Yiddish Center: Audio books in Yiddish

The Yiddish Book Center and the Jewish Public Library of Montreal produced the audiobook Kinder-yorn (Childhood Years) as part of Y.Y. Trunk's seven-volume Poylen (Poland: Memories and Images).

The work is considered one of the most important memoirs of Jewish Polish life. The author began the work two days after he arrived in the US in March 1941.

According to the Yiddish Book Center, "He knew that Europe’s Jews were facing an unimaginable disaster, and his book has been called a 'portable literary gravestone for a destroyed community.'"

Two Fellows of the Yiddish Book Center have returned with an additional 200 Yiddish audio books on tape. They will be digitized and made available for free online.

Poyln has also been translated into English and published by the Polish-Jewish Heritage Foundation of Canada.

For those who can read Yiddish, click here . Sample the audio book here.

Poland: MyHeritage acquisition of Bliscy.pl will help researchers

Readers searching their Polish ancestry should be delighted by the latest MyHeritage.com acquisition of Bliscy.pl from Wirtualna Polska S.A., strengthening its leadership in the family history market and expanding its international community of users.

The most popular family network on the web, MyHeritage now offers 18 million family trees, 56 million registered users and 760 million profiles in a private and secure online environment. The move added more than 500,000 Bliscy.pl users to the global MyHeritage.com family network, which now has a Polish user base of more than 2.6 million users.

Translation: Finding relatives in Poland is now easier than ever!

Tools and technologies for managing family connections online with MyHeritage.com include the free software Family Tree Builder (available also in Polish); Smart Matching™ technology to discover matches between family trees across different languages, pronunciations and spellings; and advanced facial recognition technology for automatic tagging of family photos.

The acquisition was announced this morning on TechCrunch, and here is the MyHeritage Blog post. Here's some of the official press release:

“Having established ourselves as the leading international destination for families to connect to their past and to one another – acquiring Bliscy.pl is a natural step that enriches our global family network" said Gilad Japhet, founder and CEO of MyHeritage.com. "Our service and flagship Smart Matching™ technology enjoy a network effect, providing more value as more people use them. For this reason, this acquisition delivers great value both to the Bliscy.pl users and to the users of MyHeritage.com. Our international network of users consists of millions of families with roots in Poland, who will now find it even easier to connect to long-lost relatives and discover more about their unique family histories”.

MyHeritage.com holds a formidable international registered member base of more than 56 million and offers its services in 36 languages. As a market of increasing strategic and economic importance, the acquisition reaffirms the company’s foothold in Central Europe.  As Europe’s sixth largest economy, Poland is an economic power house within Central Europe, possessing more than 40% of 500 of the region’s largest companies measured by turnover. Since the end of the communist era in 1989, Poland has demonstrated significant development potential – with a high-income economy and ranking amongst the highest GDP growth rates in the EU.

Following massive migration, the number of ethnic Poles living abroad is estimated to be some 20 million, with the largest concentrations of 10 million and 1.6 million living in the USA and Germany respectively, countries where MyHeritage.com enjoys a mass-market following. 

The acquisition of Bliscy.pl marks the third major acquisition by MyHeritage.com within the last 18 months, following the acquisition of European family network OSN GmbH and its network of 10 market-leading family sites including verwandt.de, moikrewni.pl and verwant.nl, and Dutch Family Network ZOOOF. By merging the family networks into one international platform, MyHeritage.com is building a worldwide Family Graph that has grown to more than 18 million family trees and 760 million profiles.

According to Wirtualna Polska director of business development Anna Kesicka:

“The sale of Bliscy.pl is a continuation of our strategy to focus on expanding content, a key company goal for 2011. We place high value on cooperating with companies who are an ideal fit from a strategic business perspective. As the world’s largest family network, MyHeritage.com fits the bill, providing Bliscy.pl users with vast international platform for exploring family connections and a feature rich site to help users keep in touch with their family in Poland and around the globe.”

Definitely a big plus for researchers of Polish ancestry

San Francisco: 'Cadastral Maps, Landowner Records,' April 10

Northern California genealogists can learn about cadastral maps and landowner records with Pamela Weisberger at the next meeting of the San Francisco Bay Area Jewish Genealogical Society, on Sunday, April 10.

Doors open at 12.30pm for the 1.30pm program, at the Oakland Regional Family History Center, 4766 Lincoln Avenue, in Oakland. The meeting is free.

