Australia: False Holocaust memoir?

Forensic genealogist Dr. Colleen Fitzpatrick is featured in an Australian story concerning allegations that a wartime memoir is false.

The Herald Sun story on Alex Kurzem, 75, who authored an international best-selling book ("The Mascot") describes the investigation by Fitzpatrick and her team.

She was instrumental in exposing Holocaust fakes Misha Defonseca and Herman Rosenblat some three years ago. Defonseca was forced to admit that "Surviving with Wolves" was false, and Rosenblat confessed he made up much of his "Angel at the Fence."

Kurzem has refused the newspaper's offer "to organise and pay for medical and DNA tests to help prove his identity and whether or not he is Jewish." He has refused unless he is paid $100,000 to undergo those tests.

His book allegedly describes his life as a Russian Jewish child, age 5, who survived the Holocaust by becoming the mascot of a Latvian military unit. The story was an award-winning 2004 ABC documentary and a movie about his life is being made by a French company.

According to the news story, Dr. Fitzpatrick's team also includes Melbourne Holocaust Centre senior staff and US psychologist Dr. Barry Resnick. Their files detail doubt about Kurzem, which has sparked three investigations by the Jewish Claims Conference, the German government compensation and pension department and the US Attorney's office.

Kurzem claims he watched his Jewish mother and siblings executed by the Nazis.

Read the complete story at the link above.

Florida: Photo Genealogist 'Sherlock Cohn' to speak March 9

Ava Cohn - AKA Sherlock Cohen - Photo Genealogist - will speak at the Jewish Genealogical Society of Palm Beach County on Wednesday, March 9.

The meeting begins at 12.30pm at the South County Civic Center, 16700 Jog Road, Delray Beach, Florida. The main program follows a brick wall session and brief business meeting. The Poland/Belarus SIG will meet from 11.30am-1215pm. Admission: JGSPBCI members, free; others, $5.

"Clued-In: Case Studies" is the name of the program, which will detail the mysteries of heirloom photos unlocked by Cohn, who brings a lifelong fascination with heirloom photographs and a multidisciplinary background to photo dating and interpretation.

Cohn holds a Theatre Arts BA (Brandeis University), and has done coursework in decorative arts, art history and costume history at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. A former marketing executive, she has been studying her family history as a hobby for more than three decades, and full time since 2005.

For directions and more information, click the JGSPBC website.

As Sherlock Cohn, the Jewish genealogy sleuth, she will demonstrate how and why it is important to mine the clues our ancestors left in their photos. Whether families came from Poland, Belarus, Ukraine, Galicia, Romania, Germany or other parts of Eastern Europe or the world, whether they were Ashkenazic or Sephardic, they left very personal records of their lives in the photographs and portraits for which they sat. Analyzing Jewish family photographs presents unique challenges unlike those of any other ethnic groups.

“Sherlock” will show how accurate photo dating, photo identification, knowledge of fashion and artifact history, and matching of vital records can illuminate relatives’ lives, and help solve some of the vexing family genealogy mysteries.

Cohn has made it her mission to help as many Jewish genealogists as possible to recover the personal information that their ancestors knew when they had their portraits originally taken and as such, specializes in the period of most Jewish photographs, 1880-1960.

Sacramento: Dating photographs, Sept. 20

What clues should you look for to determine when a photograph was taken?

Learn more about this at the next meeting of the Jewish Genealogical Society of Sacramento when Sandra Harris, a professional photographer for 48 years, will share tips to answer that question, on Monday, September 20.

The meeting begins at 7pm, at the Albert Einstein Residence Center, 1935 Wright St., Sacramento, California.

Harris and her husband operate the Harris Studio in Sacramento, provide photography services for families, children, weddings and other events; as well as copy and restoration assistance. She has presented programs to genealogy groups on how to care for and date old photos.

Clues include clothing, hair styles and even photographic props and posing. Harris is also knowledgeable about California History Room resources at the State Library and has worked for researchers in the US and abroad.

For more information, visit the JGS of Sacramento website.

Boston: Hoaxes & Truths, Jan. 17

A number of Holocaust account hoaxes have resulted in major news stories. Forensic genealogy played a part in solving these cases.

