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.

Litvak SIG: Recent translated records update

If your ancestors lived in Lithuania, take a look at recently-translated records available on Litvak SIG. The updates represent thousands of records and lines added to available records.

The records were translated during October, November and December 2010, and will be added to the All Lithuania Database (ALD) 18 months after being received. Currently, they are available in various LitvakSIG District Research Group (DRG) websites. Click here for more information and click District Research.

District coordinators are Aaron Roetenberg (Kaunas Gubernia), Dorothy Leivers (Suwalki Gubernia) and Joel Ratner (Vilnius District)

From the LVIA:
Kaunas city - Births 1896-1906
Svencionys District 1874/1875, 1899/1908 ARL (Svencionys, Svir, Linkmenys, Lentupis, Adutiskis, Daugeliskis, Zhodishki, Kobylniki, Komaie)
Vilijampole (Kaunas) births  -1893-1895
Kaunas deaths - 1902-1906
Vilkija Marriages, Divorces-1922-26
Vilkija Deaths - 1922-1926
Svencionys JC-1858
Vilkaviskis (Suwalki) Births -1810-1811
Nemunatis (Trakai)  1851-1857
Kudirkos Naumiestis (Suwalki) 1874, 1882 Births
Kudirkos Naumiestis (Suwalki) 1874 Deaths
Vilijampole (Kaunas) births  1896-1909
Plunge deaths -1862 - 1887
Seirijai (Suwalki)Marriages - 1922-1926
Seirijai (Suwalki) Deaths - 1922-1926
Veisiejai(Suwalki) - 1922-1924,1926 - marriages, divorces
Taurage (Raseiniai) marriage records
Veisiejai (Suwalki) - 1922-1926 - deaths
Pilviskiai (Marijampole) Deaths - 1922-1926
Taurage (Raseiniai) 1922-1939 Deaths
Virbalis (Suwalki) Marriages/Divorces - 1922-1939
Virbalis (Suwalki) Deaths -1922-1939
Kybartai (Suwalki) Marriages/Div - 1922-1939
Kybartai (Suwalki) Deaths - 1922-1939
Preniai (Suwalki) marriages 1893-1914
Kaunas rabbinate marriages 1932-1934
Zemaiciu Naumiestis (Raseiniai) Marriages/Div- 1922-1939
Zemaiciu Naumiestis (Raseiniai) Deaths- 1922-1939

From  the Panevezys County Archive:
(PCA) Panevezys Jewish Property - 1940s
Prienai (Suwalki) Deaths - 1839-1863
Sakiai (Suwalki) Births - 1842-1847

From the KRA (Kaunas Regional Archive):
Pakruojis 1856-1858 - Rabbi Electors
Troskunai (Ukmerge) 1893-1915 postal bank records- Part 2
Ukmerge 1910-1915 - certificates - with photographs
Kraziai (Raseiniai) 1845-list of residents who suffered from fire
Rietavas (Raseiniai) 1854 - testimonies
Skirsnemune (Raseiniai) 1868 - real estate owners
Rietavas (Raseiniai) 1866-community representatives
Birzai (Panevezys)1845 taxpayers-unable to pay
Joniskelis (Panevezys)1845 taxpayers-unable to pay
Krekenava(Panevezys)1845 taxpayers-unable to pay
Linkuva(Panevezys)1845 taxpayers-unable to pay
Pakruojis (Panevezys) 1845 taxpayers-unable to pay
Kavarskas(Ukmerge) 1906 -rabbi electors
Zelva (Ukmerge) 1889 - rabbi electors - 59 lines
Zelva(Ukmerge) 1907-1910 - Muni electors
Zelva (Ukmerge) 1910 -  Muni electors
Utena (Ukmerge) 1896 - rabbi electors
Ukmerge (Ukmerge)1919  residents
Svedasai (Ukmerge) 1896 el-r
Taujenai (Ukmerge) 1906  el-m
Troskunai (Ukmerge) 1898 el-r
Ukmerge (Ukmerge) 1892 el- m
Utena (Ukmerge) 1844 taxpayers-unable to pay
Kavarskas (Ukmerge) 1847 box taxpayers
Troskunai (Ukmerge) 1912 box taxpayers
Kvetkai (Zarasai) 1912 municipal electors
Zelva (Ukmerge) 1844 - taxpayers unable to pay
Ukmerge District -1913- Jews living out of towns
Ukmerge  District -1847-3rd Guild merchants
Utena (Ukmerge) 1896-1908 passport registration books
Ukmerge District 1915-passport issuance book