"Cadastral Maps and Landowner Records: New Horizons for Genealogists" will demonstrate why Galician (today Polish and Ukrainian) cadastral land records and property maps are valuable sources of family history information, especially when vital records are sparse or missing.

Pamela's talk will cover the history and relevance of cadastral maps as an alternative source of genealogical and community information, how to obtain this type of record from overseas archives, the history of Gesher Galicia’s cadastral map program, and how to create your own community projects using these data.

These maps, created in the early 19th-20th centuries, show exact locations of churches, synagogues, cemeteries, schools, and market squares and often have the names of the landowners written onto the plots of land.

The house or parcel numbers can be used to chart a family across several generations and the land records can provide the size and/or values (for taxes) of properties that an individual owned and show inheritance patterns. In some cases, these records may be the only documented evidence of a family living in a particular town or village.

Pamela started out in the film industry working for Otto Preminger, who never took no for an answer, which was excellent training for becoming a genealogist! She is currently the 1st vice president and program chair for the Jewish Genealogical Society of Los Angeles and president of Gesher Galicia.

In addition to co-chairing/program chair for the 2010 Los Angeles IAJGS conference, she has coordinated the genealogical film festival for the past four events. She chairs the LimmudLA film team and is a professional genealogist.

For more than 30 years, she has conducted research in Germany, Poland, Ukraine and Hungary with a specialty in newspaper research. She holds a BA from Washington University in St. Louis and an MS from Boston University.

For more information and directions, click here.

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.

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.

Yizkor Book Project: January 2011 update

The JewishGen Yizkor Book Project reports that six new projects, 17 new entries and 19 updated projects were added during January 2011.

Additionally, two books (Ruzhany, Belarus; Daugavplis/Dvinsk, Latvia) have been completely translated and are on the site.

New projects have been added to the growing list of those requiring translation fund contributions; they are. Kurow, Poland; Lowicz, Poland; and Volodymyr Volynskyy (Ludmir), Ukraine. To donate funds, click here.

Brian Reiser, coordinator of the Kolki, Ukraine Yizkor Book, has prepared helpful notes on using a Facebook "Cause" to raise money for the Yizkor Book Translation Funds.

The project needs translators, necrology transliterators and HTMLers to help with a large volume of material to be placed online.

Six new projects:
- Bivolari, Romania (Our town Bivolari)
- Daugavpils, Latvia (In Memory of the Community of Dvinsk)
- Derecske, Hungary (Memorial book to the Jews of Derecske and its environs)
- Tarnogrod, Poland (Book of Tarnogrod; in memory of the destroyed Jewish community)
- Tuchin, Ukraine (Tuczin-Kripa, Wolyn; in Memory of the Jewish Community)
- Zborov, Ukraine (Memorial book of the community of Zborow)

17 new entries:
- Blaszki, Poland (Pinkas Poland)
- Gadunavas, Lithuania (Pinkas Lita)
- Garliava, Lithuania (Pinkas Lita)
- Gastynai, Lithuania (Pinkas Lita)
- Geguzine, Lithuania (Pinkas Lita)
- Geleziai, Lithuania (Pinkas Lita)
- Gelgaudiskis, Lithuania(Pinkas Lita)
- Giedraiciai, Lithuania (Pinkas Lita)
- Gintaliske, Lithuania(Pinkas Lita)
- Girkalnis, Lithuania (Pinkas Lita)
- Givyai Skrudziai, Lithuania (Pinkas Lita)
- Gudeliai, Lithuania (Pinkas Lita)
- Gudiniskiai, Lithuania (Pinkas Lita)
- Gudziunai, Lithuania (Pinkas Lita)
- Jezow, Poland (Pinkas Poland)
- Ujazd, Poland (Pinkas Poland)
- Ukmerge, Lithuania (Pinkas Lita)