"Forensic Genealogy: Uncovering Hoaxes, Confirming Truths" with Sharon Sergeant, is the topic at the next meeting of the Jewish Genealogical Society of Greater Boston on Sunday, January 17.

The program begins at 1.30pm at Temple Emanuel, Newton.

This program discusses how the genealogical research methods and skills – used to create family trees and family histories -- are also used in "detective" situations: uncovering frauds and hoaxes, or establishing historical truths. The speaker gives examples of two cases she worked on that were widely reported in the press: "Misha the Wolf Girl" and "Angel at the Fence.”

Sharon Sergeant received international acclaim for exposing the Misha Defonseca “Jewish hidden child aided by wolves” and Herman Rosenblat "apple over the fence" Holocaust frauds.

As an adjunct professor at Boston University, Sharon created the "Problem Solving Techniques and Technology" module in the genealogical professional development program. She combines technology and the Genealogy Proof Standard methods to research both modern and antiquarian records.

Her articles have been published in the Association of Professional Genealogists Quarterly, the National Genealogical Society Quarterly, and the PI magazine. Sharon has served as Program Director for local and regional genealogical societies.

The program is free for JGSGB members and $5 for non-members. Refreshments will be served. For directions, click here. Click JGSGB for more information about the society.

Home again: A Civil War photograph

More than a century ago, the lack of technology didn't stop this Civil War photo from finding the family of a soldier who died at Gettysburg.

Forensic photography, newspaper history and the Civil War make for a good story. Filmmaker Errol Morris posted this in the Zoom section of the New York Times today. "Whose Father Was He?" is the first of a five-part series appearing on consecutive days.

Morris is a filmmaker whose "The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons From the Life of Robert S. McNamara" won the Academy Award for 2004's best documentary feature. He also directed "Gates of Heaven," "The Thin Blue Line," "Fast, Cheap, and Out of Control,""A Brief History of Time" and "Standard Operating Procedure."

A dead soldier was found at Gettysburg with no identification except an early photograph (called an ambrotype) showing three small children. Tavern keeper Benjamin Schriver in Graeffenburg, 13 miles west of Gettysburg, somehow acquired it. Philadelphia physician Dr. J. Francis Bourns, on his way to treat the wounded, stopped in when his wagon broke down. He convinced the tavern-keeper to give him the photograph to try to locate the soldier's family.

Back home, the doctor had several photographers copy it and ordered hundreds of copies printed in carte de visite format (similar to an index card) . Back then, newspapers could not print photographs and there was no way of easily and widely transmitting this photo.

Three months after the photo was found, the important Philadelphia Inquirer printed the story on October 19, 1863, under the headline, "Whose Father Was He?"

After the battle of Gettysburg, a Union soldier was found in a secluded spot on the field, where, wounded, he had laid himself down to die. In his hands, tightly clasped, was an ambrotype containing the portraits of three small children, and upon this picture his eyes, set in death, rested. The last object upon which the dying father looked was the image of his children, and as he silently gazed upon them his soul passed away. How touching! how solemn! What pen can describe the emotions of this patriot-father as he gazed upon these children, so soon to be made orphans! Wounded and alone, the din of battle still sounding in his ears, he lies down to die. His last thoughts and prayers are for his family. He has finished his work on earth; his last battle has been fought; he has freely given his life to his country; and now, while his life’s blood is ebbing, he clasps in his hands the image of his children, and, commending them to the God of the fatherless, rests his last lingering look upon them.

When, after the battle, the dead were being buried, this soldier was thus found. The ambrotype was taken from his embrace, and since been sent to this city for recognition. Nothing else was found upon his person by which he might be identified. His grave has been marked, however, so that if by any means this ambrotype will lead to his recognition he can be disinterred. This picture is now in the possession of Dr. Bourns, No. 1104 Spring Garden [Street], of this city, who can be called upon or addressed in reference to it. The children, two boys and a girl, are, apparently, nine, seven and five years of age, the boys being respectively the oldest and youngest of the three. The youngest boy is sitting in a high chair, and on each side of him are his brother and sister. The eldest boy’s jacket is made from the same material as his sister’s dress. These are the most prominent features of the group. It is earnestly desired that all the papers in the country will draw attention to the discovery of this picture and its attendant circumstances, so that, if possible, the family of the dead hero may come into possession of it. Of what inestimable value it will be to these children, proving, as it does, that the last thoughts of their dying father was for them, and them only.

