Podcasts: Cemetery records and more

Family Tree Magazine has just posted its free May 2010 podcast, availble through iTunes and online.

Cemeteries are the main focus with some NGS news. Here are the segments on this one:
Click the Podcasts Page to see all the episodes; June 2008 was the first!

-- The Editor’s Desk: Podcast host Lisa Louise Cooke chats with Allison Stacy about the magazine's upcoming book "Grave Humor," which finds the lighter side of cemeteries with contributors’ photos of hilarious headstones.

-- Top Tips: Sunny Morton, author of the July 2010 Family Tree Magazine article “Tombstone Tales,” discusses questions to ask when searching for cemetery records.

-- 101 Best Web Sites: Cooke talks to David Day about his Names in Stone cemetery mapping website.

-- Safe Keeping: Family Tree Magazine online editor Grace Dobush offers advice for tombstone rubbings.

-- News From the Blogosphere: Reviews news from the recent National Genealogical Society conference.

Podcast: Save the deli!

The Book of Life offers podcasts on books and Jewish life.

The newest one at Book of Life.com covers the book launch for David Sax's "Save the Deli!"

Anne Dublin recorded the event live at Caplansky's Deli in Toronto, speaking with the author and fans, and capturing an a capella song about pastrami written especially for the occasion.

Listen to live event here:

Save the Deli! sound bite

See the accompanying book trailer video here:


Listen to other Book of Life podcasts here.

Tablet: Pale of Settlement photos podcast

There's another podcast at Tablet Magazine - this one focuses on the ethnographic expeditions through Russia's Pale of Settlement from 1912-1914.

Read the text and hear the interview here.

Author S. An-sky recorded music, folk tales, photographs and every day life. Much of it had never been recorded before. A new collection of material - some 350 photos - has been recently rediscovered, resulting in a book with 200 of them.

He also recorded Jewish popular and liturgical music on wax cylinders. A few years ago, the University of Kiev digitally transcribed the music on those cylinders to CDs. I heard them at the Fehrer Music Archives at Beit Hatefutsot when Dr. Yuval Shaked was the archives director.

I especially enjoyed the music recorded in our TALALAY ancestral town of Mogilev, Belarus, when branches of the family still lived there. There were recordings by hazzanim, and likely the same people our family heard in person, as well as popular songs, which they likely sung themselves. It was a very connecting experience!

The photos bring to life the lives of our ancestors.

An-sky - his pen name - wrote popular plays, such as "The Dybbuk."

The photos are the most comprehensive visual record available of these small towns and the people who lived there.

The book (pictured above) is Photographing the Jewish Nation: Pictures from S. An-sky’s Ethnographic Expeditions, edited by Eugene Avrutin and Harriet Murav, professors at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, about the importance of this collection for anyone interested in shtetl life in the Russian Empire.

David G. Roskies, author of "Yiddishlands: A Memoir" wrote about this new book:

“Here, recovered and recorded at the last conceivable moment, is the living shtetl, those market towns large and small that were once home to the majority of Jews in the world: a bucolic landscape amidst the poverty and mud; school children posing with their nattily dressed teachers; mug shots of potential nannies; Jews of every age engaged in all manner of trade; a huge outdoor wedding; beautiful synagogue interiors, complete with chandeliers and signs of the zodiac; ritual objects and sacred graves; the Rabbi’s house and the local church. Here, also, is the story of the intrepid explorers, children of the shtetl themselves, who tried to salvage this Yiddish-speaking civilization for future generations. No less miraculous are their spiritual offspring, who authored this superb collection of essays and discovered these remarkable photographs.”

The list of editors, some names are familiar to readers, is here:

Eugene M. Avrutin, Assistant Professor of History and Tobor Scholar in Jewish Studies, University of Illinois. Valerii Dymshits, Assistant Professor of Jewish Studies and Director of the Interdepartmental Center, “Petersburg Judaica,” at the European University, St. Petersburg, Russia. Alexander Ivanov, Senior Researcher at the European University, St. Petersburg. Alexander Lvov is Assistant Professor of Jewish Studies at the European University, St. Petersburg. Harriet Murav, Professor of Slavic Languages and Literatures, University of Illinois. Alla Sokolova, Assistant Professor of Jewish Studies at the European University, St. Petersburg.