19 updates to existing projects:
- Bedzin, Poland (A Memorial to the Jewish Community of Bendin)
- Dabrowa Gornicza, Poland (Book of the Jewish community of Dabrowa Gornicza and its destruction)
- Dieveniskes, Lithuania (Devenishki book; memorial book)
- Fehergyarmat, Hungary (Our Former City Fehergyarmat)
- Gorodets, Belarus (Horodetz; history of a town, 1142-1942)
- Kovel', Ukraine(Kowel; Testimony and Memorial Book of Our Destroyed Community)
- Lowicz, Poland (Lowicz; a town in Mazovia, memorial book)
- Merkine, Lithuania (Meretch; a Jewish Town in Lithuania)
- Ostrow-Mazowiecka, Poland (Memorial Book of the Community of Ostrow-Mazowiecka)
- Rafalovka, Ukraine (Memorial book for the towns of Old Rafalowka, New Rafalowka, Olizarka, Zoludzk and vicinity)
- Ruzhany, Belarus (Rozana; a memorial book to the Jewish community)
- Sanok, Poland (Memorial Book of Sanok and Vicinity)
- Serock, Poland (The book of Serock)
- Siedlce, Poland (On the ruins of my home; the destruction of Siedlce)
- Skuodas, Lithuania (Memorial Book of Skuodas)
- Slutsk, Belarus(Slutsk and vicinity memorial book)
- Turka, Ukraine (Memorial Book of the Community of Turka on the Stryj and Vicinity)
- Volodymyr Volynskyy, Ukraine (Wladimir Wolynsk; in memory of the Jewish community)
- Zelechow, Poland (Memorial Book of the Community of Zelechow)

The Yizkor Book Master Name Index (YBMNI) has also been updated with some 13,000 records added since July 2010; currently, it has some 18,000 records covering Poland, Ukraine, Greece and Lithuania.

Questions on the project, on specific books, on contributing or volunteering? Contact project manager Lance Ackerfeld.

For more, check the Project's translations page.

Southern California: Leaving the Pale of Settlement, February 13

Some 80% of our ancestors lived in Poland and the western Russia Pale of Settlement in 1880.

Why they left such a "nice place" is the topic of the next meeting of the Jewish Genealogical Society of the Conejo Valley and Ventura County (JGSCV), on Sunday, February 13.

The program runs from 1.30-3.30pm at Temple Adat Elohim, 2420 E. Hillcrest Drive, Thousand Oaks. There is no charge to attend.

Speaker Hal Bookbinder will present "Why Did Our Ancestors Leave a Nice Place Like the Pale?"

Most Jewish genealogists are aware of the pogroms and mass exodus of our ancestors over the next generation. Hal's talk will provide background on the 120 years of the Pale from its formation at the turn of the 19th century to its dissolution during WWI.

Understanding this period in history provides context to the lives of our ancestors in the Pale, and their decision to leave everything behind for new lives elsewhere. The Pale of Settlement, in the Russian Empire, included much of  present-day Lithuania, Belarus, Poland, Moldova, Ukraine and parts of western Russia.

The Pale afforded permanent residency to Jews, and beyond its borders, Jewish permanent residency was generally prohibited.

Hal Bookbinder has been researching eight family lines for more than 27 years, identifying 4,000 relatives and tracing two lines into the mid-1700s. A JGSCV founding member and former JGSLA and IAJGS president, he created and continues to edit the annual Jewish Genealogical Yearbook.

In 2010, he received the IAJGS Lifetime Achievement Award for his contributions to Jewish Genealogy, and was recently elected to the JewishGen Board of Governors. He has spoken at numerous conferences, synagogues and society meetings on topics from computing to geography to brick walls.

For more information, contact the JGSCV or view its website.

Geneabloggers.com: 33 more blogs revealed!

Here are another 33 blogs focused on genealogy and family history just discovered by Geneabloggers.com's Thomas MacEntee. There are now 1,662 genealogy blogs on the site.

This week's varied topic crop includes individual family history, UK, photography, US, Poland, Canada, Sweden, Hawaii, education, vendor, roots travel, Civil War, military, African-American, cemetery, library, Georgia, Australia, surname, Minnesota, Pacific Island, Kentucky, diary and crafts.

Ainscough Family History-Mawdesley
Individual family history, UK genealogy

Belden Family Alliances: From Then Til Now
Individual family history

Bigger Families, Faces from the Past
Photography blog

Blundering Blindly Backwards
Individual family history, UK genealogy

Byron City Cemetery, Peach County, Georgia
Cemetery blog, Georgia genealogy

Campaspe Genealogy
Australian genealogy, Genealogy library blog

Census Junkie
Genealogy education, Individual family history

Climbing the Genealogy Tree
Genealogy education

Families of Old Hawaii
Hawaiian genealogy, Individual family history, Pacific Islander genealogy

Hawaiian genealogy sure has come a long way from the days when I 1st started searching the web back in 1998. There were a handful of personal sites with info on Hawaiian genealogy back then and some are still around, the same site from the nineties frozen in time. Some are updated and some vanished never to be seen again. Here’s a list of the personal pages (now called blogs?) I have bookmarked, that are still around…

Family History Alive
Individual family history

Finding the Feitner Family
Individual family history (FEITNER, Germany->NY)

A Forest of Oakes
Individual family history (OAKES)

Hearts Turned
Individual family history (LAMOREAUX, HOLLADAY, CLUFF)

The author just turned 19 and says "Too often our generation procrastinates this great work or puts it on others’ shoulders, but there is much we can be doing now. It is our responsibility just as much, if not more, than the older generations."

