Boston: Hands-On Problem Solving, Feb. 21

The Jewish Genealogical Society of Greater Boston will host “Problem Solving with Experts – A Research Session” on Sunday, February 21.

It begins at 1:30 pm at Temple Emanuel, 385 Ward St., Newton Centre.

Beginners as well as more experienced attendees will be able to consult with experts for help with family research.

Roundtables will feature the following topics:

-- Getting started with Jewish genealogy
-- Using immigration, naturalization, and vital records
-- Eastern European country-specific research
-- Translation of foreign-language documents (Yiddish, Hebrew, Polish, Russian, German)
-- Holocaust research

Admission: members, free; others, $5. Refreshments will be served. For directions, click here.

For more information, visit JGSGB.

Long Island: Suddenly Jewish, Feb. 21

Roma Baran will present "Suddenly Jewish" at the next meeting of the Jewish Genealogical Society of Long Island on Sunday, February 21.

The program begins at 2pm, at the Mid-Island Y-JCC, 45 Manetto Hill Road, Plainview, NY.

In August 2008, at the age of 61, Roma Baran received a stunning email from a Jewish genealogist looking for heirs to a small estate of a Holocaust survivor -- her father's cousin – and learned that her casually Christian parents, and the whole rest of her family were not Polish Catholics, but Jews, including a rabbi and a Warsaw ghetto leader, and that her parents had survived the Holocaust under assumed names.

She learned that not only were her family's names and identities false, but that she had actually lived in Israel, 1949-1951.

Baran will describe -- with photos, documents and maps -- how she systematically reconstructed her past over the last year. She will focus on the Galizianer side of her family, and will include her new research on her father's Warsaw family.


She will trace her parents' war-time escape from the Przemysl ghetto to Tarnawa, Krakow, and other towns, and their post-war journeys to Israel and Canada. She will also examine the emotional consequences of uncovering family secrets of staggering proportions.

Baran - a producer, engineer, musician and attorney - grew up in Montreal, and has lived in New York City since 1976.

Jamboree 2010: Chris Haley is keynote speaker

In the 1970s, television revolutionized genealogy as a pursuit we can all follow.

With the publishing of Alex Haley's book - "Roots" - and the television production that followed, people around the world were inspired to begin wondering about their own roots.

The Southern California Genealogical Society's Jamboree 2010 (June 11-13) will feature a special guest, when the Friday night banquet keynote speaker will be Chris Haley, nephew of author Alex Haley.

An actor, musician and genealogist, Christ will speak about how genealogy has both changed and remained the same over the years.

"My Genealogy: Now and Then” will include family photos, documents, music and thoughts on his dual African and Scottish heritage. The story of his genetic discovery and reunion with relatives from the British Isles was covered in the media and is featured on Ancestry.com’s introductory DNA page.

Do you need even more incentive to attend the dinner?

How about this? One lucky banquet attendee will win an autographed, first edition copy of "Roots."

This presentation is sure to entertain, educate and engage.

Register for Jamboree, including the banquet and other special events, at the SCGS website.

DNA: FamilyTreeDNA launches Family Finder

Are you ready for the next revolution in genetic genealogy?

FamilyTreeDNA.com has announced its new Family Finder. The test will be available in mid-March.

“This is the most exciting genetic genealogy breakthrough since the company launched its Y-DNA test, which uncovered relatives in the direct paternal line,” says Bennett Greenspan, FamilyTreeDNA founder and president, in an email to company project administrators today.

The science is simple: linked blocks of DNA across the 22 autosomal chromosomes are matched between two people. The degree of matching yields evidence for the relationship.

A limited number of the company's current customers are being offered the Family Finder Test during the pre-launch. The company anticipates a general release of the test in mid-March for $249.

For more information, click here.

Here are some features:

While the Y-DNA matches men with a specific paternal line, and the mtDNA finds potential relatives only along the maternal line, Family Finder can look for close relationships along all ancestral lines.