Internal Passport Records:Some 3,000 additional translated lines added for Utena lists (Ukmerge), Alytus City, Panevezys and Marijampole.

Central Archive (Vilnius):
Jewish Prisoners-Lithuanian Prisons - 1922-1940

JewishGen: Worldwide Burial Registry update

JewishGen has added to its Online Worldwide Burial Registry (JOWBR) database with 171,000 new records, 32,700 new photos, 360 new cemeteries, updates/additions to another 213 cemeteries in 21 countries.

Total holdings now include more than1.57 million records from more than 3,050 cemeteries or sections in 47 countries.

To check the database, click here. Learn how to use it here.

Donors of material include individuals, Jewish genealogical societies, historical societies and museums, including dedicated transliteration by JewishGen volunteers. Here are the highlights:

• Lodz, Poland.  Added some 39,000 making a total of some 50,000 records from the “Organization of Former Residents of Lodz in Israel” burial registers. The next update will include surnames beginning with K, P, R and S. These will also be added to the JRI-Poland database.
• Melbourne, Australia.  The Melbourne Chevra Kadisha submitted more than 29,000 records from 49 cemeteries in Melbourne and environs.
• Wisconsin, USA.  The Jewish Museum Milwaukee submitted some 27,000 records from 50 state cemeteries
• South Africa.  Stan Hart submitted nearly 17,000 records from more than 135 cemeteries, and hope to add photos in future updates.
• Virginia / Maryland, USA.  The Jewish Genealogy Society of Greater Washington, Inc.  (DC) and a volunteer team (coordinated by Marlene Bishow, Ernie Fine and Harvey Kabaker) for 5,000 records and 4,800 photos from Arlington National Cemetery and more than 1,500 records from the B'nai Israel Congregation Cemetery (Oxon Hill, Maryland).
• Ontario, Canada.  Allen Halberstadt (lead contributor, Jewish Genealogical Society of Canada, Toronto’ Cemetery Project) submitted and updated some 120 cemeteries with 5,000 records from Bathurst Memorial, Lambton Mills, and Mount Sinai cemeteries. More than 4,000 photos from Dawes Road Cemetery are included.
• Georgia, USA.  Ruth Einstein (special projects coordinator, The Breman Jewish Heritage & Holocaust Museum; Atlanta, Georgia) submitted 4,000 new and updated records from 17 Atlanta area cemeteries.
• California, USA.  Peggy Hooper (California Genealogy and History Archives) submitted 3,400 records with photos from sections of Eden Memorial Park, Temple Beth Israel, Home of Peace (LA), and Home of Peace (San Diego) cemeteries. Eden Memorial photos were taken by Dr. William A. Mann.
• Czeladz – Będzin, Poland. Jeff Cymbler submitted more than 3,200 records and 3,100 accompanying photos.
• Florida, USA.
• Susan Steinfeld (cemetery project coordinator, Jewish Genealogy Society of Broward County) and her team submitted more than 3,000 record and photos from selected sections in Miami's Star of David Cemetery.
• Ina Getzoff (JOWBR coordinator, Jewish Genealogical Society of Palm Beach County)  submitted 150 new records and 450 photos from the South Florida National Cemetery.
• Petah Tikvah / Segulah, Israel.  Gilda Kurtzman refined records and added 3,000 new photos. Current holdings for this cemetery are now nearly 60,000 records and 17,000 photos. .
• Sighetu Marmaţiei, Romania. Vivian Kahn (H-SIG coordinator) for 2,950 records from the Sighetu Marmaţiei cemetery register, with more to come.
• Roman, Romania.  Claudia Greif and Rosanne Leeson submitted 2,100 records from the Roman cemetery register from Roman (Moldavia region, Romania).
• El Paso, Texas, USA.  Sandy Aaronson updated and photographed B’nai Zion and Temple Mt. Sinai cemeteries with 450 records and 2,100 photos.
• Ferndale, Michigan, USA.  Stuart Farber submitted 2,000 records from Beth Abraham Cemetery Association.
• St. Joseph, Missouri, USA.  Deena Sandusky submitted more than 1,700 records from Adath Joseph and Shaare Sholem Roches cemeteries.
• Latvia / Lithuania / Ukraine.  Christine Usdine permitted JOWBR to include various Latvian, Lithuanian and Ukrainian cemetery records and photos from her site at http://usdine.free.fr/ Translations are by Sarah Mages.
• St. Paul, Minnesota, USA.  Eileen Wegge (eighth grade public school teacher) who during her Holocaust history curriculum coordinated a cemetery indexing project with her students at Chesed Shel Emes Cemetery.
• Greensboro, North Carolina, USA. Gene Baruch indexed and photographed 1,000 stones at the Greensboro Hebrew Cemetery.
• South Carolina Cemeteries. Ann Hellman (president, Jewish Historical Society of South Carolina) for 1,000 additional records from various South Carolina cemeteries.