Heritage Heart
Crafts blog, Genealogy education, Individual family history

Family history can be exciting for today’s generations and it is my quest to offer ideas and solutions for making it fun! No more boring facts, but great stories and ideas for incorporating family heritage into our personal spaces as a reflection of who we are today.

Highland Experience SCOTLAND
Genealogy vendor, Scottish genealogy

The author (now living in New York) runs a custom tour company - Highland Experience Tours USA - focusing on Scottish roots.

Kendricks of San Francisco
California genealogy, Individual family history (KENDRICK)

Kentucky Kinfolks
Individual family history, Kentucky genealogy

Let Freedom Ring!
African-American genealogy blog, Individual family history, US Civil War blog

150th Year anniversary of the American Civil War ~ a blog documenting my personal journey and research riscoveries of the people, places, events, and other things related to the Civil War era.

May Hill’s WWII Diaries
Diary blog, UK genealogy

Blog editor Tom Ambridge is the grandson of May Hill, an English seaside villager who wrote wonderful diaries and poetry during WWII. Her diary began November 27, 1940. Each entry appears exactly 70 years after the original was written.

Minnesota Native Daughter
Individual family history, Minnesota genealogy

My Genealogy Obsession
Individual family history

My Journey Back
Canadian genealogy, Individual family history

My Savage Family
Individual family history (SAVAGE, UK->US)

Ontario Genealogist
Canadian genealogy, Individual family history

Polish families from Żywiec-Zabłocie, Polska
Individual family history, Polish genealogy

My Polish great grandpa was orphaned during the Chicago flu epidemic of 1918 & spent his life looking for all of his siblings. Some family stayed in Chicago & some returned to Poland. Some family was Catholic, & some are believed to be Jewish.

Prairie Bluestem
Individual family history

Saint Cross Upheaval
Individual family history

Stray Bones
Individual family history

Tipton Tales and Trails
Individual family history (TIPTON)

Vintage Aerial Blog
Genealogy vendor blog

Vintage Aerial connects personal memories and family history to photos of the places where the memories were made and the history took place. ... Our collection of over 25 million photographs spans the second half of the 20th century, documenting a time in American history when life revolved around rural communities and small farms. ... It uses the latest in digital imaging and data storage technology to preserve these heirlooms. We are saving yesterday’s memories with today’s technology, for the tomorrows to come.

Whispers From The Past/Tales Told
Individual family history (TOMLINSON-HEPWORTH-KIDGELL-CASHMORE-BURNS-MACDUFF-PERRINS-PHIPPEN-HUDSON, etc.)

Witch Genealogist with a Black Cat
Individual family history, Swedish genealogy

WorldFamilies.Net
DNA genealogy, Genealogy vendor blog, Surname blog (BARTON)

One of the largest Surname DNA Projects (250+ members) in the world, as well as a Barton family-wide historical society, newsletter, database, website. Evolved into World Families Network (2004) to help other Surname Projects by sharing learning and providing general information. ...

Read much more about each blog here at Geneabloggers.com, or visit those in which you may have an interest.

Poland: Nowy Zmigrod birth records

Some 1,400 new birth records for Nowy Zmigrod have been added to Jewish Records Indexing - Poland.

They cover the years 1866-1889, and were in the Skoyszyn branch of the Polish State Records.

Search the records in the JRI-Poland data base.

Data includes the names of parents, and may include the parents' year of marriage or a data of death for a child that did not survive.

Some 500 surnames are mentioned in the records. See the name list here.

The records also reference some 150 towns - often nearby shtetls - in addition to Nowy Zmigrod, and indicating where the mother or father was born. Most frequently mentioned are Biecz, Brzezowa, Desznica, Dukla, Gorlice, Grab, Halbow, Jasienica, Katy, Korczyna, Kotan, Krempna, Nowy Sacz, Tarnow and Toki.

For more information, contact town leader Phyllis Kramer.

