genealogy books online

ProGenealogists.com blog noted Genealogy Book Links, a site with nearly 20,000 titles and 7,500 for biography and family genealogy.

Books are arranged by topic, surname, locality and type.

A retired librarian, Mollie, began to construct a searchable website for free online books about three years ago. Genealogy Book Links went live in December 2007, and she adds 300-500 new titles each week.

Read the Progenealogists.com blog post for more.

In the Jewish section of Mollie's site, find these helpful resources for early settlement in the US:

-- American Jewish Year Book (American Jewish Committee, JPS) 1907 1908 1916 1922

-- Early history of the Jews in NY, 1654-1664: Oppenheim, Sam. Cor

-- Eminent Jews of America: S. B. Goodkind (American Hebrew Biographical Company, Inc. 1918 Goo

--Hebrew Union College: Kaufmann Kohler (Ark, 1916) OpL

-- Twenty-fifth anniversary of the first graduation: Hebrew Union College, Cincinnati, Ohio, June 27-28, 1908 (May & Kreidler, 1908) OpL

-- The International Jewish Cook Book: 1600 Recipes: Florence Kreisler Greenbaum (NY 1919) MSU

-- Jewish immigration to the United States from 1881 to 1910: Samuel Joseph (Columbia Univ., 1914) OpL

-- Jewish Memories: Lucette Valensi, Nathan Wachtel, trans. Barbara Harshav (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991) UCP

-- The Jews in America: Madison Clinton Peters (Phila, 1905) Har

-- The Jews of Philadelphia: Their history from the earliest settlements: Henry Samuel Morais (1894) Har

-- Memorial volume: Leo N. Levi (Hamburger Print. Co., 1905) OpL

-- Old Jewish Cemeteries (South Carolina): Barnett Abraham Elzas, 1867-1936 19--?]S.C.? Har

-- Papers, Jewish Women's Congress; Chicago, September 4-7, 1893: (1894) Goo

-- The Russian Jew in the United States: Studies of Social Conditions in New York, Philadelphia, and...: Charles Seligman Bernheimer (1905) Goo

-- The Settlement of the Jews in North America: Charles P. Daly (1893) Har

-- Statement by Henry Ford Regarding Charges Against Jews, Made in His Publications, the Dearborn Independent, and a Series of Pamphlets Entitled "The International Jew," Together With an Explanatory Statement by Louis Marshall, President, American Jewish Committee, and his reply to Mr. Ford: Henry Ford, Louis Marshall (1927) AJC

-- The 250th anniversary of the settlement of the Jews in the US 1655-1905: (NY Co-operative Society 1906) Har

-- Why Am I a Jew? Discourse Delivered Before Sinai Congregation Chicago,1895: Emil Gustav Hirsch (1895) Goo

Check out the other resources at Genealogy Book Links.

Boston: 24 years leads to three databases!

What a great story about a Boston-area Jewish genealogist who's been researching for 24 years and has created three databases linked to the Jewish Genealogical Society of Greater Boston's website.

The databases include state-wide synagogues, cemeteries and Jewish newspapers.

The news has spurred me to investigate once again our Boston and Springfield branches of TALALAI (TALL, TOLLIN), CONVISER and others.

In fact, I found on the synagogue list the Springfield congregation built by our first TALALAI immigrant to the US. Mendl (Max) TOLLIN from Mogilev/Vorotinschtina, Belarus, arrived in 1898 and was a builder who constructed the first Kadimah synagogue building, its cemetery, the first and second homes for the aging and residential housing.

According to the database, Congregation Kodimoh (sometimes spelled Kadimah), was founded 1916/1919 in Springfield, and closed in 2007 after merging with the Longmeadow Alliance of Orthodox Congregations.

In the database of Jewish newspapers, I found two for Springfield, one running from 1929 and the other from 1952. Accessing those microfilms may well be my first task when attending the 2013 international conference on Jewish genealogy in 2013, to be hosted by the JGSGB. We genealogists plan ahead!

The story, on Boston.com (the Boston Globe's online portal), focuses on Dedham resident Carol Clingan's "hunger" for connection to her Jewish ancestry from Ukraine and Belarus to New England.

Many people tracing Jewish roots find stories with heartbreaking gaps as families were split apart by immigration and the horrors of the Holocaust, and records of birth, marriage, and death are often missing or deliberately destroyed.

