Washington DC: Civil War Jews, May 27

Are you familiar with Civil War General Ulysses Grant’s Order No. 11? It called for the expulsion of all Jews in his military districts comprising areas of Tennessee, Mississippi, and Kentucky.

On December 17, 1862, Major General Ulysses S. Grant issued General Orders No. 11. The New York Times called it "one of the deepest sensations of the war."

The order read:

The Jews, as a class violating every regulation of trade established by the Treasury Department and also department orders, are hereby expelled from the department within twenty-four hours from the receipt of this order.

Post commanders will see to it that all of this class of people be furnished passes and required to leave, and any one returning after such notification will be arrested and held in confinement until an opportunity occurs of sending them out as prisoners, unless furnished with permit from headquarters. No passes will be given these people to visit headquarters for the purpose of making personal application of trade permits.

To commemorate Jewish American Heritage Month, a panel will discusses the contributions of Jewish men and women during the Civil War, including the infamous order above. Each panelist will discuss a key text, including documents and events.

The program takes place Thursday, May 27, at 7pm, in the William G. McGowan Theater

The moderator will be Dr. Gary P. Zola, executive director of the Jacob Rader Marcus Center of the American Jewish Archives and Professor of the American Jewish Experience at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institution of Religion.

Panelists:

-- Eli Evans, former president of the Revson Foundation and author of "Judah P. Benjamin: The Jewish Confederate;"

-- Dr. Pamela S. Nadell, director of the Jewish Studies Program at American University and co-editor of "Women and American Judaism: Historical Perspectives."

For more information about the program, click here.

For more information on Grant's Order, click here for images of the document and here for the background and chronology of the order and its revocation.

Historic Newspapers: 40 million pages to digitize

A partnership between the British Library and online publisher brightsolid will digitize some 40 million pages of historic newspapers over 10 years.

According to the press release, brightsolid (FindMyPast, AncestorsOnboard, Friends Reunited and GenesReunited) is taking on the project's commercial and technical risks, with no direct costs to the British Library.

Some important points from the press release:

-- The firm will digitize content from the British Library Newspaper Library, which it will then make available online via a subscription website to launch next year. It will be available for free to users onsite at the British Library.

-- The goal, according to the press release, is to build a ‘critical mass’ of material for researchers – particularly in the fields of family history and genealogy."

-- The project will include out-of-copyright material from the
newspaper archive – pre-1900 newspaper material – and the partnership will also seek to digitize in-copyright material, with the agreement of relevant rightsholders. This copyrighted material will, with the publishers' express permission, be made available on the planned website.

-- The Library’s newspaper hard-copy collections will be moved from the current building at Colindale to a purpose-built storage facility (£33m funding) in Boston Spa, West Yorkshire. Access to the collection will be via microfilm and digital copies at the Library’s main site at St Pancras from 2012. Read more here.

-- It will help the collection remain relevant for a new generation of researchers, who are more used to accessing information via laptops than travelling to a physical location.

Copies of scanned materials will be held in the library in perpetuity.

Parts of this resource will be available online for the first time. The Library's collection spans 350 years and includes 52,000 local, regional, national and international titles. Its Newspaper Library in North London is used by 30,000 researchers in many subjects, including family history and genealogy, and the resources are mostly hard copy and microfilm.

A minimum of 4 million pages will be digitized in the first two years.

The Library's Dame Lynne Brindley outlined how the partnership will transform access to this collection and added that the success of the 19th Century British Library Newspapers website demonstrated the public’s huge appetite for digitized historic newspaper content:

“Historic newspapers are an invaluable resource for historians, researchers, genealogists, students and many others, bringing past events and people to life with great immediacy and in rich detail. Mass digitisation unlocks the riches of our newspaper collections by making them available online to users across the UK and around the world; by making these pages fully searchable we will transform a research process which previously relied on scrolling through page after page of microfilm or print. brightsolid have an excellent track record of digitising archive materials and making them available to new audiences – I look forward to announcing the web service resulting from this partnership, which will launch and then steadily grow from next year.”

Digitized material will include extensive coverage of local, regional and national press across some 350 years, and will focus on specific geographic areas, along with periods such as the census years between 1841 and 1911. Other categories will be developed.

It will help the newspaper collection to remain relevant for a new generation of researchers, more used to accessing research information via their laptop than travelling to a physical location.”

Chris Paton's Scottish Ancestry has a five-minute video of the announcement.

Tracing the Tribe looks forward to more information on the planned new subscription website.

Wanted: TV genealogists

Looking for a media break? The Travel Channel is getting in on roots action with a new series, and they are looking for professional genealogists.