Southern California: Polish Jewish research, Nov. 8

Learn about Polish Jewish research at the next meeting of the Jewish Genealogical Society of Conejo Valley on Monday, November 8, in Thousand Oaks, California.
The program begins at 7pm at Temple Adat Elohim, 2420 E. Hillcrest Drive.

Warren Blatt - JewishGen's managing director and editor-in-chief - will speak.

He will provide a general overview and introduction to researching Polish-Jewish ancestry. It will include: a history of Polish border changes, geography and place-name changes; how to find and locate your ancestral shtetl and historical information; the vital records-keeping system in Poland; how to find and translate birth, marriage and death records; Polish Jewish surnames and given names, language spelling and grammar issues; Yizkor books and landsmanschaftn; business directories; Polish Archives and Civil Registration Offices; using Mormon microfilms, Internet sources, and Special Interest Groups (SIGs) for Jewish genealogical research in Poland.

Also, Phoebe Frank, a JGSCV founding member, will demonstrate how she reproduced a 100-year-old challah cover for family members to use on Shabbat, in "Preserving heirlooms for future generations."
There is no fee to attend the meeting. For more information, send an email or see the JGSCV website.

New York: "Rebuilding Polish Lithuania 1919-1939," Nov. 8

Are your roots in Poland or Lithuania? Learn about a little-known period when American Jews helped rebuild Polish Lithuania, on Monday, November 8.

The program begins at 3pm, sponsored by The Podbrodz Society at YIVO, at the Center for Jewish History.

Assistant Professor of History Rebecca Kobrin (Columbia University) will speak on "Empire of Charity: American Jews and the Rebuilding of Polish Lithuania, 1919-1939."

From 1919-1939, Jewish emigres in the United States sent millions of dollars to rebuild their former homes throughout Polish Lithuania.

Kobrin's talk will focus on the role Jewish emigres and their philanthropy played in reshaping political, social and economic life in Brisk and Vilna, the two centers of Lithuanian Jewry.

The talk is free, but reservations are required.

Between 1919 and 1939, Jewish émigrés in the United States sent millions of dollars to rebuild their former homes scattered throughout Polish Lithuania. This talk focuses on the role Jewish émigrés and their philanthropy played in reshaping political, social, and economic life in Brisk and Vilna, the two historic intellectual centers of Lithuanian Jewry.

While the stated goal of Jewish émigré generosity was to relieve economic distress, it often caused a reshaping of Jews' understanding of their place in the new nation-states of Eastern Europe during this era of political and economic upheaval.

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.

Yizkor Book Project: September additions, updates

Thanks to many volunteers who translate, transliterate, transcribe and edit material, the Yizkor Book Project at JewishGen.org continues its growth.

During September, there were four new projects, three new entries and 29 updates to existing projects. The items are organized by country below:

(NP=new project, NE=new entry, U=update)

BELARUS
NE Soly, Belarus (Pinkas Poland)
U Gorodets, Belarus (Horodetz; history of a town, 1142-1942)
U Karelichy, Belarus (Korelitz; the life and destruction of a Jewish community)
U Slutsk, Belarus (Slutsk and vicinity memorial book)
U Stolin, Belarus (Stolin; a memorial to the Jewish communities of Stolin and vicinity)
U Svir, Belarus (There once was a town Swir; between the two world wars)

HUNGARY
NE Karcag, Hungary (Pinkas Hungary)

LITHUANIA
U Dotnuva, Lithuania (Letters from Dotnuva)
U Lithuania (Lite, vol.2)
U Lithuania (Encyclopaedia of Jewish Communities, Lithuania)
U Merkine, Lithuania (Meretch; a Jewish Town in Lithuania)
U Rokiskis, Lithuania (Yizkor book of Rakishok and environs)
U Svencionys, Lithuania (Svinzian region; memorial book of 23 Jewish communities)
U Valkininkai, Lithuania (Olkeniki in flames; a memorial book to Olkenik in the Vilna district)

POLAND
NP Frampol, Poland (Frampol book)
NE Przemysl, Ukraine (Pinkas Poland)
U Bedzin, Poland (A Memorial to the Jewish Community of Bedzin)
U Czestochowa, Poland (The Jews of Czestochowa)
U Dabrowa Gornicza, Poland (Book of Jewish community of Dabrowa Gornicza and its destruction)
U Debica, Poland (The Book of Dembitz)
U Grajewo, Poland (Grayewo Memorial Book)
U Jewish Music in Poland between the World Wars
U Kaluszyn, Poland (The Memorial Book of Kaluszyn)
U Katowice, Poland (Katowice: Rise and Decline of the Jewish community; Memorial Book)
U Kutno, Poland (Kutno and Surroundings Book)
U Ostrow-Mazowiecka, Poland (Memorial Book of Ostrow-Mazowiecka)
U Sanok, Poland (Memorial Book of Sanok and Vicinity)
U Serock, Poland (The Book of Serock)
U Siedlce, Poland (On the ruins of my home; the destruction of Siedlce)
U Tykocin, Poland (Memorial book of Tiktin)
U Zelechow, Poland (Memorial Book of the Community of Zelechow) [Polish]

