Yiddish Center: Audio books in Yiddish

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

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

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

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

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

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

Newark NJ: Jewish Chronicle searchable online

Tracing the Tribe's TALALAY family became variously TOLLIN, TALLIN, TOLL, TAYLOR and FEINSTEIN.

The TOLLIN and TALLIN families settled in Newark, New Jersey (two brothers). Another TOLLIN branch was in Springfield, Massachusetts in 1899, and in Boston a few years later. TAYLOR went to Cleveland, and four TALALAI brothers went from Mogilev to Baku to Philadelphia where they took their sister's husband's name of FEINSTEIN and have been lost since.

A new online resource is the Jewish Chronicle of Newark NJ, which can be accessed at GenealogyBank.

The records include all sorts of social events ("hatch, match and dispatch"), community events, news of immigrant associations, local and international issues and much more.

GenealogyBank is for-fee, but the free search will produce small bits of the articles, usually enough to learn if it is relevant for your purposes.

Tracing the Tribe believes that all for-fee sites should offer free searching with snippets of the results. Learning what a site offers is the first step in deciding whether or not to allocate funds for that subscription!

A quick search showed that there were more than 6,000 mentions of TOLLIN, a few of TALLIN. Many of the first variant were from long before my great-grandfather Aron Peretz Talalai arrived there in 1905, but the ones from that time are very interesting, with many relevant results. The paper was published from 1921 until 1943, covering a major portion of the time that my family lived in that city.

GenealogyBank's resources cover newspapers in many states, and Tracing the Tribe found known family mentions in Massachusetts, Pennsyvania and Delaware publications.

Intrigued by anything with a Springfield origin, I found very detailed information on Max Tollin (Mendl Talalai), the first Jewish builder in the town, who constructed the first two homes for the aging, the Kodimoh synagogue and its cemetery. His children were also seen in many results.

In Newark, we saw results for the Mohliver Benevolent Society - Mohliver referring to Mogilev, Belarus - founded by friends and cousins of my great-grandfather, Aron Peretz Talalai TOLLIN.

Not to be outdone, the TOLLIN records in Philadelphia and Delaware were also quite detailed.

Long ago, when I was attempting to track down Mogilev-origin Tollins, I thought I was on the right track with Aron Tollin. However, he told me they were really Tolchinsky. The family's petition for a name change was one of the records in the results, confirming his story.

Where else can you access this paper? The Newark Public Library also has copies, as does the Jewish Historical Society of MetroWest. There is also some information on the Jewish Chronicle ot Chronicling America: Historical American Newspapers.

For more information, click here for a recent NJ Jewish News story about the archive.

Since GenealogyBank is free to search, what are you waiting for? In fact, there is now a discounted subscription  offer available now.

Wexler Oral History Project goes to camp!

Some of Tracing the Tribe's best summers were at camp. The memories last a lifetime.

Even those who only spent long weekends or a week here or there at various youth organization activities went home imbued with a sense of camaraderie, new knowledge and singing essential songs together.

The National Yiddish Book Center offers an interesting look at Jewish summer camps. There are videos of oral history interviews, links to the full interview texts and to the Wexler Oral History Project.

Summer camps, then and now, play an important role in identity for American Jews. Various studies of camps - such as one on the Conservative movement's Ramah system of camps - indicate that children who attend Jewish summer camps develop a much stronger identity with their heritage and also are more likely to become leaders in their communities and to maintain a more Jewish lifestyle.

According to the Yiddish Book Center's link:
Among the camps mentioned:

• The Sholem Aleichem Folks Institute, known for its commitment to Yiddish literature, founded Boiberik in 1923.
• Camp Kinderland was founded and was eventually associated with the Ordn Shuln with communist leanings. (The photo above left is of Kinderland)
• The Workmen's Circle founded their socialist summer camp, Kinder Ring.
• The Farband, Labor Zionists, created Kinderwelt around the same time.
• Camp Hemshekh was the Bund's summer camp, founded in 1959 by Holocaust survivors.

Kinderland and Kinder Ring still exist but in different locations.

As everyone who has ever attended a Jewish summer camp knows, each was its own world with its own family. Shared experiences with social values, fun, Jewish culture, shows, plays, camp songs and Shabbat ceremonies all contributed to "family" life. And everyone thought that their camp was the best of all of them.

The Wexler Oral History Project interviewed campers of diverse ages about their summer experiences, including friendships, memories, values and loves.

See the videos at the link above, visit the full texts of these and more at the project's digital archive here.

Learn more here on the Wexler Oral History Project.