The best the newspaper could do was the word picture in bold above.

The article includes close-ups of the cloth in the two garments showing they are the same.

Writes Morris:

In the traditional detective story, someone asks around: Do you know the identity (or the name) of the people in this photograph? Here, the identification is not made on the basis of recognizing the people from a photograph. But by first “translating” the photograph into words and sentences. The ages of the children were estimated — as it turns out not far from the truth — but the telling details were their respective positions in the photograph, the fact that there were three of them, and the shirt and dress worn by the brother and sister flanking the brother in the middle were similar.

At that time, writes Morris, family photos were not common. It involved a trip to a studio or waited for a traveling photographer to come by.

Today, we are able to seamlessly integrate words and pictures — captions and photographs — but the Humiston story allows us to see how this was done beforethere were means to easily put the two together in a newspaper or broadsheet.

In Portville, NY, a woman saw the American Presbyterian story about the photo. She wrote to Bourns and requested a copy.

When she opened the letter from Philadelphia in late November of 1863, Philinda Humiston knew her husband, Amos Humiston, the father of her three children — Franklin, Alice and Frederick — was dead.

Mark H. Dunkelman wrote “Gettysburg’s Unknown Soldier,” to try to recover the man's identity.

Read the complete story at the link above. I'm looking forward to reading the next installment.

Rosenblat: Holocaust faker admits lie - UPDATED

The latest Holocaust faker, Herman Rosenblat, appeared on Good Morning America and admitted he lied.

The love story was so touching, that Hollywood is even making a movie about it.

Herman Rosenblat received international attention for his tale about being a hungry little boy in a Nazi concentration camp who was thrown apples every day by a little girl named Roma, on the other side of the fence.

Years later, according to the story, Rosenblat met that same girl on a blind date in New York City and proposed to her on the spot.

Even Oprah Winfrey was taken in by the fraud, as were publishers and Hollywood.

On GMA, Rosenblat said:

"It wasn't a lie," he told "GMA." "It was my imagination. And in my imagination, in my mind, I believed it. Even now, I believe it, that she was there and she threw the apple to me. ... In my imagination, it was true."

Rosenblat said he told the story to give people hope and to promote understanding about the Holocaust. His wife went along with the story because, as Rosenblat said, she "loved" him.

His son, Ken Rosenblat, however, indicated the real motive was money. A book deal. A movie.

The effort proving the fraud linked forensic genealogy and Holocaust social history methods. The team included Holocaust researchers Dr. Deborah Lipstadt (Emory University), Professor Ken Waltzer (Michigan State University and director of Jewish Studies), author Danny Bloom and forensic genealogists Colleen Fitzpatrick and Sharon Sargeant. The team also received help from historians Uwe Schwarz (Germany) and Jean-Louis Rey (France) who are working on the history of the Buchenwald sub-camp Schlieben.

The talents of this group joined genealogical methods and historical research skills related to survivor testimony, ITS camp records (transport lists and prisoner records) as well as Claims Conference materials.

About six weeks ago, the team proved that it was impossible for prisoners to approach the fence at Herman's concentration camp and that his wife's family was really 200 miles away.

Learn how they did it at their new site Identifinders. Colleen and Sharon also exposed Misha DeFonseca's Holocaust hoax of living with wolves. I have just read and highly recommend a very detailed story focusing on Waltzer's role (view it online at Harpers).

Rosenblat's memoir, "Angel at the Fence," was canceled by Berkely Books. A children's book on the same subject, "Angel Girl," was published in September but pulled after the revelations.

The latest news is that a $25 million film project, "Flower of the Fence" will be going ahead.

Read the complete story at the link above.

Isn't it time that publishers hired forensic genealogists to clear books with this subject matter?

Publishers Weekly ran a story on this topic, recommending that such manuscripts be cleared by professional researchers before deals are made, rather than running extensive damage control after the fact; see Tracing the Tribe's link here.