You may now match to male and female cousins from any of your family lines within five generations. The science behind it uses linked blocks of DNA across the 22 autosomal chromosomes and matches them between two people. Based on this concept, our bioinformatics team has worked extensively to develop the calculations that would tell you the closeness of the relationship.

The possibilities include: Aunts and uncles, parent and grandparents, half-siblings and first, second, third and fourth cousins. Possibly even fifth cousins and beyond

When you take the Family Finder test, your results are compared against our Family Finder database. You will be able to: sort your matches by degree of relationship, view their names and e-mail address for immediate communication and download your raw data.

-- Match with five generations of family

With the new Family Finder test, discover connections to descendants of all 16 of your great-great-grandparents! As it opens avenues for traditional research, discover hidden connections that could explain a family's migrations.


-- Adoptees discover their heritage

With the power of an autosomal DNA test, confidently match to male and female cousins from any of your family lines, which can provide clues to learn more about your biological parents' families. Every adopted person, or those who know that one of their parents or grandparents was adopted, will want to order a Family Finder test to help identify close and distant relatives.

-- Introducing Family Finder Projects

A new way of looking for cousins means a new type of FamilyTreeDNA.com project:

Family Finder Projects allow for analysis and comparisons between you and all members of a project. Compare all at once with the Family Finder “Viewer” and other genetic analytical tools.

The new test and project tools integrate with an existing Family Tree DNA project to take it to the “next level.”

Surname projects can use Family Finder to better define branches in a family tree. By using Family Finder testing, close Y-chromosome matches without traditional records may be assigned to a pedigree with greater confidence. Even more exciting, surname projects may now bring female cousins into the project as additional evidence.

Regional projects can discover real relationships. Explore lost family connections hidden behind migrations. New clues open avenues for more traditional paper trail research. Those with close or perfect Y-chromosome matches between different surnames can now untangle their relationships.

View a short presentation by FamilyTreeDNA.com founder and president Bennett Greenspan as he explains how the Family Finder test may open doors to the discovery of your close and distant relatives. WATCH NOW.

CAVEAT: For the company's current customers, the new Family Finder test requires an untouched vial of DNA. If your kit does not have an extra vial on file, FamilyTreeDNA will mail a collection kit for a new FREE DNA extraction. After ordering the test, current customers will be notified by email if a stored vial can be used or a new vial is required.

Spain: Lleida's 14th-century Jewish community

Does the city Lleida or Lerida, in Catalunya ring a bell for Sephardic researchers?

There were two Jewish neighborhoods in the town - Cuirassa and Cuirassola - some 140km northwest of Barcelona.

The Lleida community was virtually destroyed in the 1391 riots, massacres and mass forced conversions; an attempt to reconstitute it years later never got very far.

There were Jewish communities in nearby villages as well - such as Alfés - which has numerous buildings with six-pointed symbols - una estrella de 6 puntes - above their entrance doors (see photos at left and below right). Some scholars and historians believe that these symbols were substituted for the six-pointed magen david.

In Converso communities elsewhere in the world - such as in New Mexico (according to Dr. Stanley Hordes and other historians), similar images are carved on gravestones.

Lleida's archives, housed in the Cathedral, are a treasure trove of documents for those who may have a connection to the ancient Jewish community.

On my most recent visit to the archives - a few years ago - with my good friend and excellent researcher Maria Jose Surribas, they had just received a computer and, for the first time, were entering and cataloging thousands of documents.

Maria Jose discovered a TALALAY (TALAYA, TALAY - there are various spellings) document dated 1358 in the archives, and others in towns not far away. Research in Barcelona's Crown of Aragon archives turned up a few other mentions of the family through 1396.

There is a Jewish cultural society in Lleida - TARBUT Amics Lleidatans de la Cultura Hebrea - providing programming, talks and conferences focused on the Jewish community.