Without dedicated volunteers in all spheres of Jewish genealogy and history, researchers would have many fewer records to work with.

If you live in or near a Jewish cemetery or section that has not be catalogued, researched, photographed, now might be the time to start a project, either on your own or in conjunction with a local genealogical or historical society. These types of records and photos are invaluable to researchers living around the world who may never make it your town, city, state or country. Your contribution of material can potentially help thousands of researchers globally.

You might even belong to or know of a local group or organization which may already have such records or photos in their own archives. Perhaps they may wish to donate that material so that a wider audience might find it useful.

For more information, check out the JOWBR link above or contact JewishGen's vice-president of data acquisition (and JOWBR coordinator) Nolan Altman through that link.

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.

JGSLA 2010: The gift of life

The annual international Jewish genealogy conferences have included many DNA and genetics topics over recent years. This year offers even more sessions.

What's new this year are three opportunities to help others through medical studies and bone marrow testing.

Conference-goers can give something back this year - including the gift of life - to the Jewish community and to those exploring their Jewish heritage.

Tracing the Tribe's readers have likely all read about the two new DNA studies. NYU's Dr. Harry Ostrer will be speaking in Los Angeles and was recently quoted in the New York Times.

"Jewish communities in Europe and the Middle East share many genes inherited from the ancestral Jewish population that lived in the Middle East some 3,000 years ago, even though each community also carries genes from other sources — usually the country in which it lives. That is the conclusion of two new genetic surveys, the first to use genome-wide scanning devices to compare many Jewish communities around the world..." (click here for more)

Ostrer will speak on this topic at 8.45pm, Monday evening, July 12, as he discusses his soon-to-be-published new book "Legacy: A Genetic History of the Jewish People."

For two years, he and his colleagues have DNA-analyzed the whole genomes of 16 Jewish groups (Iranian, Iraqi, Yemenite, Georgian, Syrian, Italian, Turkish, Greek, Ashkenazi, Ethiopian, Libyan, Tunisian, Djerban, Algerian, Moroccan, and Bene Israel) and compared patterns of variation with each other and those of worldwide non-Jewish groups. The studies have demonstrated that the history of the Jewish Diasporas is reflected in the genomes of Jewish people. The studies are being extended to other Jewish groups and to possible reconstruction of Eastern European Jewish communities.

