New blogs: Another 18 found by Geneabloggers!

Thomas MacEntee at Geneabloggers always appears to be working overtime - he's found an additional 18 new geneablogs this week.

Here are the names, type and link to the new ones, but read his entire post for much more on each.

Take a look at these if they address your geographical or other interests. This week's new blogs cover such topics as genealogy education, New York, genealogy societies, California, vendors, UK, individual family histories, forensic genealogy, France, Massachusetts, New England, professional genealogist, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, Virginia, West Virginia, Canada, surname history, Colorado, Scotland.

Bella Online Genealogy - Tina Sansone
Genealogy education, genealogy industry

Central New York Genealogical Society
Genealogical society blog, New York genealogy

Contra Costa County Genealogical Society
California genealogy, Genealogical society blog

Currach – Discovering My Ancestry Before The Canvas Frays
Individual family history

d kay s days
Individual family history

Family Tree Folk
Genealogy vendor blog, UK genealogy

Généalogies
French genealogy blog, Individual family history

Highlands Ranch Genealogical Society
Colorado genealogy, Genealogical society blog

Identifinders - forensic expert Colleen Fitzpatrick
Forensic genealogy

MacArthur Genealogy Services
Massachusetts genealogy, New England genealogy, Professional genealogists

Nina’s Genealogy
Georgia genealogy, Individual family history, Kentucky genealogy, Mississippi genealogy, Virginia genealogy, West Virginia genealogy

On Being A Bridge Builder
Individual family history

Pioneer Portraits – Miller/Swain Family History
Genealogy education blog, Individual family history

Schwans and Lohr Family Roots Blog
Individual family blog

The Jones Surname
Surname history blogs

The Passionate Genealogist
Canadian genealogy, Professional genealogists

The Scottish Emigration Blog
Scottish genealogy

Trace My Family Tree
A new blog by established blogger Amir Dekkel
Genealogy education

Click on Thomas' post to read much more about each new blog. Enjoy!

Kentucky: From Daniel Boone to the Shapiras

Keeping with today's Southern theme, here's a glimpse of Jewish life in Louisville, Kentucky.

The story in the Jewish Exponent covers whiskey, the Kentucky Derby and MOTs.

The small community numbers about 8,500 and features the oldest and largest congregation in the state - Congregation Adath Israel Brith Sholom (AKA The Temple), chartered in 1843, as the sixth Reform congregation in the US.

Established in 1843 as K.K. Adas Israel, The Temple was a founding member of Reform Judaism's Union of American Hebrew Congregations (now Union for Reform Judaism) and an early proponent of Reform in American Jewish life. When Reform Judaism began in 1873, the congregation was the second largest congregation in the movement. Brith Sholom was founded by the next group of newcomers who did not want Orthodox rites but who wanted services in their native German (Adath Israel's services were in English). Eventually the two merged.

The Temple's archives are extensive and hold historic materials "chronicling the significant people, places and events of the past century and a half, since the establishment of our congregation by charter in January 1843." Items include Temple artifacts, books, records dating to the early days of both congregations and more than 80 oral histories. A personal video history project is currently underway.

Here are some additional tidbits:

-- Daniel Boone was hired by the Virginia company of Cohen and Isaacs to check out their lands in Kentucky. The Gratz family of Philadelphia set up Ohio River trading posts and joined the founders of Lexington.

-- Distiller and philanthropist Isaac Wolfe Bernheim modeled the Bernheim Arboretum and Research Forest after his German childhood home.

-- Louisville was the birthplace of late Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis.

The article also has information on the area's American Bourbon and Whiskey Trail, particularly Heaven Hill Distillery, reopened following Prohibition by Shapira family members.

1934 -- Heaven Hill Distilleries, Inc., originally known as "Old Heavenhill Springs" distillery, is founded by a group of Bardstown-area investors and the five Shapira brothers, David, Ed, Gary, George and Mose. ...

According to the distillery's communications director and Temple congregation member Larry Kass, its current status as a beverage industry leader is due to second-generation owners Max and Harry Shapira.

The congregation decided to dedicate the 2010 annual fundraiser to Max Shapira, but he wasn't interested in the spotlight, so the family and local rabbis expanded the theme into a week-long celebration of the role local Jewish immigrants played in the spirits industry and regional growth.

The event is titled "The Chosen Spirit Archival Exhibition and Tribute."

Kass worked with Rabbis Joe Rooks-Rapport and Gaylia R. Rooks to research archiva materials to demonstrate the family's legacy. from the archives to demonstrate the Shapira family legacy.

Learn about early American Jewish history by clicking the websites for Heaven Hill and for the congregation.

JewishGen: Worldwide burial registry updated

The JewishGen Online Worldwide Burial Registry (JOWBR) database has been updated with more than 108,000 new records and some 13,000 additional photos.

There are 170 new cemeteries with updates to another 155 cemeteries in 19 countries. The database now holds more than 1.4 million records from some 2,700 cemeteries or sections in 46 countries.

View JOWBR here. New users should click here for information.

Here are some of the new additions:

-- Iasi, Romania: nearly 32,000 added; database now 65,000.

-- Lodz, Poland: Organization of Former Residents of Lodz in
Israel has given permission to add their burial register names to both JOWBR and JRI-Poland, totalling some 70,000-75,000 records. This update offers the first 12,000 records.

--Lodz, Poland: More than 2,000 burials recorded by the IDF and the Yad LeZehava Holocaust Research Institute in three sections of the Lodz cemetery; database now has 3,400 burials.

-- Louisville, Kentucky: Herman Meyer & Son Funeral Home has compiled extensive information on burials from seven Jewish cemeteries in the city; database totals nearly 11,500 records. Additional information on Kentucky resources and headstone photos.