When it came to choosing a camp for your children, there were a number of factors to weigh: language, socio-political views, location, and cost. Many New York Yiddishist organizations created summer camps to help people get out of "The Big City" for the summer.

Family reunion contest: Winners named

When you read about contests, what do you do? Do you think you'll never win and forget about it?

What if the grand prize is a free family reunion?

For one lucky winner, her entry means she will soon meet with a cousin from Denmark, while two runners-up also received recognition for connections to family in South Africa and Norway.

MyHeritage.com and Family Tree Magazine partnered for the free family reunion contest in June.

Winners were recently named in a post on the Family Tree Magazine blog.

Patricia Skubis was the grand prize winner of the free family reunion. Her long-lost Danish relative Tage will travel to the United States so they can meet in person for the first time.

She will also receive a year-long VIP membership to Family Tree Magazine and a three-year Premium-Plus subscription with MyHeritage.com.

Skubis' Danish family immigrated to the US in 1888, while another branch had settled in Australia in 1873. Skubis made contact nearly three decades ago with someone from the down-under branch, but they couldn't find the connection.

 However, that was then, and today we have the power of technology.

There will be more detailed coverage in a future issue of the magazine, but here's some of it.

In March 2011, a Danish family researching THYGESEN posted information on MyHeritage.com and Skubis received a Smart Match notice. She wasn't sure about it because the parents' names were the same, but not the children. She asked for more details and was then able to confirm the match.

I went online to the Danish Church Records [on the Danish archives’ website] and found Tyge Jørgensen’s children between Neils Madsen Thygesen, born in 1794, and my great-great-grandfather Martin, born in 1805. What a great surprise I received when I found that the next son after Neils was Peder Andersen Thygesen, the great-great-grandfather of Alison Rogers.

Tage and I are fourth cousins once removed. Our great-great-grandfathers, along with Alison’s, were brothers.

Runners-up were Linda Mehlinger and Pam Ingermanson, who will each receive a digital subscription to Family Tree Magazine and a three-year Premium-plus subscription on MyHeritage.com. Read some details at the link above about a Zulu warrior pulling five schoolgirls in a rickshaw and Norwegians in Idaho and Ohio.

According to Diane Haddad of Family Tree Magazine:

Thank you to everyone who entered this contest. Both our team at Family Tree Magazine and our contest partners MyHeritage.com were touched by your stories of reconnecting with family, and we're impressed by your diligent research. You’re truly an inspiration to your fellow family historians!

The next time you read about a family reunion contest, what will YOU do?

Southern California: "Genealogy in the Round," July 17

"Genealogy in the round: Share your successes, failures, artifacts and brick walls" is the theme of the next meeting of the Jewish Genealogical Society of the Conejo Valley and Ventura County (JGSCV), on Sunday, July 17.

The meeting begins at 1.30pm. JGSCV meetings are co-sponsored by, and located at Temple Adat Elohim, 2420 E. Hillcrest Drive, Thousand Oaks. Meetings are free.

Come and share a genealogical success, failure, brick wall, or genealogical artifact!

This is YOUR meeting—We all learn from one another—take this opportunity to share your genealogical story—success or failure, ask questions about your brick walls, and more!

Each presenter will have 5-10 minutes to share, depending on the final number of presenters.

To participate in the program, contact JGSCV president Jan Meisels Allen.

For more information or to present at the meeting, contact Jan Meisels Allen.

Blog business: The plane! The plane!

Tracing the Tribe has received numerous emails from devoted readers wondering where we've been.

The past few months have been filled with genealogy conferences in the UK, US and Canada.

During June, we were at the Southern California Genealogical Society's Jamboree 2011 in Burbank, California, spoke on creating virtual ancestral communities and staffed the MyHeritage.com booth. Back home for a few days and then to Montreal where we spoke on Sephardic research at the Association of Jewish Libraries conference.

With just a few days off between the two events, things began to quickly pile up! It didn't help that the flight home from Montreal took two somewhat chaotic days due to Chicago weather.

Our new iPad received a good workout at both conferences! And when stuck at the Montreal airport with a non-functioning phone, the iPad was my link to civilization and friends who informed my husband of the various flight delays, cancellations, hotel stay, re-routing through Dallas and finally back to Albuquerque.

This was the first time we have ever experienced weather-related flight delays and cancellations. Rather amazing considering the busy travel schedule these days and international travel of the past.