ROMANIA
U Halmeu, Romania (In memory of the communities of Halmin-Turcz and vicinity)

UKRAINE
N Bol'shoy Zhelutsk, Ukraine (Memorial Book of the Community of Zoludzk)
NP Khust, Ukraine (The Jewish community in Chust and its surrounding villages)
NP Novoseltsy, Ukraine (Nova Sulita)
U Rivne, Ukraine (Rowno; a memorial to the Jewish community of Rowno, Wolyn)

Find all new additions and updates here.

Winnipeg: Galicia gen conference, Oct. 2

"Galicia: Multi-Ethnic Roots in Ukraine and Poland" is a full-day seminar scheduled by the East European Genealogical Society in Winnipeg (Manitoba, Canada), on Saturday, October 2.

The city is home to a large Ashkenazi Eastern European community, as well as large Ukrainian and Polish populations and EEGS experts will help those interested in tracing their roots.

The former Austrian province of Galicia is now western Ukraine and southeastern Poland.

Among the topics to be presented: how records of the people were kept; how to locate, read, and analyze them; languages (including Cyrillic), and more.

Speakers are internationally known authorities on Galician genealogical research Matthew Bielawa and Brian J. Lenius, both well-known to Jewish genealogists and to those with Galician roots.

Bielawa specializes in western Ukraine and eastern Galicia, has extensively lectured, written articles for journals and has a webpage, Genealogy of Halychyna/Eastern Galicia. He has conducted research in Ukraine, Poland and Russia, and holds a BA in Slavic and East European Studies (University of Connecticut), and an MA in Slavic Languages and Literature (New York University).

Lenius (Selkirk, Manitoba) has researched for more than 25 years in Galicia. He is author and publisher of the "Genealogical Gazetteer of Galicia: Expanded Data Edition," numerous articles on Galician and Austrian research published in Polish, Eastern European, and other genealogical periodicals. He has presented research-oriented lectures to numerous genealogical societies in Canada, USA, and Germany. Brian has undertaken 15 extended research trips in Poland, Ukraine, Austria, Czech Republic, and Germany greatly expanding resources available to North American genealogical researchers.

While Ukrainian and Polish roots will be covered in depth, other groups - German, Jewish, Mennonite, Armenian and Czech with roots in Galicia - will be covered according to attendance.

The location is Red River College’s Princess Street Campus. Registration: EEGS members, C$55; others, C$60. Meals are not included.

The seminar is open to 120 people only. For more information, see the East European Genealogy Society website, or request a registration form via email.

Poland: Nowy Dwor Jewish Cemetery, Memorial Project

Ze'ev Shaked has provided an update for descendants and friends of the Nowy Dwor Mazowiecki Project.

At left, a broken tombstone excavated in 2009.

For more information and photos, click here.

-- Fence and gate construction is ongoing and will be completed next month. Rabbi Michael Schudrich (chief rabbi of Poland) and his assistant are working with the construction company to ensure work is conducted according to Jewish law and tradition. Photos are on the website above. http://www.nowydworjewishmemorial.com/

-- Ze'ev will be in Nowy Dwor in mid-October to view the completed fence and gates and distribute final payment.


-- During his visit, he'll meet with the contractor to discuss the scope and preliminary cost estimate for the memorial, meet with the mayor and the city of Nowy Dwor to discuss the project's second phase; additional tombstones will be excavated before and during his visit; and he will spend a day at the archives to look at more names and certificates. An idea for the memorial's design was received from an Israeli retired architect, and logistics and cost will also be discussed.

-- Beginning in October 2010, organizing committee members in Israel and the US will initiate a major fundraising campaign for the memorial and completion of the entire project.