Ostrer will - at the conference - recruit individuals to enroll in the Ashkenazi Jewish Single Origins Study, which seeks participants who have documented evidence that all four grandparents came from the same exact geographic area and lived within a certain mile radius of each other. Click here to complete a brief eligibility questionnaire.

This will allow Ostrer to determine if you are eligible and follow up to arrange an enrollment appointment at the conference. His table will be next to the Hospitality Desk in the conference center foyer, across from the Resource Room. Completing this survey or making an appointment is not a commitment to participate in the study. Learn more here.

The second opportunity is being offered by Ostrer's associate Lauren Carpiniello, who will be recruiting Ashkenazi Jewish women for an NYU Women's Breast and Ovarian Cancer Genetics Study withtwo primary goals:

1- Investigate unknown genes that may be responsible for hereditary breast and/or ovarian cancer.

2- Identify modifier genes that may interact with known hereditary breast and/or ovarian cancer genes (i.e. BRCA1 and BRCA2) to protect some individuals from getting cancer.

They hope the study will provide individuals with a more personalized assessment on their risk to develop breast or ovarian cancer and offer some families additional testing in regards to their strong family history of breast and ovarian cancer. This is an anonymous study; therefore, no genetic results will be reported to individuals through this study.

Results will be released for the study population as a whole and will serve to benefit the Ashkenazi Jewish population as a whole. To see if you qualify, follow this link.

Ostrer and Carpiniello will be at their foyer table from Sunday through Tuesday, July 11-13, at the conference. Learn more about the study here.

The third opportunity is a Bone Marrow Donation Drive at the IAJGS Conference (AKA "Friends, Romans, Countrymen, Lend Me Your Spit!")

The conference is partnering with the non-profit Gift of Life, which focuses on finding bone marrow donors for patients in the Jewish community.

Gift Of Life volunteers will have a table at the conference during the first few days, so attendees can easily join the international bone marrow registry.

Those who need bone marrow donors are more likely to find a suitable genetic match among his or her own family members or ethnic group. The Jewish population is smaller than others, so finding a close genetic match is hard.

According to the organization, the chances of finding a suitable genetic match are as follows:

-- An Ashkenazi Jew: only a 70% chance
-- A Sephardic person: only a 30% chance
-- A half-Ashkenazi, half-Sephardi person: only a 6% chance

The stats are that bad, and not much better when Israeli donor databases are searched.

The same genetic and social isolation that makes Jewish family history so interesting can be devastating when looking for close genetic matches. The best way to help is by recruiting more people, and JGSLA 2010 wants to help increase the chances to find matches.

To improve the odds, more people must test - those who are ethnically Jewish or partly Jewish. Each attendee who joins the registry through the conference will be listed in the Donor Circle, enabling the group to track how many lives are saved in the future by those who signed up at the conference.

The test is painless and quick: A swab of the inside of your check and completing a simple form.

Each year, one in every 1,000 people in the registry saves a life through a marrow donation.

With more than 1,000 people - most ethnically Jewish - anticipated at the event, the conference committee believes this provides an important opportunity.

If you cannot attend the conference from July 11-16, you can still hep by ordering a test kit online ($54) to be mailed to your home. Use this link, read the guidelines and follow the instructions. Make sure to choose the JGSLA2010 Donor Circle.

If you cannot join the registry due to age or medical condition, you can still help: 1- adopt the cost of getting another person's test kit stored in a backlog of not-yet-analyzed kits; and 2- ask your children, nieces, nephews or other relatives to join the registry instead,

Click here to learn more about the bone marow drive.

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.

JGSLA 2010: Volunteers needed

Frequent conference attendees will tell you that an excellent way to meet new people and connect with those sharing your interests is to volunteer in various ways before or during the conference.

JGSLA 2010 has put out a public call for volunteers, via conference volunteer coordinator Lois Rosen. (See below for some important jobs that need the right person now!)

A major conference like this relies on an army of volunteers in so many areas. Some jobs can be done from home prior to the conference, others are focused on helping during the conference.

