USHMM: Soviet Jewish officers and Germany, March 18

"Jewish Revenge? Soviet Jewish Officers' Encounters with Germany, 1945" is the 2010 Ina Levine lecture at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum on Thursday, March 18, in Washington DC.

It starts at 7pm in the Helena Rubinstein Auditorium, 100 Raoul Wallenberg Place SW.

Professor Oleg Budnitskii will present his work on Soviet Jewish identity through the lens of the Soviet Jewish military experience of World War II.

In Moscow, Budnitskii is: Senior research fellow, Institute of Russian History, Russian Academy of Sciences; academic director, International Center for Russian and Eastern European Jewish Studies: and professor of history, Department of Jewish Studies, Institute of Asian and African Studies, Moscow State University.

The author of numerous works, he most recently published (2008) Den'gi russkoi emigratsii: Kolchakovskoe zoloto, 1918-1957 (Money of the Russian Emigration: Kolchak's Gold, 1918-1957) and (2005) Rossiiskie evrei mezhdy krasnymi i belymi, 1917-1920 (Russian Jews between the Reds and the Whites, 1917-1920) of which an English translation is being published by the University of Pennsylvania Press.

For more information or to register, click here. To learn about past presentations and hear recordings, click here.

Summertime: Genealogy on the air

According to a Scottish genealogy blogger, the US episodes of "Who Do You Think You Are?" will be aired on the UK's BBC after all US shows are screened.

Chris Paton, who writes Scottish Ancestry News and Events, reported on this earlier, indicating that the seven US episodes will be aired prior to the new UK 10-episode season.
He also notes that the US shows will be re-recorded by the narrator who does the UK show, and that some reorganization and editing will be done on each episode.

In any case, it means that 17 episodes will be running from late spring through the summer.

Paton also noted that another 25 episodes of Heir Hunters has been commissioned for BBC1 daytime television - those are set for winter 2010 or early in 2011.

For more information, read Chris' post (link above).

New York: Telling family secrets, March 21

Tracing the Tribe readers will note that I try to track the speaking engagements of Steve Luxenberg, author of the award-winning "Annie's Ghosts: A Journey into a Family Secret."

Although some people think it may be strange that I do so, Steve's book should be a must on everyone's to-read list. If you haven't read it, get yourself a copy. All genealogists and family history researchers should read it.

In addition to telling a compelling story, Steve's use of all possible resources to solve his family mystery can provide clues and tips to all of us.

A Washington Post associated editor working on special projects, Steve will be speaking to the Jewish Genealogical Society of New York at 2pm on Sunday, March 21, at the Center for Jewish History in Manhattan.

Steve’s mother was an only child. That’s what she told everyone, sometimes within minutes of meeting them.

When Steve heard that his mother had been hiding the existence of a sister, he was bewildered.

Through personal letters and photographs, official records and archival documents, as well as dozens of interviews, Steve revisits his mother’s world in the 1930s and 1940s in search of how and why the secret was born.

Employing his skills as a journalist, he pieces together the story of his mother’s motivations, his aunt’s unknown life, and the times in which they lived. His search takes him to imperial Russia and Depression-era Detroit, through the Holocaust in Ukraine and the Philippine war zone, and back to the places where his aunt languished in anonymity.

Steve has worked for more than 30 years as a newspaper editor and reporter, beginning at the Baltimore Sun. He joined the Washington Post in 1985 as deputy editor of the newspaper’s investigative/special projects staff, headed by assistant managing editor Bob Woodward. In 1991, he succeeded Woodward as head of the investigative staff.

His professional investigative journalism skills served him well when it came time to write the book.

Married with two children, Steve grew up in Detroit, where "Annie’s Ghosts" is centered.

If you haven't read the book yet, a book-signing will follow his talk.

Sacramento: Making connections, March 21

Holocaust survivor Liz Igra will speak on "Connections Small and Grand," at the next meeting of the Jewish Genealogical Society of Sacramento, California, on Sunday, March 21.