-- The dedication ceremony in 2011 will be either Tuesday, July 26, or Wednesday, July 27. Ceremony details and other events will be discussed with Nowy Dwor's mayor. The plan is to commemorate the Jewish cemetery's restoration and the memorial, but to celebrate the town's Jewish heritage. Events being considered: Jewish pre-war klezmer music concert, a Sholom Aleichem play or "Fiddler on the Roof" (the play) in Polish/Yiddish performed by local high school students, guided tour to Modlin, boat sailing on the Narew, and other events. By next year, the town will have at least 200 rooms for visitors.

-- The committee plans to invite Polish government dignitaries, the Israeli Ambassador to Poland and possibly dignitaries from Israel, as well Jewish representatives in the US Congress. Some families to include to visit Auschwitz after the events. Ze'ev would like to see the participation of Israeli high school students.

-- The project was recently covered by two Jewish papers in the US; the articles are on the project website. Project members who reside in towns and cities with Jewish publications are asked to work with them to publish a similar article.

-- US Congressman Barney Frank sent a letter of support to Nowy Dwor's mayor.

For more information, to donate, to assist in some way, see surnames associated with the town, see the project website at the link above, and contact information with project leaders. Visit the project on Facebook.

North Carolina: Shtetls and camps, Aug. 25

The daughter of Holocaust survivors - who has been researching her family history and looking for surviving relatives for more than 50 years - traveled to ancestral villages in Poland, Hungary, Slovakia and Germany.

Deborah Long will speak about her research trip on Wednesday, August 25. The dessert-and-discussion event, from 7.30-9.30pm, will be in a private home and is for the Durham-Chapel Hill Jewish Federation.

Long will recount her shocking 2009 unearthing of family artifacts that compelled her to visit ancestral villages in Slovakia, Poland and Hungary, and also to northern Germany to understand her parents' Holocaust history.

The presentation includes her methodology, her trip through shtetls and concentration camps and joyful discovery upon returning home.

A professional educator, Long has written more than 20 books, including a memoir about growing up as a child of survivors.

Those who donate $118 or more to the Durham-Chapel Hill Jewish Federation will receive a free copy of her book.

For more information, send an email or click here.

JRI-Poland: New FAQ, online contributions

Jewish Records Indexing-Poland executive director Stanley Diamond of Montreal advises readers that two additions have been made to the site.

There's a completely new FAQ and online credit card contributions will now be accepted.

Friends and supporters can make credit card contributions online and designate the town indexing projector projects to support at the same time.

See the JRI-Poland website, and the direct link to the contributions page.

The new FAQ has been rewritten by JRI-Poland Board Member Susan Stone and includes considerable additional information and detail.

Check JRI-Poland frequently for updated town information.

Food: Genealogy of gefilte fish

When my Teheran-born husband first heard "gefilte fish," he thought the name was "filthy fish." He soon learned that putting enough chrein (horseradish) on it made it palatable.

The Dallas Observer's Hanna Raskin offers a great story on the genealogy of this quintessential Ashkenazi holiday fare. It is a variation on "tell us what you eat, we'll tell you where you're from."

Gefilte fish, perhaps the most maligned food on the traditional Jewish High Holiday table, encodes its maker's ancestry as surely as hand-me-down stories and immigration papers, a local fishmonger says.

Jon Alexis of TJ's Fresh Seafood Market in Preston Forest Village claims he can almost always pinpoint where a customer's forebears first settled in the United States based on which fish they ask him to grind for their gefilte fish preparation. Although Alexis is quick to clarify his theory is based on purely anecdotal evidence -- "I don't want to upset anyone," he says -- he believes most recipes reflect a generations-old preference for certain flavors.

"These recipes are heritage, so you have that Antiques Roadshow thing," Alexis says.

Learn about the various mixtures of fish - pike, carp, whitefish, buffalo, tilapia, saltwater snapper - with a geographical tinge. Learn about the concoction with and without sugar, and what that might mean.

Nearly 50 years ago, someone suggested there was a "gefilte fish line" running about 40 miles east of Warsaw. West of it, it was sweet with sugar; to the east, it was hotter with chrein and pepper. Well-known to many Jewish genealogists searching Poland, many sugar refineries in Poland were owned by Jews and that's suggested as a possible reason.

Interestingly, though, nobody wanted credit for the sugary gefilte fish. Polish gentiles called it "Jewish fish" and Polish Jews called it "Polish fish." Gefilte fish has never been stylish.

Read the complete story at the link above, learn what a "fish dork" is, and read the comments.

IAJGS 2010: Out on a limb with JTA

Edmon J. Rodman was out on a limb at the recent 30th IAJGS International Conference on Jewish Genealogy.