Do you have time to help before or during the conference?

During the conference, help is needed in all areas to help staff important locations, such as registration, hospitality, resource and more.

Volunteering your time adds to the success of the event, and also helps you meet new people and make new friends.

Here are just some of the possibilities:
Hospitality volunteers/Greeters
Registration volunteers
Resource Room staff
Film Festival or Screening Room staff
Tour chaperones or guides
Translators
Computer or tech support volunteers
Outreach to are synagogues
Outreach to area Jewish organizations, schools, or youth groups
and many more opportunities!

Before the conference, there are other jobs that need to be done. Frequent conference attendees who arrive early know all about bag-stuffing! But there's much more.

Volunteers needed now:

Banquet Journal: Volunteers needed for Ad Solictor and Ad Layout.

Volunteer Scheduling Coordinator: This is a major job and carries a perk (free conference registration).

Carpenter/Artist: For the handy creative types out there: A carpenter/artist volunteer is needed to create a directional sign post for the Market Square event. This needs include arrows showing the distance to, for example, Minsk or Warsaw. Tracing the Tribe is assuming distances will be measured from Los Angeles.

There are many other jobs you can do. See the next Tracing the Tribe post which details some ways that you can help, no matter where you live.

Click here to learn all about volunteering for the JGSLA 2010 event or email volunteer coordinator Lois Rosen for more information.

Shanghai: Polish citizen registration book online

JRI-Poland now features the 918 index entries of Polish Jewish refugees who visited the Polish Consulate in Shanghai from 1934-41.

For more on the database, click here to learn more about the records and Jews in China.

In a 1992 visit to the Polish Consulate in Shanghai, Dr. Jonathan Goldstein, then a research associate at Harvard University's Fairbank Center for East Asian Research, and three other scholars, were shown a 200-page register listing Polish citizens who passed through Shanghai between January 9, 1934 and December 16, 1941.

This register was the standard one used by Polish diplomatic missions around the world to record their citizens who called on the Consulate, whether they were visiting or residing in the country. Typically, these records enabled the missions to provide consular services, invite its citizens for celebrations of national days, or contact them for other official reasons.

The following information was recorded in the register in Polish:
Registration number
Registration date
Full name of registrant (maiden name, if provided)
His or her profession
Religion (Mojzeszowa for Jewish)
Birth date and place
Marital status
Last known address in Poland (non-existent for most Jews)
Address in the consular region
Documents submitted (usually a passport)
Name and birth date and place of wife and children
Passport expiry date
Remarks

The register covers two pages; here is a sample page:

The JRI-Poland Index includes the following fields:

Registration Number
Date entered in register
Surname
Maiden Name (if provided)
Given Names
Place of Birth as Written
Place of Birth - Current Name (if different)
Current Country of Place of Birth
Date of Birth
Marital Status

In line with the the cooperative arrangement with JewishGen, which hosts JRI-Poland's database and website, the Polish citizen database will also be included in the All Poland Database and the JewishGen Holocaust Database.

JRI-Poland has created digital images of the register pages and will send electronic copies of the relevant pages to interested researchers. Contact Mark Halpern to obtain a copy of the page for individuals in the database.

JRI-Poland volunteer Peter Nash (of Australia) has documented and shared his knowledge of Jewish research in China. He and his parents were German refugees in Shanghai. JRI-Poland has reprinted Peter's excellent paper (presented at the New York 2006 international conference on Jewish genealogy), "China - Unusual Resources for Family Research." Read it here.

Projects like this cannot be accomplished without the input, hard work and cooperation of numerous individuals. Mark Halpern of JRI-Poland specifically thanks Selma Neubauer (Jewish Genealogical Society of Greater Philadelphia) and JGSGP volunteers for creating the database.

Former Sino-Judaic Institute president Dr. Albert Dein provided copies of the Shanghai Consulate register, Peter Nash reviewed the database and the webpages, Michael Tobias for placing the database online, and Hadassah Lipsius and her web team for creating the webpages.

