Family reunion contest: Winners named

When you read about contests, what do you do? Do you think you'll never win and forget about it?

What if the grand prize is a free family reunion?

For one lucky winner, her entry means she will soon meet with a cousin from Denmark, while two runners-up also received recognition for connections to family in South Africa and Norway.

MyHeritage.com and Family Tree Magazine partnered for the free family reunion contest in June.

Winners were recently named in a post on the Family Tree Magazine blog.

Patricia Skubis was the grand prize winner of the free family reunion. Her long-lost Danish relative Tage will travel to the United States so they can meet in person for the first time.

She will also receive a year-long VIP membership to Family Tree Magazine and a three-year Premium-Plus subscription with MyHeritage.com.

Skubis' Danish family immigrated to the US in 1888, while another branch had settled in Australia in 1873. Skubis made contact nearly three decades ago with someone from the down-under branch, but they couldn't find the connection.

 However, that was then, and today we have the power of technology.

There will be more detailed coverage in a future issue of the magazine, but here's some of it.

In March 2011, a Danish family researching THYGESEN posted information on MyHeritage.com and Skubis received a Smart Match notice. She wasn't sure about it because the parents' names were the same, but not the children. She asked for more details and was then able to confirm the match.

I went online to the Danish Church Records [on the Danish archives’ website] and found Tyge Jørgensen’s children between Neils Madsen Thygesen, born in 1794, and my great-great-grandfather Martin, born in 1805. What a great surprise I received when I found that the next son after Neils was Peder Andersen Thygesen, the great-great-grandfather of Alison Rogers.

Tage and I are fourth cousins once removed. Our great-great-grandfathers, along with Alison’s, were brothers.

Runners-up were Linda Mehlinger and Pam Ingermanson, who will each receive a digital subscription to Family Tree Magazine and a three-year Premium-plus subscription on MyHeritage.com. Read some details at the link above about a Zulu warrior pulling five schoolgirls in a rickshaw and Norwegians in Idaho and Ohio.

According to Diane Haddad of Family Tree Magazine:

Thank you to everyone who entered this contest. Both our team at Family Tree Magazine and our contest partners MyHeritage.com were touched by your stories of reconnecting with family, and we're impressed by your diligent research. You’re truly an inspiration to your fellow family historians!

The next time you read about a family reunion contest, what will YOU do?

Denmark: Rare Jewish manuscripts online

The Royal Library (Copenhagen, Denmark) just made available some 160 Judaic manuscripts originally belonging to Rabbi David Simonsen (1853-1932). The collection was acquired by the library in 1932, and thanks to a private donation, they have been digitized.

The digitized collection contains items from 20 countries in 15 languages, and 163 volumes of various types, covering 131 shelfmarks, and more than 26,000 digitizations.

Denmark's Chief Rabbi, Simonsen was also a scholar, bibliophile and philanthropist, whose private library (some 25,000 printed volumes in numerous languages, 500 periodical titles and 160 manuscripts) forms the core of the Royal Library's Judaica Collection. Some items exist in only a few copies worldwide, making this collection very rare. His personal archives (some 100,000 documents, letters, etc.) are also at the Library.

The manuscripts have been digitized, with exceptions noted below. Read more about the project, including the user's guide. See the digital facsimiles here.

Tracing the Tribe was mesmerized by the collection's most well-known manuscript.

Gemma’s Prayerbook is a Hebrew prayer book written for the widow Gemma (Yemma) in Modena, Italy in 1531. Many pages are decorated with red and blue ink designs (see above left for an example on page 86; cover at right).

View each of the interior 622 pages by clicking the green square to the right of the photo in the link above to reach the viewer.

For those into Jewish heraldry, the title page has two coats of arms (at the top and bottom), and it includes a Haggadah, complete with wine stains. View each of the interior 622 pages by clicking the green square to the right of the photo to reach the viewer.

View page 8 for more handwritten personal information concerning the scribe and recipient. The Mahzor was written by Eli'ezer ben Avraham, of Pisa; אליעזר בן אברהם מפיסה for Yema, widow of Moshe of Modena; יימה, אלמנת משה ממודמה

The Passover haggadah (seder shel pessah) starts on page 334, and see page 344 for the Four Questions (mah nishtana.....).

The image viewer provides excellent detail except that only a narrow window is given and one must focus on a detail to see it in magnification. I would have liked to see the whole page in large format, rather than pieces.

There are handwritten inscriptions dated 1601 in Bologna (page 628), 1613, 1626 and others, containing names of individuals that I cannot decipher.

Other items include the only Genizah fragment in Danish collections, a Judeo-Arabic letter, tentatively dated to the 12th century , a musical score, three Jewish marriage contracts (ketubot)and more.

The unusually shaped ketubot are for: (1831, Rome) Ya'aqov Avraham ben Yosef Pipirnoa (Pipierno?) and Perla bat Shabtai; (1847, Rome) Yeshayahu ben Shlomo Piani and Yudita bat David; and (1847, Rome) Ya'aqov Refael ben Shabtai and Grazia bat David.

Items excluded include 10 megillot (scrolls of Esther for Purim), as a new viewer needs to be developed to view the scroll format. Also excluded are those with technical problems (size, condition or other concerns), although they are expected to be included eventually.

High resolution copies (B&W, Color, and even posters) of the digitized documents may be ordered. For more information, contact the Royal Library's Judaica Collection research librarian Eva-Maria Jansson.

New Books: Lost tribes and cuisines

Tablet Magazine usually has at least one article that Tracing the Tribe really likes and recommends.

The most recent "On the Bookshelf" feature by Josh Lambert offers several new books that readers may find interesting.