The program starts at 10am, at the Albert Einstein Residence Center, 1935 Wright St., Sacramento, California.

Born in Krakow, Liz and her mother escaped from the Czorkow ghetto in October 1942, hid on false papers, crossed the Carpathian Mountains on foot, spent time in a Budapest jail and were released, and again went into hiding when Germany took control of Hungary.

They were liberated in 1945 and returned to Poland to find only one other member of their family. After time in Poland and France, the women immigrated to Australia and then to the US in 1968.

Liz has been an elementary and high school teacher, administrator, workshop presenter and helped start Sacramento's Shalom School.

For 20 years, she has spoken in many classrooms and at teacher conferences. Many teachers confirmed her personal observations, that even the best seminars do not equip teachers to meet the challenges of teaching about the Holocaust.

To help change that, Liz founded the Central Valley Holocaust Educators' Network. She hopes her story will lead to a better understanding of the Holocaust and the important lessons to be learned.

Click here for more information about the Jewish Genealogical Society of Sacramento.

Faces of America: Episodes online through March 18

Tracing the Tribe has missed watching "Faces of America" with Henry Louis Gates.

I'm not sure if they will be shown in Israel or elsewhere, but all four episodes are now online at PBS.org.

No reason to be out of the loop or genealogically culturally deprived as others talk about this interesting series.

Just click on the PBS.org link above and see all of them, but only until March 18.

Tracing the Tribe has been unsuccessful in accessing the US-version of WDYTYA on my international travels. I've checked several links, none of them work.

Emails to my Ancestry.com contacts have not produced any appropriate contacts at NBC to either let the channel know the links are not available internationally (although the British version episodes are) or if a fix can be worked out so such viewers can see the series online.

Boston: Maps and Mapping Tools, March 14

Web-based maps and mapping tools are the focus of the next meeting of the Jewish Genealogical Society of Greater Boston on Sunday, March 14.

The program with Ron Arons and Jay Sage begins at 1:30 pm at Temple Emanuel, Newton Centre.

Ron will discuss websites that provide a broad range of historical maps.

He'll demonstrate basic and advanced features of internet-based mapping facilities developed by Google (maps.google.com) and Microsoft (www.bing.com/maps), as well as lesser known mapping facilities provided by whitepages.com, Microsoft’s MapCruncher, and IBM’s Many Eyes.

Jay will feature Google Earth - the web-based software and data that provide an amazing high-resolution three-dimensional model of the earth, based on satellite and aerial photographs - and explain how it can be used to map one’s family history or to make virtual visits to places where family events took place.

Ron has spoken at several international conferences on a variety of genealogy topics. He appeared in the PBS TV series, "The Jewish Americans," to discuss Jewish criminals of New York's Lower East Side and his book, "The Jews of Sing Sing," appeared in 2008.

Former JGSGB president, Jay is current co-editor of the Society's journal and has given lectures at international and local conferences.

Fee: JGSGB members, free; others, $5.

For more details, click here.

Melbourne: Meeting the family - at last!

Thirty years ago, Alexander Katsnelson, his wife Jenny and toddler Nelly arrived in Melbourne from Bobruisk, Belarus.

Later on, his father and brother Leon arrived from Bobruisk. Alex and Leon's mother was a TALALAI whose family was from Mogilev.

In the photo below are (from left) Leon, Schelly and Alex.

About seven years ago, members of the Australian Jewish Genealogical Society - notably the late Les Oberman - located Alex and Jenny after information from new-found Moscow cousins indicated they might be in Melbourne.

We communicated for awhile until I experienced a major computer malfunction and lost much data (including emails). Yes, I know. Tracing the Tribe always advocates backing up, backing up, backing up. I goofed and thus our family lost years during which we could have been in contact.

However, as soon as I landed in Melbourne, I told my hostess, Ziva Fain, that we needed to find them. Fortunately, we found L. Katsnelson in the online phone book (cousin Leonid), who gave me Alex's number.