Necrology Database: 12,000 new entries

The JewishGen Yizkor Book Necrology Database has added more than 12,000 new entries from 27 Yizkor Books:

Belarus:
Byten (190 entries)
Lakhva (432)
Naliboki (190)

Lithuania:
Skuodas (288)

Moldova:
Marculesti (272)

Poland:
Baranow Sandomierski (161)
Bielsko-Biala (61)
Brzeziny (868)
Chorzele (248)
Czyzew-Osada (62)
Golub-Dobrzyn (43)
Kutno (510)
Lomazy (979)
Lubartow (75)
Sierpc (747)
Strzegowo (34)
Tyszowce (614)
Wieleczka (327)
Wielun (1,897)

Romania:
Tasnad (32)

Ukraine:
Berestechko (474)
Dobromil (65)
Kamyanets-Podilskyy (57)
Komarno (151)
Ozerna (392)
Tovste (702)]
Vladimirets (1,124)

Search the Necrology Database here. It indexes names of Holocaust martyrs listed in the necrologies in Yizkor books at the Yizkor Book Project. It is only a name index, and directs readers back to the Yizkor book in question, where more details may be found.

The database now has more than 215,000 entries from 241 different Yizkor Books.

Warren Blatt, JewishGen managing director, thanks such dedicated individuals as Michael Tobias, Max Heffler, Lance Ackerfeld as well as donors and translators. Yad Vashem gets special mention for contributing the necrologies to the website. Additional volunteers are sought to continue the project. Contact Warren for more information.

New York City: 1901-1907 birth index online

Thanks to the German Genealogy Group and the Italian Genealogical Group, there is now an online index to New York City births; 1901-1907 are available now, and the complete index will run from 1881-1909.

I've checked out my families of interest and realize I will have some work to do to sort out the FINKs and BANKs who were in New York that early.

A caveat: researchers should know that about a quarter of all pre-1910 births were not reported as many took place at home and attending doctors or midwives did not report the event to the authorities. If your ancestors are not in this index, go to census records and other supporting documents.

Volunteers, representing many ethnic and religious groups, have spent many hours compiling these indexes and others already completed (other vital and naturalization records). The amazing John Martino of the IGG is the spearhead of this volunteer army.

For more information, visit the German Genealogy Group or the Italian Genealogical Group.

Additionally, Steve Morse has already created a One-Step search tool for these records.

The birth records are on microfilm at the NYC Municipal Archives; copies made be ordered online or by mail. For more details, click here.

The microfilms of these records are always available at the main Family History Library in Salt Lake City. Researchers elsewhere in the US and many other countries (not in Israel) may order the films from SLC and view them at their local Family History Center branches. Search the FamilySearch.org catalog for each borough of New York City to find the microfilm reel numbers.

Wanted: Yizkor Book project needs help

The Yizkor Book Project at JewishGen needs a few good men or women.

If you'd like to get involved, this worthy project needs the following volunteers:

Editor: Necessary skills to check grammar and form of text submissions.

Transliterations Editor: Familiarity with Jewish names transliteration rules and/or is well equipped with reference books.

HTMLer: Familiarity with HTML coding.

Yizkor Book Project manager Lance Ackerfeld would like to hear from you if you have the required specialized and organizational skills, and can volunteer some time to perform these tasks.

These are volunteer positions; payment is in appreciation from the Project and Yizkor Book readers.

Tracing the Tribe readers who are interested should contact Lance.

Philly 2009: An offer you can't refuse!

Jewish genealogy film festival coordinator Pamela Weisberger is making an offer that conference attendees should consider.

Pam is calling for volunteers to staff the film festival room throughout the conference, morning to evening.

It's a great opportunity to see some wonderful films and meet some terrific filmmakers up close. The only requirements are knowing how to run a DVD player, turning lights off and on, adjusting sound levels.