Virginia: Solving a lake mystery

Two brothers, whose hobby is genealogy, believe they have found the the identity of the person whose bones were found in Mountain Lake, Virginia. Read about it here.

There's a two-minute video of the TV news segment providing more information on how Jim and John Dalmas used a Clemson University class ring, census records, a WWI draft registration card, a historic newspaper article and other resources to give a name to the bones in Mountain Lake.

They say that the person items near the remains belong to Samuel Ira Felder of New York.

"It's a giant puzzle, and all the pieces fit together and you have one picture," says Jim Dalmas.

It started with bits of pieces reported by the media, including important information investigators released last week about a class ring.

"The sheriff's department figured out the ring came from Clemson University, and of course the ring was the key to figuring the whole case out," says Dalmas.

According to their research, Samuel Ira Felder was born May 10, 1884, was a native of Orangeburg, South Carolina and graduated from Clemson University. He later moved to New York City where he was a telephone company engineer. Some census reports showed he was married, but had no children.

"The newspaper article clinched the deal," says Jim. "It said he had fallen out of a boat."

A July 27, 1921 South Carolina newspaper reported Felder fell overboard and drowned while boating with a party of friends on Mountain Lake.

Jim said Felder would have been 37 when he died. He also said Felder had siblings and might have living relatives.

Another case solved by dedicated genealogists!

Forensic Genealogy: Titanic's 'unknown child'

Following forensic genealogy research revealing the true identity of a young Titanic victim, relatives of the child held a memorial August 6 in Halifax, Nova Scotia, according to this story in the Chronicle Herald. The newspaper story was written prior to the event.

For nearly 100 years, the child's grave has been known as the Unknown Child.

When she visited Halifax for a math conference 21 years ago, Carol Goodwin found time to stop by the grave of the young Titanic passenger known simply as the Unknown Child.

Next week, the Wisconsin woman will be back in Halifax, and this time she’ll know the boy in the grave is her relative.

"I remember standing there having a very spiritual feeling that I wished my grandmother was there," Ms. Goodwin, 75, said about her first visit to the grave.

Last year, DNA tests revealed the unknown child is actually Sidney Leslie Goodwin, a 19-month-old English boy whose entire immediate family died when the Titanic sank in the North Atlantic in 1912. Ms. Goodwin is organizing a memorial service next week at the grave, in Halifax’s Fairview Lawn Cemetery.

The boy's mother and Ms. Goodwin’s father were first cousins; she was also related to the boy's father. The boy was traveling with his parents and five siblings. Now she's writing a book about her family’s voyage. Originally, it was thought the child was a 13-month-old Finnish boy. DNA tests narrowed it down to the younger boy and Sidney.

The results of two early tests comparing Sidney’s DNA to a relative on his mother’s side of the family were inconclusive.

A forensic dentist was consulted, and the dead child was mistakenly identified as a Finnish baby named Eino Viljami Panula. Relatives of Eino came to Halifax in 2002 to visit the boy’s memorial.

Doubts about the identification surfaced soon after, but researchers did not announce they had made a mistake until five years later.

Forensic genealogist Colleen Fitzpatrick was called in to help following initial tests on Sidney's DNA. She found Sidney’s nearest living male relative, in Australia, through the boy’s paternal grandfather.

"I had to go up the (family) tree and down the tree," said the California resident. She figures there were eight generations separating Sidney from his Australian relative.

But before a sample could be submitted, a third test showed a mutation in the maternal DNA that was an exact match to a living relative on the Sidney’s mother’s side.

According to additional information received from Colleen, the service was attended by descendants of the families of Frederick Goodwin and Augusta Tyler Goodwin who died with their six children. Sidney was buried in 1912 with more than 200 bodies salvaged from the North Atlantic by the MacKay-Bennett cable ship.

In 2002, he was erroneously identified as 13-month-old Eino Panula. This identification was based on ambiguous DNA analysis and forensic odontology on several teeth found in the grave in 2000.

Suspicions were aroused that the identification was in error when the child’s shoes, held by the Maritime Museum in Halifax, were found to be too large to be those of a 13-month-old. Expanded DNA analysis and new forensic research on the Goodwin family identified the child as 19- month-old Sidney.