Now, three new databases compiled by Clingan, who lives in Dedham, and others with the Jewish Genealogical Society of Greater Boston are about to go public to help Jews all over the world track their Massachusetts roots.

In the lists, every synagogue in the state is inventoried, as well as all Jewish cemeteries and newspapers, rendering the search for family a little more manageable for those starting out.
Clingan’s labor of love, which included searching through dusty archives and tapping the foggy memories of strangers to trace her grandparents’ emigration, two to Chelsea and two to Burlington, Vt., honors basic Jewish principles, she said.

According to Clingan, her labor of love honors basic Jewish principles. At Passover, as we read the Hagadah we are told to remember the exodus from Egypt as if it happened to each of us.

But, as genealogists know, that's not enough. We want to know much more than names, dates and places. We want to reveal the real stories of the people and their lives and the decisions they made to travel so far from their homes.

Clingan's database with 568 listings offers a listing of every congregation in the state, past and present.

It says when and by whom it was founded, the various locations it occupied, as well as when it closed and what happened to its records, and tracks the many mergers among congregations, to the last surviving one.

That list is cross-referenced to a cemetery database compiled by Groton resident Alex Woodle, and a third database prepared by David Rosen of Boston that lists the state’s Jewish newspapers. The plan is eventually to convert all the information into a database format and to make it accessible using a one-step search tool, but that may take time to implement.

Also quoted is JGSGB president Heidi Urich of Cambridge: “So many families were severed, and so many lost or left behind, that each piece you find is precious.’’

Judy Izenberg of Framingham tracks her work on large poster boards, as she investigates her family from Russia (Novograd Volynsk and Olinka), which settled in Chelsea and attended the Orange Street Shul. Two of Clingan's grandparents - her maiden name was Isenberg - settled in the same place and attended the same synagogue. Their mothers were high school classmates.

In another warm fuzzy part of the story, Isenberg is using the databases to find about relatives who went to Argentina 90 years ago. Using leads from the lists and with the help of others, she's found the South American relatives and is, in fact, leaving for Buenos Aires next week to meet them.

According to Woodle, the first Jew in the Boston area was Solomon Franco, - a well-known Sephardic name - in 1649. He returned to Europe because he could survive economically. However, from the mid-19th century, Boston had a Jewish community of German and Russian Jews.

Another Sephardic Jew, dry goods merchant Judas Monas was a Hebrew teacher at the Spanish-Portuguese synagogue in New York, came to Harvard College and taught Hebrew for 40 years. In 1735, the college published the "Grammar of the Hebrew Language." To keep his post, however, he had to convert to Christianity.

Several other genealogists are mentioned in the detailed story. Congratulations to reporter Michele Morgan Bolton, who got all the details right!

Read the complete story at the link above, and see the database links at JGSGB.org.

Israel: Two census databases now available

Researchers of families living in Eretz Israel during 1915 and 1922 have additional resources available to all.

Now on the Israel Genealogical Society website, the following two databases were originally in Hebrew. The names have been transliterated into English to assist linguistically-challenged family historians. Search parameters include exact, starts with, contains or ends with, surname and/or first name.

Here's information on the 1915 Census of Tel Aviv:

In the historical archives of Tel-Aviv there is a 1915 census of the first Hebrew city. Tel-Aviv was under the Ottoman regime at that time. It has not yet been discovered who planned this census nor for what purpose. The census was conducted 6 years after the lottery of plots among the members of the "Ahuzat Beit Association" on April 11, 1909. This is considered the official date of the founding of Tel-Aviv.

The census included the following information on the residents: family and first name, occupation, source of income, mother tongue, number of persons residing at the residence, address, and if the person was an actual resident of Tel-Aviv. In addition the census includes information on the condition of the residence: number of rooms, "bath" room, rent paid for the apartment and the name of the owner. If the rooms were shared with other people, their names are mentioned. There are a number of people listed with no residential information.

In 1915, the population of Tel-Aviv was 2,679. They spoke nine different languages, with about half of them speaking Hebrew and Yiddish. ... [click on the link above to read more]

A search for STEIN in the 1915 Tel Aviv database:

Click on the first name and learn the following details:

The 1922 British Mandate Census - covering Petah Tikva & Tel Aviv-Jaffa - is about 20% of the Jewish population of Eretz Israel at that time. The IGS says that, to the best of their knowledge, this is all that remains of the original census.