Being organized also helps as it will be your job to switch over from one film to the next on our tight schedule, and make sure the films run on time.If you plan to go to see several films anyway, consider volunteering to be in charge for a few of them.

Pam would prefer to have volunteers work in shifts from 2-5 hours for continuity. Films will run until 10.30pm most nights.

Now for the really interesting part:

- Are you traveling with someone who is not attending the conference? If they volunteer for four hours on one day, they can attend lectures for the rest of that day for free.

- Do you have film buff friends in the Philadelphia area? The offer holds for them as well, as long as they are not JGSGP members.

- It's a great opportunity for responsible high school/college students or seniors,. You can even work in pairs.

See the film schedule here. Many films will have speakers taking Q&A to add to the experience.

If you or someone you know is interested in helping, contact Pam for more information.

MyHeritage: An army of translators

Did you know that MyHeritage.com is available in 34 languages?

Although many staffers at the company are bilingual and a good number are multilingual, 34 languages means that others are needed. The site has an entire army of volunteer translators - more than 80 currently help with 30 languages.

Some of them work on Family Tree Builder, some translate webpages and some do both. Many of these volunteers have their own websites and also know MyHeritage very well.

Daniel Horowitz is MyHeritage's genealogy and translation manager - his own languages include Spanish, Yiddish, Hebrew and English.

Among the volunteers' languages - not alphabetically - are Italian, French, Portuguese, Norwegian, Finnish, Czech, Estonian, Croatian, Swedish, Slovenian, Catalan, Romanian, Dutch, Hungarian, Lithuanian, Greek, Latvian, Uzbek, German, Arabic, Polish, Slovak, Afrikaans and Albanian.

Genealogy is an international endeavor. Technological innovation, new resources and cooperation are key to reaching even more people around the world.

Hungary: Jewish Vital Records Project grows

Does your family history connect to Hungary? Do you know where to find records? JewishGen is a good place to start.

Did you know that Jewish Gen's All-Hungarian Database (AHD) has been increased with an additional 105,000 new vital records. The AHD now includes some 800,000 records (180,000 birth, 45,000 death, and 25,000 marriage).

Thirteen databases are incorporated into the AHD: including 1828 property tax census, 1848 Jewish census, 1869 Hungarian Census, 1781-1850 other censuses; births, deaths and marriages databases; Holocaust Memorials, Who's Who in Budapest 1837 and 1845, Yizkor book necrologies, Holocaust Database, JewishGen Family Finder, and the JewishGen Online Worldwide. Burial Registry. Click here to learn more about each database.

Here's a map showing (circa1900) the ratio of Jewish residents in geographic areas. The darker the area, the higher the percentage of Jewish residents.


Geographical locations for records include Bezi, Budapest, Csenger, Eger, Erdotelek, Erk, Eperejes, Fuzesabony, Gyomore, Gyongyos, Hodasz, Jarmi, Kassa, Kemcse, Kisleta, Koszeg, Mateszalka, Miskolc, Moson, Sztropko, Szeged, Szobrance, and Vag Besztercze.

Still ongoing are the records for Budapest, Gyongyos, Miskolc and Szeged. Today, the database includes 20,000 records from Miskolc and 60,000 from Budapest.

This efforts was made possible by many volunteers who contributed their time, effort and skill to the preservation of these valuable resources. For more information on the volunteers (there were too many to list here) see the AHD site.

The Hungarian Vital Records Project coordinator is Sam Schleman of Malvern, Pennsylvania.

The AHD contains multiple databases searchable on one form. These databases have been contributed by the JewishGen Hungarian Special Interest Group (H-SIG) and individual donors.

The combined databases have over 660,000 entries, referring to individuals living in the current and former territory of Hungary — this includes present-day Hungary, Slovakia, Croatia, northern Serbia, northwestern Romania, and subcarpathian Ukraine. The database is a work in progress and new entries are being added regularly.