The Tablet link provides a gallery of photos from the book.

IPhone: Genealogy podcast app launched

Geneablogger colleague Lisa Louise Cooke of Genealogy Gems Podcast has just informed Tracing the Tribe about the first genealogy podcast application for IPhone/iTouch.

Genealogy Gems Podcast - the top ranked podcast in the iTunes genealogy category - has launched the first genealogy podcast app, in partnership with Wizzard Media, for iPhone and iTouch.

The app will provide users with streaming genealogy audio and video on the go and exclusive bonus content. Genealogy Gems Podcast is a free "online genealogy radio show" and has provided innovative research strategies, family history expert and celebrity interviews, and genealogy news since 2007.

Tracing the Tribe was featured in an interview with Lisa at the 2009 Southern California Genealogical Society Jamboree.

Her podcasts provide information that can inspire family history researchers of all skill levels and help them use their research time appropriately. With the new app, the podcast can reach many more people.

“Mobile technology is the wave of the future,” says Producer and Creator Lisa Louise Cooke. “At Genealogy Gems we strive to be out in front bringing the highest quality genealogy education to those seeking to enrich their lives through family history research. The app makes this possible on a whole new level.”

All the episodes are included (including show notes) and new podcasts are downloaded automatically. Bonus content includes audio files and custom genealogy-themed wallpaper, as well as Lisa's 20-page PDF ebook, "5 Fabulous Google Research Strategies for the Family Historian. " New content will be added as episodes are published.

Learn much more about Lisa's work at the link above.

In addition to Genealogy Gems Podcasts, she's also created the Genealogy Gems TV channel at YouTube, the Genealogy Gems News Blog, a toolbar, authored "Genealogy Gems: Ultimate Research Strategies," produces and hosts The Family Tree Magazine Podcast, teaches online webinars and writes and produces videos for the magazine. Contact Lisa if you have questions.

And you thought you were busy!

Now, if Tracing the Tribe only had an iPhone.

Podcast: Flory Jagoda, Sephardic singer

Tablet magazine provides a great podcast with the amazing Flory Jagoda, 82, whose Sephardic family is from Bosnia.

She composed "Ocho Kandelikas," a nearly-instant Chanukah hit song in Ladino that she only composed 25 years ago. It is perhaps the best known Sephardic holiday song, recorded by many artists.

You will enjoy listening to the entire podcast. Hear her and her family's story and snippets of other songs.

Genealogy Guys Podcast: Tracing the Tribe's interview

The Southern California Genealogical Society 2009 Jamboree was a great event in every way. Tracing the Tribe was interviewed at the conference by the Genealogy Guys, Drew Smith and George Morgan.

The Genealogy Guys Podcast was posted a few days ago; click here to view the video interview which covered Jewish genealogy in general, FamilyTreeDNA.com, MyHeritage.com, Tracing the Tribe and much more!

Here's another head's up: Tracing the Tribe will be interviewed by Susan E. King on her online radio show on Tuesday, November 3. Stay tuned for more information.

Getting back to the extremely successful Jamboree conference for a moment - I hope readers have their calendars marked for Jamboree 2010, June 11-16 at the Burbank Airport Marriott. Tracing the Tribe will be there again, as will many other geneabloggers, with many special events planned.

Just a few short weeks after Jamboree, Jewish genealogists and those searching their Jewish ancestry from around the world will also be converging on Los Angeles, as the 30th IAJGS International Conference on Jewish Genealogy (JGSLA 2010) is set for July 11-16, at the new JW Marriott at L.A. Live.

Tracing the Tribe will be covering Jamboree and also working closely in several important areas with JGSLA 2010. Stay tuned for lots of exciting news!

Books: Jewish Publication Society's new blog

The Jewish Publication Society (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) is directly responsible for my general interest in genealogy and specifically in Sephardic history.

Back in junior high school, when I attended summer music camp at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, I found the campus bookstore and my first buy was the JPS edition of Cecil Roth's "History of the Marranos" - before most of us knew that the word was pejorative.