In 1922, the British undertook the first census of the mandate. At that time, the population stood at 752,048 individuals, including 589,177 Muslims, 83,790 Jews, 71,464 Christians and 7,617 persons belonging to other groups. At the moment, we have only the list of Petah Tikva and Tel Aviv-Jaffa residents.

Here's a sample search for HORO (Horowitz, Horovitz, Horodish, etc.). The first image is part of the list of hits:

The next image is a partial capture of what a researcher will see when clicking on the second name in that list:

The municipal archives of Tel Aviv-Jaffa and Petah Tikvah made the materials available to the IGS.

Note: Although the 1915 Tel Aviv census says "for members only," it is in fact open to all.

Yizkor Book Project: July 2010 updates

July was another active month for Yizkor Book Project activity.

According to project manager Lance Ackerfeld, a new feature is the Yizkor Book Master Name Index (YBMNI) Project, which will collect all names appearing in the translations (except necrologies) into a searchable database to direct researchers to the translated pages of interest.

YBMNI's project manager is Osnat Hazan who, with a group of vollunteers, has begun organizing this data. Volunteers are needed. If you have time, work well with Excel and would like to help, contact Osnat via the URL above.

The Yizkor Book Project has added nine new projects, two new entires and updated 31 existing projects. See below for these items (NP=new project, NE=new entry, U=update) arranged by country:

BELARUS
- Byten (Memorial book of Byten) U
- Dzyarzhynsk (Koidanov; Memorial Volume of the Martyrs of Koidanov) NP
- Lipnishki (Memorial Book of the Community of Lipniszki) NP
- Svisloch (The community of Swislocz, Grodno District) U
- Svir (There once was a town Swir; between the two world wars) NP
- Narach (Memorial Book of Kobylnik) U
- Pruzhany (Memorial Book of Pruz'any and its Vicinity) U

LITHUANIA
- Dotnuva (Letters from Dotnuva) U
- Gargzdai (Gorzd Book; A Memorial to the Jewish Community of Gorzd) U
- Svencionys (Svinzian region; memorial book of 23 Jewish communities) U
- Valkininkai (Olkeniki in flames; a memorial book to the community of Olkenik in the Vilna district) U
- Trakai (Troki) NP
- Utena (Memorial Book of Utyan and Vicinity) NP

MOLDOVA
- Leova (Our House in Leova) U

ROMANIA
- Halmeu (In memory of the communities of Halmin-Turcz andvicinity) NP

POLAND
- Bedzin (A Memorial to the Jewish Community of Bedzin) U
- Biecz (Memorial book of the Martyrs of Biecz) U
- Chorzele (Memorial Book of the Community of Chorzel) U
- Czyzew-Osada (Czyzewo Memorial Book) U
- Dabrowa Gornicza (Book of the Jewish community of Dabrowa Gornicza and its destruction) U
- Garwolin (Garwolin Memorial Book) U
- Goniadz (Our Hometown Goniondz) U
- Gostynin (Book of Gostynin) U
- Grajewo (Grayewo Memorial Book) U
- Kutno (Kutno and Surroundings Book) U
- Lowicz (Lowicz; a Town in Mazovia, Memorial Book) NP
- Ostrow-Mazowiecka (Memorial Book of the Community of Ostrow-Mazowiecka) U
- Piotrkow Trybunalski (A Tale of One City) U
- Ryki (A Memorial to the Community of Ryki, Poland) U
- Serock (The Book of Serock)
- Sosnowiec (Book of Sosnowiec and the Surrounding Region in Zaglebie) U
- Tykocin (Memorial book of Tiktin) U
- Wierzbnik (Wierzbnik-Starachowitz; a Memorial Book) U [Whole book online]
- Zelechow (Memorial Book of the Community of Zelechow ) U [Added photos to Polish section]
- Zychlin (The memorial book of Zychlin) U

UKRAINE
- Glinyany (The tragic end of our Gliniany) U
- Gliniany (Pinkas Poland) NE
- Rozhishche (Rozyszcze) (Rozyszcze, My Old Home) U
- Rafalovka (Memorial book for the towns of Old Rafalowka, NewRafalowka, Olizarka, Zoludzk and vicinity) NP
- Shumskoye (Szumsk, memorial book of the martyrs of Szumsk) U
- Volodymyr Volynskyy (Wladimir Wolynsk; in memory of the Jewish community) NP
- Peremyshlyany (Pinkas Poland) NE

See the entire list of books here. Donations to assist with professional translations are always welcome.