There is a volunteer opportunity for transcribers as the project is now working on the Budapest records, including the Orthodox community, and for the towns of Miskolc, Anarcs, Apagy, Baja, Papa, Sopron, Szeged and Lackenbach. According to Schleman, no language skills are required. Their philosophy is to use as many transcribers as possible to lighten the workload. If you'd like to volunteer, email Sam.

The Internet: Lost in Translation

Does the Web speak your language? Volunteers around the world are trying to help it do just that.

The New York Times' Prototype column, by Leslie Berlin, just carried a story on volunteer and machine translation projects.

In the early years of the Web, nearly all of its content appeared in English. But that is changing quickly. Today, articles on Wikipedia are available in more than 200 languages, for example.

And about 36 percent of the seven million blogs running on WordPress, a free software platform, are in languages other than English, according to the founder Matt Mullenweg.
Leonard Chien, a translator, volunteers his skills at the Global Voices site. Such changes create a challenge, says Ethan Zuckerman, a research fellow at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard.

“We are all experiencing a smaller Internet than we should be,” he said. “In the user-created Web, we’ve created a weird dynamic where there is more out there every day — some of it important — but each person can individually read less of it because it’s in multiple languages.”

Translations serves are both automated and human and help to translate what Zuckerman calls the "polyglot" Internet. Machine translation is now free at Google Translate (and other sites) which offers 41 languages. Enter a block of text and the machine-translation appears immediately.

A neat feature is that Google Translate can translate a search term and then hunt for it on foreign-language sites. Hits will appear in both the target language and translated back into the original. I used this feature to search for a "lost" TALALAY - an astro-physicist at a university in the far-off Urals in Russia, and found not only him, but his son.

Machine translations may help with basic texts but non-Romance languages and complex subjects may be too difficult. Today, volunteers are providing a free, human touch.

Leonard Chien, a student and professional translator and interpreter living in Taiwan, charges $100 an hour as an interpreter. But two to three hours a day, he volunteers his translation skills to Global Voices, a citizen journalist site founded by Mr. Zuckerman and Rebecca MacKinnon. There, Mr. Chien translates posts from around the world into Chinese.

Mr. Chien is co-director of the Global Voices translation project, called Lingua, which uses volunteers to translate Global Voices posts into 15 languages. He receives a small monthly stipend for his work as a director, he says, but he is happy to donate his time as a translator.

“I am always excited to see new stories are up,” he says. “I want to tell my readers, but in different languages.”

Last month, 104 people volunteered as Lingua translators. Other global volunteers participate in the “Google in Your Language” program, helping it translate features into 120 languages.

Why do these people volunteer? Genealogists are well aware of how volunteers have changed the face of our favorite hobby, as so many dedicated individuals around the world provide their expertise to help others who are linguistically-challenged.

A Damascus-based Arabic-English translator volunteers 15-20 hours a week. It also brings him exposure and experience and he enjoys the "challenge of translating between two very linguistically and culturally different languages.”

A Möhnesee, Germany graphic designer says he has spent 62 hours translating conference talks into German and is "inspired by the content itself.

Read abut the TED conference in the story. The event began the video-translation project expecting to use professional translators, even though the site had received unsolicited translations from fans of some talks.

“We thought professional translation was the only way to ensure high-quality work,” explains June Cohen, executive producer of TED Media. The shift to volunteer translators came last fall, after Ms. Cohen and her colleagues — the roughly 20 full-time employees speak 14 languages among them, she says — read
several volunteers’ translations and were impressed.

“The volunteers are deeply committed to making the best translation, and they don’t care how long it takes them,” she explains. “There is a passion there that you don’t get from hired guns.”

It is also cheaper. A professional translation company, says Cohen, would charge $500,000 for the work volunteers have already done or that's in progress.

As far as quality control, some services require a review by a second translator and have translators sign their work.

Is there a middle ground between machines and humans?

A company called Meedan.net is trying to do just that. At the site, where English and Arabic speakers discuss the Middle East, postings automatically appear in the other language (translated by machine and tweaked by humans).

Read the complete article at the link above.