JPS now has its own blog and one post I found interesting was Don't know much bout Jewish history, which addresses historiography, or the history of history. Some historians write about history, other historians write abut how other historians write history.

Depending on who is writing for whom, their research methodology, philosophy and values, various writers will develop different views of the same event or period.

Naomi wrote in this post about Zakhor: Jewish Memory and Jewish History, by Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi, a case of Jewish historiography.

In this book, Yerushalmi traces the development of how Jews not only studied, but remembered, their own history. According to Yerushalmi, throughout much of its lifetime, Judaism has had an uneasy relationship with the formal writing and studying of history. He claims that writers of Jewish history over the ages have typically engaged in what should really be called “selective memory” – recording and commemorating some events and not others, couching historical events in a religious language and context, or simply forgoing recorded history in favor of commemorative holidays or liturgical poems. It’s all fascinating stuff, gracefully written, and completely accessible for any lay reader.

She adds that in the near future JPS will be publishing a Jewish history work dating to the medieval period. Sounds interesting!

Tracing the Tribe at Genealogy Gems

Lisa Louise Cooke of Genealogy Gems Podcasts interviewed Tracing the Tribe at the Southern California Genealogical Society Jamboree in June.



Corrected Link: Listen to the podcast here

Thanks, Lisa!

Cleveland: Jewish history podcast

The Association of Jewish Libraries (AJL) is meeting in Chicago this month.

JewishLibraries.org's podcast section has interesting offerings.

If Cleveland, Ohio is one of your research topics, view Sean Martin's "Researching Local Jewish History: Jewish Cleveland in the Late 20th Century.

Other offerings include Syrian Jews, Holocaust, Comic Books, Jewish Picture Books, Jewish Publishing, Jewish Children's Books, Rare Italian 17th-century Hebraica, Klezmer for Kids, Holocaust Literature, Argentine Jewish Colonies, Jewish Music and more.

The Cleveland podcast is here.

Jamboree: Day One

What a day!

I arrived very early at the hotel with fellow Mogilev researcher Hilary Henkin. Checked in and we went down for a good breakfast.

At the next table were two of the NEHGS staffers; one of whom had a Jewish genealogy question. Hilary had some errands to run after breakfast and I wandered over to speaker registration to pick up the syllabus, name tag, and daily planner.

As I was also representing MyHeritage.com, I was wearing a MyHeritage hat.

This morning, the Genealogy Guys interviewed me on a video podcast (vodcast), discussing DNA testing, general Jewish genealogy, Ashkenazi and Sephardi genealogy and MyHeritage.com. Today was the first time that Drew and George were video podcasting; they did 10 interviews. Dick Eastman and Matthew Poe are also interviewing for RootsTelevision.com.
The meeting rooms were filled to capacity in today's sessions. A reliable conference source says that there were about 1,100 pre-registered attendees and that walk-ins will likely add several hundred more to the final count.

However, even with all these people, the room arrangements seem adequate, with some meeting rooms located in the main building and all the meeting rooms in the convention center building.

Geneabloggers.com had goody bags for each geneablogger, while Thomas MacEntee handed out Mardi Gras beads to each blogger.

We began to gather in various corners of the lobby and the convention center. Kathryn Doyle of the California Genealogy Society, Sheri Fenley, footnoteMaven, Susan Kitchens and I were in the lobby; Elyse Doerflinger joined us. Back in the convention center, Steve Danko was there waiting to connect with a fan. Randy Seaver of Geneamusings was there and we were happy to see Craig Manson.

I was waiting for an old friend to arrive. Steffani and I were friends back in Teheran and hadn't seen each other since then. She found me on Facebook when our genealogy blogging community joined en masse. We had a nice lunch and reminisced about our lives way back when and caught up each other's lives today.

The vendor room was really busy, and every seat was full in the tech center - where people could try out - for free - the many available databases.

I spoke to the Footnote.com people and heard about some special future plans that cannot be shared at this time. Be patient - Tracing the Tribe readers will be very interested in those future plans when they are made public.

It was a great honor to meet Tony Burroughs while he was at the FamilyTreeDNA booth with Bennett Greenspan.