Here's the casting call:

Calling all Professional Genealogists

Travel Channel is casting an exciting new series about the journey and process of locating missing heirs. We are looking for professional genealogists only. Must have a proven track record of successful investigations resulting in the location of missing heirs – preferably internationally as well as domestically. Must be charismatic and comfortable on camera and MUST HAVE photos and video of yourself.

Contact Timothy Hedden, HeirMailCasting@gmail.com.

Video? Hmmmmm. Randy Seaver and I have some video snippets from our Australian meet-up in Sydney - on the ferry and at gorgeous Manley Beach. Somehow, I don't think that's what the Travel Channel wants.

Let's hope that some of our Geneablogger colleagues win this gig!

50 most popular genealogy sites

ProGenealogists has named its 50 most popular genealogy websites for 2010.

The rankings were based on stats from the first quarter of the year, as measured by four major ranking companies.

Read the official press release here. For more on the selection process, see an article in the Digital Genealogist.

Here are the 50 sites as detailed in Kory L. Meyerink's blog post. In parenthesis after each site, see its 2009 and 2008 rankings. Eight new sites are also identified.

1- Ancestry.com $ - Leading genealogical data site, with some articles, instruction and reference help. (1>1)
2- FamilyLink.com – (New) One of the most popular FaceBook apps helps people identify and network with family.(80>72)
3- MyHeritage.com - Focuses on genealogy community building and networking.(3>3)
4- FamilySearch.org - Major data website (LDS Church sponsored) includes IGI, census records, library catalog and more, instruction and reference help. (5>5)
5- Genealogy.com $ - Major data site, with instruction and reference help.(2>4)
6- RootsWeb.com - Major data site, with free instruction and reference help. (4>2) 7- FindAGrave.com - More than 45 million cemetery inscriptions and photos. (7>7)
8- USGenWebArchives.net – (New) Large collection of free data, by state, and searchable across the entire collection. (not ranked)
9- OneGreatFamily.com $ - Primarily family trees sharing and collaboration website. (11>9)
10- GenealogyToday.com - Includes instruction, reference articles, and some unique data collections. (12>11)

11- AncestorHunt.com - Collected genealogy links. (11>12)
12- SearchForAncestors.com - Interactive directory of free genealogy websites and data.(19>21) 13- AccessGenealogy.com - Includes references to helpful articles, especially for Native American information, and some data. (14>13)
14- CyndisList.com - Huge subject catalog of genealogy webpage links. (17>15)
15- EllisIsland.org - Database of 24 million New York passenger arrivals free to search. Passenger list images can be printed/purchased. (20>14)
16- Interment.net - Transcribed, indexed cemetery inscriptions. (16>16)
17- WorldVitalRecords.com $ - Data collection by Family Link, more than a billion records, instruction and reference help. (13>10)
18- USGennet.org - Historical and genealogical web hosting service. (15>17)
19- GenealogyBank.com $ - Database with index and images of newspapers and early books.(31>41)
20- FamilyTreeDNA.com - DNA testing service focused upon family history test types. (26>27)

21- GeneBase.com - A DNA ancestry cataloguing project (24>24)
22- CensusFinder.com - Links to free census records. (29>40)
23- DeathIndexes.com - Lists of links to US death records, by state. (25>31)
24- Linkpendium.com – Nine million genealogy links organized by state/county and surname.(24>35)
25- Genealogytrails.com - Free data contributed by volunteers (35>NR)
26- JewishGen.org - Jewish, reference, instruction, coordination, databases. (32>28)
27- GenealogyBuff.com – (New) Free genealogy search site with hundreds of data sources.(134.NR)
28- FamilyTreeMaker.com - Ancestry.com's genealogical software homepage. (21>20)
29- KindredKonnections.com $ - Grassroots-created data site with compiled family trees, some extracted records. (22>19)

30- FamilyTiez.com – (New) A site where families can establish their own pages to share news, photos, events and genealogy with each other. (not ranked)
31- Geni.com - Web 2.0, focuses on genealogy community building and networking. (8>18)
32- HeritageQuestOnline.com $ - Census, PERSI (the periodical index), books. (39>39)
33- MyFamily.com - Hosts family websites for sharing photos, genealogy, and more. (5>5)
34- DistantCousin.com - Online archive of genealogy records and images of historical documents. (23>22)
35- TribalPages.com - Family trees hosting and charting program. (28>25)
36- PoliticalGraveyard.com - Comprehensive source of US political biography that tells where many dead politicians are buried. (33>34)
37- Footnote.com $ - With the US National Archives, it offers data, original records images and more. (9>8)
38- FamilyHistory101.com - Less than three years old, instruction/guidance for genealogists (47>107)
39- CousinConnect.com - Large free queries website. (27>23)