We met some interesting fellow travelers sharing the chaos: A fascinating biomedical professor at University of Texas-Austin, a Vietnamese couple from Southern California and others. All in the same boat (or should that be plane?), we were given hotel rooms, asked to be rerouted through Dallas instead of Chicago, and shared a nice dinner at the Montreal Trudeau airport Sheraton.

Family history research played its part with seatmates on the Burbank, Montreal, Dallas and Albuquerque flights and even with fellow airport shuttle passengers in Los Angeles and elsewhere. In Montreal, we spent a day with our Dardashti cousins before AJL began and, along with old friend and AJL attendee Barbara Krasner of New Jersey, enjoyed a short visit with our good friend Stan Diamond of  JRI-Poland fame.

We have finally read through what seems like thousands of emails and Google alerts, and we are coming back to blogging life once again. Still remaining to be tackled is a growing pile of books!

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Future Events

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--Sunday, July 17: Speaking on social media at the New Mexico Jewish Historical Society meeting at the Albuquerque Jewish Community Center.

-- Saturday, August 6: The newly-formed Sandoval County Genealogical Society, which will meet the first Saturday of each month, at the Rio Rancho Main Library.

-- August 14-19:   IAJGS International Conference on Jewish Genealogy (August 14-19, Washington DC), where we will be speaking and staffing the MyHeritage.com booth, along with chief genealogist Daniel Horowitz and UK genealogy advisor Laurence Harris.

Seattle: Jewish genealogy society receives grant

Some time ago, Tracing the Tribe wrote about the grant program offered by Archives.com, and asked which Jewish genealogy group might be the first to receive one.

We are delighted to report that the newest $1,000 grant has been given to the Jewish Genealogical Society of Washington State (JGSWS), to allow the group to begin a digitizing project of the 120-year-old Jewish Transcript newspaper.

Anyone with roots in Seattle or other Washington state communities will find a wealth of information on the Jewish community. JGSWS has wanted to work on this digitizing project for many years but did not have the resources to carry it out.

Tracing the Tribe is especially interested to learn about our JASSEN family, which arrived in Seattle around 1923.

The pages of this venerable publication contain community news; birth, marriage and death announcements, life cycle events and historical news. Currently, the issues are in bound volumes held in the Seattle Public Library. The goal is to digitize the pages and make the records searchable online and accessible to interested researchers around the world.

For those researching Sephardic families, this publication will be of great interest as Seattle has one of the largest Sephardic communities in the US, with origins in Rhodes, Saloniki, and Turkey.

According to the Archives.com blog post:

Archives is pleased to contribute to this project which will clearly have a positive impact on anyone researching their family history in Washington State.

JGSWS President Nancy Adelson notes, "Because of this grant, Jewish Genealogical Society of Washington State will be able to start an important project that we've wanted to do for over seven years... Thank you so much for choosing us and our project! I can't tell you how much this means to the members of JGSWS and how it will help make Jewish genealogical research a bit easier."

For more information on JGSWS, view its website.

Is there a project that your group wishes to accomplish related to family history or preservation? Learn more and apply for a grant here.

Florida: Create a 30-minute ShtetLink, June 28

Learn how to create, set up and organize - in only 30 minutes - an online site for the town where your ancestor lived at the next meeting of the Jewish Genealogical Society of Greater Orlando (Florida), on Tuesday, June 28.

Speaker Marlis Humphry, Ukraine SIG Project Coordinator, and a JGSGO member, will speak at the Congregation of Reform Judaism in Orlando. The program starts at 2pm.  

She will use the congregation's online connections and website access to demonstrate how to develop elegant and professional web pages honoring ancestral towns. It is no longer necessary to know html to do that, if you can drag-and-drop and copy-and -paste.

JewishGen hosts websites that commemorate any town where Jews lived. and which can be created by anyone interested.  

Learn how to create one, if it doesn't already exist, in 30 minutes. She will demonstrate interactive examples and discuss tools, tips, guidelines and resources and create a site.

Humphrey is a foremost expert on next generation family history publishing. She has applied - to the genealogy world - more than 20 years experience in  communications, technology, marketing and strategic planning.

She is the Ukraine SIG project coordinator. Ancestor Road Show consultant at the Indian River County Library Genealogy Department and a member of the NGS, APG, FGS, JGSGO, IRGS and LitvakSIG.

She has discovered the towns of all her great-grandparents, contacted cousins in more than a 12 states, and found two great-aunts, ages 89 and 98.

Sounds like a great program! If you'll be visiting Orlando's many tourist attractions at this time - and get a bit tired of cartoon characters - this might be a good way to spend a very useful few hours.