Bennett's new talk on DNA for females, adoptees and lineage connections was based on three fascinating case studies, which I'll talk about in a post tomorrow. Jan Meisels Allen of the JGS of Ventura County - and an IAJGS board member - was in the front row!

After a great dinner with Bennett and Max, and a quick talk with Suzanne Russo Adams of Ancestry, everyone decided to turn in and rest up for Day Two.

FootnoteMaven and I had some Internet problems, which were resolved by the engineering staff. Two bloggers pounding away on keyboards were the only sounds, until I began dozing off at the keyboard.

For now, it's time to get some sleep, as tomorrow will be even busier as it starts at an early morning Ancestry. com-sponsored breakfast on Family Tree Maker 2010.

More tomorrow.

Glitch fixed: Listen now to Tracing the Tribe

Tracing the Tribe is happy to report that the glitch in audio recording the entire text of each post via OdioGo is now fixed!

At the top of each post, you will see the Listen Now icon to listen or download that post to iTunes, an MP3 player or click "more" for options such as Juice, Zune and additional possibilities.

You can also subscribe to the podcasts - Just hit the Subscribe to OdioGo icon in the right sidebar and select your favorite device or system.

While most words are correctly pronounced, it is not yet completely perfect in pronounciation. However, like all such technologies, improvements are made frequently.

Try it out and do comment on your experience and let me know if you have any problems.

Tracing the Tribe: New features, email alerts

Tracing the Tribe has made some changes to email alerts.

Feedblitz seems to have now gotten its act together and offers some neat features. If you are receiving Feedblitz alerts, you will see this in your mailbox. The color scheme is more like the blog and there's more.

Among the neat features, follow the red arrow to the "sound" icon. Click on the icon to hear a spoken version of that post's email alert.

There is now a way to rate favorite posts - see the outlined stars on the bottom line above. Tracing the Tribe encourages you to participate.

I'm also investigating making each complete post into a downloadable MP3 audio file. Readers would be able to download and listen at their convenience. Podcasts may be next.

Are these features of interest to you? Let me know.

Argentina: Tracing Jewish gauchos, podcast

"Shalom Argentina" traces the Jewish gauchos and agricultores incorporated mate (a South American drink) without leaving aside their own traditions.

This podcast, by Rita Saccal, focuses on life in the JCA Colonies in Argentina.

The 25-minute presentation includes a brief history of the Jewish people after leaving Czarist Russia and arriving in a free Argentina, a place that would be their homeland. Their life in the colonies, aspects of Jewish publishing in those settlements, the migration of future generations to Buenos Aires, and the “revival” of the colonies through tourist trips are all covered.

Saccal has worked at the Seminario Rabinico Latinoamericano “Marshall T. Meyer” in Buenos Aires since 1989 and has served as its head librarian since 1997.

The Association of Jewish Libraries (AJL) offers audio lectures, panel discussions, author talks and more.

AJL promotes Jewish literacy through enhancement of libraries and library resources and through leadership for the profession and practitioners of Judaica librarianship.

It fosters access to information, learning, teaching and research relating to Jews, Judaism, the Jewish experience and Israel. There is also an AJL blog, People of the Books. There is a list of Internet resources here, although no Jewish genealogy sources are listed.

See the complete podcast list here.

Win two free gen classes? Yes, you can!

Win two free genealogy classes by listening to Genealogy Gems' Lisa Louise Cooke as she interviews Lisa Alzo of GenClass.

GenClass offers practical, information-packed, economical classes for those who want to know more. The topics are diverse, and include two Jewish genealogy classes as well as many other ethnic and general classes.

The core group of Genclass instructors taught online classes with MyFamily.com. When those classes were canceled by the website, Micha Reisel and I gathered many of our colleagues to continue doing what all of us love to do - helping people discover how to research their family's unique history.

Now for the bargain: One lucky listener is going to win not one but two free classes from GenClass.

How can YOU win?

First you'll want to listen to the interview to learn about GenClass. Then go to GenClass to see the classes for March and April and see which will help you in your quest.

Then send an email (to Genealogy Gems) with your name, state and email address. Don't forget to include the topic you'd most like to learn about in 2009 on one of Genealogy Gem's upcoming podcasts. The deadline is midnight, Sunday, Feb. 21.