Just a few days go, on February 12, the group held a conference - The Jewish Community of Lleida in the Middle Ages: Between 'Convivencia' and Segregation" - announced by Dr. Joan J. Busqueta, Faculty of Letters, University of Lleida.

For more information on Tarbut, visit the site at the link above, although it is mostly in Catalan.

New York: Old Records Division treasures, Feb. 21

New York City's Division of Old Records holds many important genealogical records.

Joseph Van Nostrand, of the New York County Clerk's office, will demonstrate what researchers can find in division records at the next Jewish Genealogical Society of New York meeting on Sunday, February 21.

“Treasure Hunt at the Division of Old Records” begins at 2pm at the Center for Jewish History in Manhattan. See the JGSNY website for address, directions and more information.

His talk will cover the use and interrelationship of various record series at the Division, for use in genealogy. It will include information in New York County naturalizations (1792-1924) with emphasis on records before and after 1895.

Additionally, the census records for 1855, 1870, 1905, 1915 and 1925 and the diverse data and access will be explored. He'll also address business records, civil court proceedings and more. Court proceedings cover divorces, guardianships, name changes, foreclosures and other tort actions.

Van Nostrand has been the supervising archivist at the Division of Old Records of the New York County Clerk for almost 30 years. He earned a BA (History) from Fordham University and an MA (American History) from NYU.

He's a trustee and officer for two non-profit corporations concerned with the preservation and use of historical records.

Since the inception of the Local Government Records Management Improvement Fund by the New York State Archives, he has successfully written grants for over $1 million for the conservation treatment of colonial and early national court minute books, microfilming and scanning of court records, and the creation of database indexes to search pre-1911 court records by both plaintiff and defendant.

In recognition of his achievements, he was awarded the 2009 Bernard B. Botein Award for "outstanding contributions to the administration of the courts," by the New York State Supreme Court's Appellate Division.

The Ackman & Ziff Family Genealogy Institute at CJH will be open 12.30-1.45pm for networking.

For more information, visit the Jewish Genealogical Society of New York.

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.

Cairo Geniza: Digitizing project underway

The Cairo Geniza, with some 200,000 documents and fragments, was discovered in the late 19th-century, in Old Cairo's Ben Ezra Synagogue annex in Fustat.

It is a rich source of genealogical information as well as documents - from the 9th-14th centuries - which include rabbinical court records, leases, deeds, endowment contracts, debt acknowledgments, marriage contracts and private letters.

The collection demonstrates the history of Jews in the region during the Middle Ages as well as information on religious beliefs and practices, economic and cultural life.

Today, technology is making it possible for everyone to access these treasures as the collection is being digitized.

Autograph draft of Mishneh Torah, the legal code compiled by

the rabbinic authority, philosopher and royal physician

Moses ben Maimon (Maimonides, 1137/8-1204)

MS.Heb.d.32, fols.50b-51a

Learn more here.

The project is important because pieces of the Geniza are today in many institutions; even manuscripts were separated by single leaves and located in different places, making it difficult to understand the importance or significance of the whole item.

One major collection of 25,000 items, is at Oxford University's Bodleian Library, which possesses liturgical manuscripts and rare Talmud fragments among its holdings. These are unusual because 16th-century Europe experienced mass burnings of Talmud manuscripts.

Technology contributes to the study of these fragments and major libraries are, or have completed, digitizing their collections. The goal is to generate a worldwide database of digitized images, thereby enhancing the accessibility of the various collections and bringing them together. Other institutions involved are Cambridge University, Jewish Theological Seminary, John Ryland Library and the University of Pennsylvania.

Digital communications pioneer and philanthropist George Blumenthal of New York ( president, Center for Online Jewish Studies) and donated his organization's professional services to this project.

The ability to compare fragments in Oxford with those in Philadelphia, New York, Cambridge and Manchester will enable global scholars to access these collections and to identify matching fragments in different collections.