Today was cousin day.

Alex and Jenny came to take me to their home - which is very close to Ziva's - where Alex's younger brother Leon, their older daughter Nelly and granddaughter Miliana, 2, were waiting. Later that day I also met Nelly's son Jordan, 5, and Nelly's sister Fleur.

Nelly has a degree in journalism - is it genetic? - while Fleur is an attorney. Our daughter is Liana, Nelly's is Miliana.

We went over family charts and photographs. Leon told us many anecdotes from his childhood. As the younger brother, he was closer to his grandmother and he remembered a large photo on the wall of his mother's family in Mogilev.

When Alex and Jenny left, they could not take any family photos with them. When Leon left, he took many small photos, but was not permitted to take other family memorabilia. His mother's sister went to Brooklyn later on and took other items, including the photo. She has since died; no one knows where the large photo of the Mogilev family is now, but Alex and Leon said they will try to find who has it (and many other photos) and have them scanned.

After lunch, Jenny showed me a Russian-language site that translates as "classmates" - sort of a Russian Facebook. We checked for TALALAI and were amazed to find so many, although some I knew. This could be a very valuable resource for genealogists. Names can be typed in English, but everything else seems to be in Cyrillic.

I showed Jenny and Nelly how to use both Ancestry and JewishGen. Everyone was surprised to see how many FamilyFinder entries for KATSNELSON from Bobruisk were listed. A few years ago, Leon had been contacted by a US researcher who sent him information and charts but they couldn't see how they were related; he did not hear from that researcher again.

Many of the KATSNELSON researchers in the Family Finder are either deceased or have not logged in since 2004.

Jenny is also looking for her HEIMAN (sometimes written KHAYMAN) family of Bobroisk. Her grandmother lived in Bobruisk, but her family had moved to Riga, Latvia, where she grew up and attended school. How and why they moved to Riga is a story in itself.

Jenny and I later went to dinner and we didn't stop talking all evening. There was an instant connection, as if we had known each other for a lifetime.

There will be more to tell. And this time we won't lose the connection!

JGSLA 2010: Program highlights

The JGSLA 2010 program committee is releasing names and topics of some speakers.

Acceptances have been received by presenters.

As Tracing the Tribe has previously posted, author Daniel Mendelsohn is the keynote speaker while the first-ever scholar-in-residence will be pioneer Jewish genealogist Arthur Kurzweil.

Among the speakers:

-- New York University geneticist Dr. Harry Ostrer: "The Jewish HapMap: What Genetics Has Given to Jews and What Jews Have Given to Genetics."

-- The American Joint Distribution Committee's Linda Levi will demonstrate how the AJDC archive is organized and how to research.

-- USHMM Registry of Holocaust Survivors director Lisa Yavnai will speak on that registry. Other USHMM repeat speakers Megan Lewis and Jo-Ellyn Decker: "Improving Your Research Experience."

-- The Lucille Gudis Memorial Lecture will be presented by University of Massachusetts Professor Vincent Cannato on his book, "American Passage: The History of Ellis Island."

-- Yad Vashem Hall of Names director Zvi Bernhardt: “Using the Yad Vashem Database (of Shoah Victims’ Names) for Beginners.”

-- Genealogy's well-known "Photo Detective" - Maureen Taylor - will offer her expert forensic advice on photograph interpretation and preservation.

There will be international experts from Vienna (Wolf-Erich Eckstein, Israelitische Kultusgemeinde); Prague (Julius Muller, Toledot Jewish Family History Center); Vilnius (Dr. Egle Bendikaite, Vilnius Institute associate professor); and Warsaw (Yale Reisner, The Jewish Historical Institute's Jewish Genealogy and Family Heritage Learning Center).

Tracing the Tribe will present three programs: an update with new information on the IberianAshkenaz DNA Project, as well as "The Wonderful World of Genealogy Blogging" and "Sephardic Genealogy: Trends and Resources."

Stay tuned for more!