One lucky winner will be drawn from all of the email entries, and will receive his or her choice of any two classes. Look for the winner on the Genealogy Gems News Blog and Episode 60 of the Genealogy Gems Podcast.

Re downloading the podcast - I had some false starts until I realized it works better if you have iTunes already installed. Read the FAQs to get detailed information - it's very easy to follow. Then subscribe to all the Genealogy Gem podcasts - they'll appear in your Library section.

Click on Podcast 59 to hear about GenClass. Hint: If you're rushed for time, the first section of the podcast is a collection of good announcements and spotlights, and Alzo's GenClass section starts at minute 32.

New Gen Podcast: Genealogy Gems

Family Tree Magazine now offers a free monthly podcast covering the best genealogy tools and tips.

In this online radio show, host Lisa Louise Cooke — creator of the popular Genealogy Gems podcast — takes you behind the scenes to learn more about the topics covered in Family Tree Magazine.

Each 30-minute episode features interviews with genealogy experts and Family Tree Magazine editors on using genealogy Web sites, records and resources. Plus, editor Allison Stacy gives you sneak previews on upcoming issues and managing editor Diane Haddad delivers the scoop on the latest genealogy news.

Tune in here when you have time.

Podcast: Jewish genealogy

Did I mention that DearMYRTLE interviewed me on Jewish genealogy on her September 4 DearMYRTLE's Family History Hour?

Our conversation covered many topics: Sephardic and Ashkenazi genealogy, the start of Jewish genealogy in the U.S., DNA, JewishGen, the International Institute of Jewish Genealogy and the annual conference on Jewish genealogy, including the upcoming 28th IAJGS International Conference on Jewish Genealogy (August 17-22, 2008, Chicago). There are also resource links.

More details and the link to the free podcast are here.

It's always fun to do these podcasts, and DearMYRTLE makes it so easy!

Podcasting with fellow bloggers

This week, DearMYRTLE invited Jasia of Creative Gene and myself to a podcast interview in which we discuss the terms genealogist and family historian.

Jasia called our segment the "Jasia and Schelly Show" in her blog post.

DearMYRTLE’s Family History Hour 21 Aug 2007 genealogy podcast is available at her website. Click here and scroll down to "download." You can listen via computer or download to an mp3 device or via iTunes.

If you're not sure how to listen to or download the podcast, click here for detailed instructions.

The one-hour podcast begins with Geoff Rasmussen of LegacyFamilyTree.com, followed at 26:30 by Pierre Cloutier of ProgenySoftware.com discussing GeneLines - our segment is at 37.22.

Geoff mentions that the new version of Legacy now sends reminders of family events such as anniversaries and birthdays. (Note: Where's the software to address, stamp and mail the card envelope?)

Pierre provides interesting information about graphically demonstrating time lines in family history, the overlap of generations, as well as related historical events.

Podcasting Polish research

Dear Myrtle has provided, since 1995, practical, down-to-earth information for family historians, and she's now doing podcasts with her Family History Hour. On August 14, her guest was author/editor Cecil Wendt Jensen who focuses on dispelling the myths that Polish records were destroyed during the wars and that the language barrier makes research too difficult.

After a three-decade education career, Jensen switched to professional genealogy in 1998, is a Certified Genealogist, maintains the Michigan Polonia website, and is completing a "how to" Polish genealogy book, titled Sto Lat, highlighting techniques utilized to find her grandparents' ancestral villages in Prussia, Russian Poland and Galicia.

Jensen also presented at the recent 27th IAJGS International Conference on Jewish Genealogy in Salt Lake City.

Listen or download the podcast here.

Among links mentioned, such as the Polish Genealogical Society of America, available here are two books by William F. Hoffman: Polish Surnames: Origins and Meanings, Second Edition (with some 30,000 names), and his new book, with George W. Helon, First Names of the Polish Commonwealth: Origins and Meanings includes a 300-page list of names including those of Hebrew, Yiddish, Czech, German, Greek, Hungarian, Latin, Lithuanian, Polish, Russian and Ukrainian, and a list of Cyrillic forms of common Jewish names).