Colleen Fitzpatrick will present two forensic genealogy presentations at the Chicago 2008 conference.

Chicago 2008: The thrill of the chase

Genealogists working together can uncover surprising details to either confirm or discount details of important cases.

Chicago 2008 conference attendees who are fascinated in "the thrill of the chase" should plan to attend Colleen Fitzpatrick's program on the Misha Defonseca Holocaust Fraud Case. "Connections, Connections" will be presented at 11:15am, Wednesday, August 20 (DATE CORRECTED).

The talk will focus on how forensic genealogist Sharon Sergeant, Fitzpatrick and other team members exposed Misha, beginning with suspicions about her story by the absence of photographs from the book's European edition.

It will describe the church, civil, and school records they uncovered that revealed Misha’s true wartime whereabouts, and how the team was ready to use DNA testing to expose her true identity had Defonseca/Wael not confessed.

Background

The memoirs of an 8-year-old girl who wandered 3,000 miles across Nazi-occupied Europe searching for her missing parents was amazing enough. Add in her claims of surviving two freezing winters living with a pack of wolves and you have a truly astonishing tale.

Unfortunately the life story that earned its author £10 million and was translated into 18 languages was just that. A story.

On March 1, 2008, Misha Defonseca (real name Monique De Wael) admitted that her bestseller, Misha - A Memoir Of The Holocaust Years, was made up. Or, as she preferred to put it, "not the real reality".

What brought about Misha’s stunning confession was the work of a dogged team of forensic genealogists, headed by Sharon Sergeant and assisted by Colleen Fitzpatrick, PhD.

With the help of a Belgian woman who had been a hidden child during WWII, the team produced documents showing that at the time Defonseca claimed to be skinning rabbits in the snow and stealing food from farmhouses on her way to Poland, she was actually a 4-year-old living in a Brussels apartment with her grandparents.

The beginning of the end for Defonseca came in 2005 when she won a judgment for $33M against US publisher Jane Daniel, claiming Daniel had not adequately marketed the book in the US. Daniel was cautioned not to speak publicly about the case.

However, realizing that she had nothing more to lose, Daniel started a blog in search of any scrap on information that might lead her to the truth about Defonseca’s background, that until then, had been thought impossible to research.

In 2007, she was contacted by Sharon Sergeant who told Daniel she thought she could help.

The rest is history.

Family Fraud: Misha DeFonseca Holocaust case

The research methods used in exposing the Misha Defonseca Holocaust Fraud case provide lessons for any family history researcher in forensic genealogy techniques.

An overview of this case and the lessons was presented by Sharon Sergeant, in April, at the Massachusetts Genealogical Council Annual Meeting and Seminar.

A film of the presentation is now available to any Public Access Television station, genealogical society or library as long as the program is free and open to the public. It was produced by David T. Robertson (contact robertson.d@rcn.com) and the Framingham, Massachusetts Public Access Televison station, which recently premiered the film.

To order a DVD, there's A $10 fee covering DVD production and mailing.

Robertson, in this article, talks about his feelings on genealogy.

There's more to genealogy than dead people.

"Genealogy helps you understand the world around you," and a professional genealogist's job can be proving a person's Daughters of the American Revolution credentials or proving who's the rightful owner of something stolen in 1938.

"We do things like heir searching. You want to find the person who gets the money," said Robertson, a former president of the Massachusetts Society of Genealogists. "You're not working with ancient history," but "the same methods apply."

A few years ago, he was hired by a German legal firm to track down what happened to a former stockholder last known to live in Newton. The company was required to make reparations for Jewish clients' assets that were frozen or stolen during World War II.

After some digging, Robertson found "the only person left is his mistress in Florida," except for a niece who received "$100 and the residual from his estate" in the man's will.

The interesting story goes on to detail many of his cases and what he's discovered over the years, his views on what's available on the internet "just the tip of the iceberg," solving problems and finding the paper with the answers.

But if your story doesn't check out, beware.

"In the business, we have a saying: You can lie to your priest, but you can't lie to a genealogist."