40- GenoPro.com - Genealogy software produces genograms (37>53)
41- Archives.com $ – (New) Major new subscription data site, launched July 2009, more than a billion names. (not ranked)
42- GenWed.com - Online marriage records, where to order, some indexes, and more. (43>42)
43- Dar.org - Largest lineage society; includes library catalog, 32-million name index. (49>67)
44- ThePeerage.com – (New) Genealogical survey of peerage of Britain and royal families of Europe. (53>58)
45- Genealogy.org – (New) Listing of 400+ registered websites, ranked weekly by hits. (69>56) 46- AncientFaces.com - Share genealogy research, community pages, family photos & records for free. (48>38)
47- ObitLinksPage.com - State-by-state directory of obituaries and obituary resources. (not ranked)
48- SurnameWeb.org – (New) Collection of surname website links; online since 1996. (62>26)
49- US-Census.org - Census abstracts (U.S. GenWeb Census Project) (45>37)
50- Genuki.org.uk - Large collection of genealogical information pages for England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales, the Channel Islands, and the Isle of Man. (34>32)

No longer in the top 50 (with their old rank):

Census-Online.com - (Down from 38)
GenealogyLinks.net - (Down from 50)
USGenWeb.com - (Down from 30)
Geneanet.org - (Down from 42)
Daddezio.com - (Down from 41)
GenCircles.com – (Down from 36)
ObitCentral.com - (Down from 29)
FindMyPast.com $ - (Down from 46)

It was interesting to see the ranking changes for each site over the past three years.

Tracing the Tribe was happy to see FamilyTreeDNA.com's rank move up to #20 (from#27). JewishGen.org also moved up to #26 (from #28).

Can't wait to see 2011's list!

JewishGen: Yizkor Book Necrology Database updated

Yizkor books are helpful resources when dealing with Holocaust-era Jewish genealogy research.

What are these books? These memorial books were written by survivors of communities across Europe detailing the history of the community, what happened there during the Holocaust, and often contain photos of the community and its residents.

Importantly, they contain the names of residents who lived throughout the history of the community and those who perished. The Necrology Database indexes the names of individuals who perished. It's an important database as few Yizkor Books incorporated name indexes, making it difficult for linguistically-challenged researchers to find names of interest.

Few of these volumes were written in English, and most were in Yiddish, some with sections in Polish, German, Russian and other languages. Survivors from around the world often contributed chapters and information. The Yizkor Book section at JewishGen provides translations of these books or chapters, with the work done by volunteers or funded by contributions for professional translations.

The necrology database is only a name index, and shows researchers in what yizkor book the information was discovered. Checking the books may provide more details about the individuals.

The database was updated with 8,800 entries from 17 books, and the complete current total is more than 225,000 names from 258 books.

Here are the updates:

-- Hungary: Mad (292 entries), Mezokovesd (749 entries).

-- Poland: Bilgoraj (37 entries), Chmielnik (1,231), Dabrowa Bialostocka (183), Jaroslaw (179), Jedrzejow (1,975), Krasnystaw (281), Leczyca (468), Przedborz (526), Raciaz (693), Warka (92) and Zambrow (106).

-- Romania: Gherla (Szamosujvar) (372 entries).

-- Slovakia: Sahy (Ipolysag) (1,060 entries).

-- Ukraine: Rava-Ruska (530 entries), and Stavishche (95).

Search the necrology database here.

Salt Lake City: East European conference, July 29-31

The 16th Federation of East European Family History Societies conference will be held in Salt Lake City, July 29-31.

Venues are the Family History Library and the Plaza Hotel (just around the corner from the FHL). For more details, view the FEEFHS site.

This year's theme - "Ancestors Found: Success through Assistance" - will be explored by well-known speakers covering

Part of the event's scope for registered attendees are research consultations with the attending specialists. A Saturday recognition luncheon is also scheduled.

Lecture topics cover handwriting and ethnic documents (Latin, Cyrillic, Gothic, German), using the FHL, gazetteers, maps, geographical research (Polish, Russian Empire, Austrian Empire, German, Balkan, Hungarian Empire, Baltic), Russian Orthodox customs, using US sources to cross the ocean and more.

Speakers include Barbara Bell, Thomas K. Edlund, Marek Koblanski,  Kahlile B. Mehr, Dave Obee, Sylvie Pysnak and Dee Semon.

There are two lectures at each of three time slots each day (8.30am, 9.45am, 11am), with assisted research from 2-5pm each day at the FHL.