Now on my wish list are these three:

Far From Zion: In Search of a Global Jewish Community (William Morrow, October)

The Ten Lost Tribes: A World History (Oxford, September)

Entree to Judaism: A Culinary Exploration of the Jewish Diaspora (URJ, October)

Zion, by journalist Charles London, covers the "wide, wide world of Jews," and London visited Myanmar, Cuba, Bosnia and Iran, writing a "paean to Diaspora and the furthest-flung Jews." $25.99, 320pp.

Lost Tribes, by Zvi Ben-Dor Benite, recounts the myths and theories about where all these Jews went after their exile in 800 BCE. Benite previously wrote about the history of Islam in China. $29.95, 320pp.

Entree - by Dallas food writer Tina Wasserman - covers the range of world Jewish food, likely carried around the world by Jewish merchants and spice traders, as she shares histories and recipes of the great Diaspora communities. 274 recipes and many photographs. $39.95.

Others on Lambert's list will be of interest to researchers of specific localities:

- The Agony of Greek Jews, 1940–1945 (Stanford, October), by Steven B. Bowman - Greece

- Gratitude (St. Martin’s, October), by Joseph Kertes - Hungary

- The Jewish Husband (Europa Editions, September), by Lia Levi - Italy

- The Jade Cat (Overlook, September), by Suzanne Brøgger - Denmark

Read the complete article at Tablet at the link above. Books are great gifts for all sorts of occasions and remember that Chanukah arives early this year!

Feeling stressed? Maybe this will help

Forbes.com just put out the list of the top 10 happiest countries to live in.

According to a British Medical Journal 2005, research in several countries indicated that although individuals typically get richer during their lifetimes, they don't get happier. What brings joy is family, social and community networks.

Tracing the Tribe hopes that includes genealogy communities!

Here's the list:

1- Denmark
2- Finland
3- Netherlands
4- Sweden
5- Ireland
6- Canada
7- Switzerland
8- New Zealand
9- Norway
10- Belgium

Data was used from last year's Gallup World Poll conducted in 140 countries, which asked respondents whether they had experienced six different forms of positive or negative feelings within the last day.

Sample questions: Did you enjoy something you did yesterday? Were you proud of something you did yesteday? Did you learn something yesterday? Were you treated with respect yesterday? No more than 1,000 people, age 15 or older, were surveyed in each country. and the poll was scored from 1-100. The average score was 62.4.

Genealogists would likely answer these questions positively!

Overall economic health was a strong factor. Although the global economic crisis has been felt in every nation, those scoring highest in this poll had some of the highest GDPs per capita in the world.

However, wealth wasn't the highest indicator. Although Norway ranked highest in GDP per capita, it ranked ninth in the list, despite a GDP per capita of nearly $100,000. New Zealand's GDP per capita was only a little more than $30,000, yet ranked eighth.

Another important factor is work-life balance. Scandinavian countries work 37 hours per week or less. Low-scoring China has a 47-hour workweek and a GDP per capita of only $3,600.

Low unemployment contributes to happiness. The OECD resercher says "not having a job makes one substantially less satisfied." Top-ranked Denmark has an unemployment rate of only 2%; the Netherlands, 4.5%; the US, 9% - which didn't make the top 10.

Read the complete article here.

Book: Decoding family myths

Although there's no Jewish connection in this book, we know there are universal similarities when it comes to family history, myths and legends.

The family at the heart of Danish author Morten Ramsland's "Doghead" (Thomas Dunne Books) seems like most ordinary families, according to the Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune review.

Ugly truths in family histories have a way of getting pasted over with flowery facades; a certain level of denial seems to be required for a clan of people to continue associating with each other through the generations.

But it's not only the bad acts that get mislabeled on the family bookshelf. Long-held grudges, feuds and imagined slights often conceal a sweeter picture than the collective memory has created.

In Morten Ramsland's very popular Danish novel "Doghead," his first to be translated into English, a matriarch's impending death instigates an accounting of all these family myths -- the good and the bad.

And, while the ultimate uncoding of the family's mysteries gets to be a bit of a gimmick, Ramsland's multigenerational family saga is a complex, engrossing tale of unique characters in situations that are sometimes funny, sometimes wrenching, often outrageous and fantastical, but always human and believable.

The narrator returns to Denmark to see his dying grandmother. He and his sister decide to take a look at the family history and its legends. They fill in the holes and investigate the lies, half-truths and misunderstandings of the family.

This sounds like an interesting read for genealogists.

A Morse sighting in Copenhagen

JGS of Denmark president Elsebeth Paikin reported that all the genealogical societies in Denmark and Southern Sweden participated in Steve Morse's recent well-attended appearance in Copenhagen.

This kind of teamwork among genealogical groups highlights a good idea for smaller genealogical societies.

In the Northwest U.S. the Jewish genealogy societies cooperate in bringing in speakers. Denmark's model is slightly different in that the non-Jewish genealogical societies cooperated with the JGS of Denmark to bring in Steve Morse, whose contributions and achievements are applicable to all genealogists.

The JGS of Great Britain is hosting Steve at 2.15 p.m. Sunday, July 1. Tracing the Tribe's readers who wish to find out about tickets, location and more, should click here.

Copenhagen: Steve Morse to speak June 13

Yes, yes .... it is a little early.

Generally, to hear Steve Morse, you have to be in North America, so this is a great opportunity for Tracing the Tribe's European readers. I wanted to provide readers with plenty of time to organize a visit to Copenhagen.

Steve will speak about his One-Step Web site at 7 p.m. on June 13. For more information, e-mail jgsdk_ep@hotmail.com to reach Elsebeth Paikin, president of the Jewish Genealogical Society in Denmark, and also SIG Coordinator and webmaster of JewishGen's Scandinavia SIG.