The presentation outline:

The Misha Defonseca Holocaust Fraud:
Forensic Genealogy Lessons for Your Own Family History

Connecting the Right Dots ... Names, dates, places, events, relationships and activities can create many stories. The true story can be mixed in with other stories.

Forensic Genealogy in the Defonseca Case Study: Photograph Analysis, Database Mining, DNA Analysis

"Misha: A Memoire of the Holocaust Years," By Misha Defonseca.

The Story that Misha Told - According to Misha in the 1997 US Version.

Misha also published a 1997 best-selling French version "Survivre avec les Loups" (Surviving with the Wolves).

In the US 10 Years Later. Finding the Truth - Real Hidden Children, US Public Records, Story Changes, Other Experts, Belgian Archives.

Photo Time Line Focus: Real Name, Age and Family?

Data Mining: Negative and Positive Proofs in the Data Time Line.

The Truth Revealed: Belgian baptismal certificate, naming patterns, school records.

What if Misha had not confessed? Planning for DNA analysis.

Forensic Techniques Can Change the Way You Research Your Own Family History

Forensic Genealogy: Waltham, MA, April 26

Sharon Sergeant of Ancestral Manor will present the impact of the Misha DeFonseca Holocaust international fraud case in Waltham, Massachusetts, on Saturday, April 26.

She will speak about the many forensic genealogy lessons and implications for all genealogists, at the annual meeting and seminar of the Massachusetts Genealogical Council.

The MGC Seminar will also have a day packed with tips and tools of the trade from experts on records access, technology and networking, family rogues (rather than frauds), unusual sources (institutions and state censuses), under documented populations (African American and Portuguese), and disasters (fires and weather) [for more details, click here] .

This case demonstrates that forensic genealogy has wider applications than the more traditional heir searching or property settlements. Modern fraud issues and historical mythologies can be solved with the same methodology.

Image time lines and story boards are on a par with data mining, time line and evidence analysis methodology, as well as DNA cladagram analysis and science.

A photo time line provided the divining rod for the Defonseca case. The document proofs came out of an exhaustive and methodical search based on the historical and geographical context. But - had Defonseca continued to claim that she wasn't the same person in the document trail - and not confessed to her fraud, we were prepared to go after DNA tests with living relatives.

Open records access incentives and the methods needed to work around closed records are also paramount issues.

Additional cases coming up, says Sergeant, include:

-A European publication of a recent Defonseca "copy cat" (Defonseca had a 20-year run) will soon be exposed based on a "this is the same person" time line that destroys the central theme of yet another World War II story fraud.

-A writer exploring his own family's Civil War roles is developing a theme for a book that dismantles many myths that today's public figures maintain - yet is legitimately concerned with defensive defamation suits.

-The descendant of a European World War II orphan is concerned that their own family's story can be told with the proper documentation.

-A middle aged woman with an Asian adopted child has decided to find her father's family - more than 50 years after he deserted his wife and children.

-An elderly person with a patchwork quilt of previous personal and professional inquiry into their own family roots decides that it is time to resolve the "unsolved mysteries."

Sergeant says that other forensic genealogy lessons will be offered in the coming weeks in Illinois, Missouri, Ontario, Canada and California. Click here for Dr. Colleen Fitzpatrick's program schedule.

Seattle: Forensic genealogy program

The Jewish Genealogical Society of Washington State is preparing for another great speaker - Colleen Fitzpatrick - at its next meeting on March 19, at 7 p.m.

According to Lyn Blyden, JGSWS president:

"You don't have to be a rocket scientist to get the most from your genealogical materials. Colleen Fitzpatrick will talk about the techniques of forensic genealogy, focusing on how to draw information out of old photos."

Colleen Fitzpatrick is an expert in optical and laser measurement techniques, with many years of experience in developing innovative technologies for NASA, the National Science Foundation, and the Department of Defense. She is also an avid genealogist. Her book Forensic Genealogy has been praised for its innovative application of forensic science investigative techniques to genealogical research, and has been featured on NPR and in genealogical publications. She is also the co-author of DNA & Genealogy.

The evening will begin with a Q&A; attendees are asked to bring questions or share success stories.

For more information, click here.