Afternoon consultations may include questions concerning any of the countries between the Alps and the Urals, between the Baltic and the Black Seas (Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, Bulgaria, Ukraine, Belarus, Russia, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia).

Registration is $100 (before July 3) and includes the syllabus, luncheon and research assistance. The special Plaza Hotel rate is $82.

For more details, click here.

Podcasts: Cemetery records and more

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

UK: Original Record site for Jewish research

Our international geneablogger community continually shares useful information.

Tracing the Tribe saw The Original Record spotlighted on Chris Paton's Scottish Genealogy and realized it might be useful for Jewish research. Thanks, Chris!

Although searches are free, scanned records are not - each costs £4-6. There are special rates for purchasing all records for a specific surname. 

Whenever I check out a new site for Jewish content, my fall-back search is COHEN - and there were some 472 hits.

When the search was complete, this popped up:

Buying all 472 results of this search individually would cost £2,548.00. But you can have free access to all 472 records for a year, to view, to save and print, for £100. Save £2,448.

This seems like a good deal. Only a little quibble: Perhaps Tracing the Tribe doesn't understand British humor, but paying £100 isn't exactly "free" access.

That said, however, the free access [at a cost of £100] gives you an entire year of access to all those scanned records.

Begin your search using the first two letters of the surname, such as CO or TA. You may refine that search by selecting a year range, such as 1570-79 or 1800-1809.

After clicking on the two-letter category, the next page will show all names in the database beginning with CO, for example. This may be very useful for those searching for unusual spellings. One of the first rules of Creative Spelling is to change vowels around within a name. You may also search using wild cards, a good way of finding variants.

As just one example (not from The Original Record, which had only one contemporary listing for the name) TALALAY has been found on passenger manifests, census records, and other record groups as TOLOLAY, TOLALEY, TALOLAY and many others among some 30 documented spellings of this seemingly very simple phonetic name.

Records including this quintessential Jewish name range from Official Papers (1697, 1700-02, 1703-4 ), Cambridge University graduates (1760-1846); Masters of Clerks and Apprentices as well as Clerks and Apprentices (1775, 1782, 1783, 1784, 1785, 1787, 1790, 1792, 1793, 1794, etc. ); Deaths, Marriages, News and Promotions (1776, 1777); Bankrupts (1786-1806), 1797 Universal British Directory provincial sections; Lawyers, law officers and clerks in London (1791); Traders and Merchants in London (1791); Deaths, Marriages and Accidents (1802-1803); Freehold voters (1802), Inhabitants of London (1805), Deaths (1808), Owners of Merchantmen [ships] (1822), Debtors, School students, Aliens Traced/Wanted/Apprehended By Police (1923), Convicted Criminals, Irish Medical Practitioners (1926).

And that's only some of what's on pages 1-38. There are a total of 48 pages of results, ending with a 1958 list of telephone subscribers in Cambridgeshire and elsewhere.

Searching for COHEN also produced such possibilities as COHAGNE, COHAN, COHANY, COHEM, COHEN-ANDRES, COHENI, COHENM, COHENNE, COHENS, COHEN-VANGELDEREN, COHGEN, COHIN, COHN, COHN', COHNE, COHNI, COHNREICH, COHNREIGH, COHNRICH and COHNS.

There were also COHEN variants including KAG (such as KAGAN) and KAH (KAHAN, KAHAINE), KOH (KOHAN), KOG (KOGAN) and others. As most researchers know, while it is likely many people with these names and variants are Jewish, that is not a guarantee.

On the other hand, having the opportunity to view so many historic 16th-17th-18th-19th century records, sounds like an excellent idea for those interested in Jewish genealogy and history. I wish I had access to them.

This resource will also prove helpful to Sephardic researchers, as it offers name variants for common Sephardic names, such as MENDOZA or PEREIRA.

Searching MENDOZA produced 52 hits (1540-1957), covering manuscripts, pirates, soldiers, spies, traitors, ambassadors, Netherlands, official papers, people in the news, apprentices and clerks, masters of apprentices and clerks, inhabitants of London, prisoners, social announcements, school students, police records and Navy officers. MENDOSA: four records (1540-1588); MENDOZE: one record, an 1854 bankruptcy.  MENDOUCA: one missing person/kin record, 1880.

Searching PEREIRA, produced 125 records, 1540-1958; PEREIRA-MENDOZA, three records,  (3, 1939-51; PEREIRAS, two records, and PEREIRO, one.

Yes, there was a TALALAY (our cousins who lived in London), but no DARDASHTI.

It is certainly worthwhile looking over the names and viewing the variants. A certain spelling of a rare name may provide a clue to your missing link.

Make sure to wear your Creative Spelling hat!