-- Baltimore, Maryland: Jewish Museum of Maryland and Deb Weiner for 9,900 records from the Belair Road and Berrymans Lane Baltimore Hebrew Cemeteries.

-- Maine: Harris Gleckman of Project Shammas - "Documenting Maine Jewry" - for nearly 6,500 records from 16 Maine cemeteries and sections.

-- American Jewish Archives (AJA): US and Caribbean cemetery records from The Jacob Rader Marcus Center of the American Jewish Archives (AJA), Cincinnati, Ohio; more than 6,000 records from 36 cemeteries.

-- Pennsauken, New Jersey: Rabbi Gary Gans submitted 6,000 records from the Crescent Memorial Park.

-- Liepaja, Latvia: 3,600 records from the town of Liepaja,
Latvia.

-- Bathurst Lawn Memorial Park and Pardes Shalom Cemetery, Ontario: JGS of Canada-Toronto; more than 3,200 records from 122 updated and new sections of these Canadian cemeteries.

-- South Carolina Cemeteries: Jewish Historical Society of South Carolina; 2,200 burial records and 365 photos from five South Carolina cemeteries.

-- Petach Tikvah, Israel: TSegulah Cemetery; some 2,200 additional photos.

-- Sacramento, California: 2,200 records from the Home of Peace Cemetery.

-- Various US States: More than 2,100 records from 25 cemeteries in nine states, by Julian Preisler.

-- Colma, California: San Francisco Bay Area Jewish Genealogical Society, nearly 2,100 records from the second book of burial records from Home of
Peace Cemetery & Emanu-El Mausoleum.

-- New Jersey: Jewish Historical Society of North Jersey; more than 1,000 records from
five cemeteries.

-- Bavarian Cemeteries: JewishGen and the Bavarian State Ministry of Science, Research and Arts/Center of Bavarian History. ; nearly 700 translations from seven cemeteries, and other civil document data.

-- German Cemeteries: 650 records from 21 small German cemeteries.

-- South Africa: 450 records and 550 photos from 13 cemeteries. For more information, click here.

Many donors - individuals and societies - have submitted information. To see how you can help, visit JOWBR at JewishGen.

Washington DC: Civil War Jews, May 27

Are you familiar with Civil War General Ulysses Grant’s Order No. 11? It called for the expulsion of all Jews in his military districts comprising areas of Tennessee, Mississippi, and Kentucky.

On December 17, 1862, Major General Ulysses S. Grant issued General Orders No. 11. The New York Times called it "one of the deepest sensations of the war."

The order read:

The Jews, as a class violating every regulation of trade established by the Treasury Department and also department orders, are hereby expelled from the department within twenty-four hours from the receipt of this order.

Post commanders will see to it that all of this class of people be furnished passes and required to leave, and any one returning after such notification will be arrested and held in confinement until an opportunity occurs of sending them out as prisoners, unless furnished with permit from headquarters. No passes will be given these people to visit headquarters for the purpose of making personal application of trade permits.

To commemorate Jewish American Heritage Month, a panel will discusses the contributions of Jewish men and women during the Civil War, including the infamous order above. Each panelist will discuss a key text, including documents and events.

The program takes place Thursday, May 27, at 7pm, in the William G. McGowan Theater

The moderator will be Dr. Gary P. Zola, executive director of the Jacob Rader Marcus Center of the American Jewish Archives and Professor of the American Jewish Experience at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institution of Religion.

Panelists:

-- Eli Evans, former president of the Revson Foundation and author of "Judah P. Benjamin: The Jewish Confederate;"

-- Dr. Pamela S. Nadell, director of the Jewish Studies Program at American University and co-editor of "Women and American Judaism: Historical Perspectives."

For more information about the program, click here.

For more information on Grant's Order, click here for images of the document and here for the background and chronology of the order and its revocation.

Kentucky: Jewish history

I just discovered this interesting piece by Carol Ely on Kentucky's Jewish history at the Kentucky FolkWeb site.

Blintzes and Grits. Bagels and Bluegrass. "Shalom, Y'all." The jokes come from the obvious contrasts between what we think of as Jewish culture and what we think of as Southern. But the reality is a much more complex blending of cultures and identities, creating a unique kind of Jew — the Kentucky Jew.

Jews were present for the very creation of Kentucky. The Virginia mercantile firm of Cohen and Isaacs hired Daniel Boone to scout out their Kentucky lands; and another merchant family, the Gratz family of Philadelphia, set up trading posts on the Ohio (including the river landing at Gratz, Kentucky) and joined the founders of Lexington.

These early Jews were Sephardic Jews, with roots in the dispersion of Jews from Spain to the rest of Europe and the New World. They followed Sephardic traditions of worship and law and were part of an educated and entrepreneurial transatlantic elite.

By the 1840s Jewish traders and peddlers appeared in greater numbers in Kentucky settlements, emigrating from political unrest, poverty, and restrictive laws in Germany. In most of Europe, Jews were not permitted to own land, so most Jewish immigrants did not expect to become farmers. Instead, small-scale retailing, either through door-to-door, town-to-town peddling, or in a small storefront, was the best opportunity open to them. When enough Jews gathered in one place, it was natural to think of formalizing their community as a congregation.

Among Jewish communities in the 19th-early 20th centuries were Louisville, Owensboro, Lexington, Paducah, Covington, Ashland, Henderson, Hopkinsville and Newport, and mentions the influx of German, Polish and Russian immigrants. Today, Ely states, the organized community includes Louisville, Lexington, Owensboro and Paducah.