The JTA writer spent several days at the Los Angeles conference investigating his wife's family story that they - SHEINBEIN - are descendants of the Vilna Gaon (1720-1797). It is a common claim and hard to confirm a connection to the famed Talmudic scholar of his age.

Read about his adventure here.

Rodman was among more than a thousand Jews who gathered desperately seeking not only Susan but Esther, Yankel and Morris. He was looking for Moishe Sheinbein, with whom the family tree starts, as created by cousin Fred and Judy Sheinbein.

"It's a family story passed down from generation to generation," Fred Sheinbein said of the Vilna Gaon descendancy. "We have a silver kiddish cup that we think belonged to the Gaon that has been passed down in our family from eldest son to eldest son. On Passover we use it as Elijah's cup."

To begin, I checked out the Gaon's portrait. Looks can be deceiving, but staring back at me over the centuries were the same eyes, brows and nose familiar to me from our wedding photos of my wife's grandmother, Sylvia Bierman, nee Sheinbein.

Among the people Rodman consulted for information on Moishe, who lived in the mid-19th century in Osava, Ukraine, was FamilySearch.Com's Dan Schylter, who told Rodman that Jewish Ukraine records in the Mormon Family History Library are not that good.

Rodman learned - as most of us have - that tracing family depends on readable records, geography, spelling and a lot of mazal (luck).

The conference appeared to be a virtual hotbed of genealogical serendipity.

As a result of computer searches, sessions like "Social Networking: New Horizons for Genealogists" and even genetic tests, the conventions foyer was with plenty of newly found cousins talking and hugging.

"I just found a relative I never knew I had," said Ellen Mark, the conference's translator coordinator, who discovered that her maternal grandmother had a sister through a recent translation of a Russian letter she had long kept.

She and others suggested I dig deeper into the conference's resource room.

In the computer room, he consulted Ina Getzoff of Delray Beach, Florida and accessed Ancestry.com's databases, but received too many hits. Adding in Osova and another location, Kolki, didn't help.

In the vendor room, he saw Chaim Freedman's book,"Eliyahu's Branches, The Descendants of the Vilna Gaon." The cross-index of more than 20,000 names produced a Sheinfeld and a Sheingold- no Sheinbein.

Andrea Massion suggested DNA testing, and Rodman found himself speaking to FamilyTreeDNA.com's partner and vice-president Max Blankfeld. He was just one swab away but hadn't yet experienced the "happy dance" moment that others had.

When I spoke on the phone with Rodman at the conference, he did tell me of one serendipitious moment when he discovered his wife's Sephardic maiden name - HASSON - on a display of photos from the Los Angeles Historical Society. A 1928 photo of Victor Hasson showed him in a flower delivery truck. His wife's uncle Lou confirmed Victor's connection.

And, as so many researchers find, a thread of another hunt replaced his Gaon search.

Maybe Rodman will find what he's looking for at next year's 2011 conference in Washington DC?

IAJGS 2010: Sunday, July 11 Opening

30th IAJGS International Conference on Jewish Genealogy co-chairs (from left) Pam Weisberger, Sandy Malek and Lois Rosen officially opened the event Sunday night.

The surprise of the evening was a parody production of "Who Cares Who You Think You Are?" starring Jordan Auslander with supporting roles by other well-known genealogists, with a cameo by Sing Sing Prison. One highlight was Karen Franklin helping Jordan look for information using Steve Morse's site. She types in SteveMorse.com, which, of course, is the rock star of the same name.

Steve and Anita Morse were sitting in the row behind me and he really seemed to enjoy this. Copies of this video are being sold for $25. Well worth it, so look for another announcement on that.

IAJGS president Michael Goldstein (photo left) announced the winner of the International Jewish Genealogy Month poster and displayed it on the large ballroom monitors.

Steve Smith of the Shoah Foundation gave a humorous talk on some of the foibles of registering at such a large conference, attended by more than 1,000. He introduced author Daniel Mendelsohn (see photo right below), who also had a strange experience as he tried to register (the address on his registration was wrong). I believe the entire opening ceremony was taped. If so, do order it.

The dessert reception followed, and included cupcakes with purple frosting (I only saw a few), rice krispie bars, cake, cookies and Entenmann's chocolate-covered, powder and glazed donuts.

Shmoozing went on until the wee hours of the morning, but I was exhausted and turned in before 11.30pm, as Thomas MacEntee, Lisa Louise Cooke and myself were scheduled for an 8.00am breakfast on social networking.