| by Diane Goldman |
To read an article or news release excerpted in U.S. Update, order the issue of the publication in which it appeared from the appropriate JGS. A list of Jewish Genealogical Societies can be found at www.jewishgen.org/jgs. A list of Special Interest Groups can be found at www.jewishgen.org.
Bergen County (New Jersey)
Vol. 8, No. 1, Winter 2007
Gatherers
JGS monthly meetings have been suspended for lack of volunteers. Gatherers will be suspended after the final installment of county history. <> Janet Isenberg uses her Bernd family history to evoke the 18th-century community of Hohensolms, Hesse, Germany. <> Dateline: World Jewry (November 2006) reports the Hartmanice synagogue is now a Czech national heritage site.
Greater Boston
Vol. 26, No. 1, Issue 55, February 2007
Mass-Pocha
President Heidi Urich previews each segment of the society’s 25th anniversary celebration (April 29, 2007). <> Tufts University and the Bostonian Society have created searchable databases for Boston 1845–1925. Boston’s Public Library has both Sanborn fire insurance maps and similarly detailed Bromley Maps. Document these and other sources by referencing the style in Evidence! Citation and Analysis for the Family Historian (Elizabeth Shown Mills, 1997, Genealogical Publishing Co.). <> Roger Weiss and Sonia Lipetz discuss digitization of historical photos for restoration (of copies, not original images) and archiving. For the most detailed type of data file, use tiff format. Includes list of common corrections and relevant features from Adobe Photoshop software. <> The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum’s Photo Archives documents both Holocaust events and Jewish life before and after World War II. <> Rabbi Ber Boruchoff kept records on the 1,423 marriages he performed, 1906–39, while at Congregation Beth Israel, Malden, Massachusetts. Originals are held by the American Jewish Historical Society and searchable at www.jewishgen.org/databases/USA/Boruchoff.htm.
Conejo Valley & Ventura County (California)
Vol. 2, No. 5, February 2007
Venturing Into Our Past
The JGS will teach introductory genealogy skills to sixth-grade students at Temple Adat Elohom and to a multicultural symposium at Oaks Christian School. <> Old postcards provide a clue to the original appearance of the Eppengen Synagogue.
Vol. 2, No. 6, March 2007. Internet addresses for searching New York vital records and obituaries include several publications: Brooklyn Eagle 1831–1902; Queens County Sentinel; index to New York Daily Tribune, 1875–84 and 1895; various library collections, plus New York City groom, bride and death indexes searchable through www.stevemorse.org. <> Some states conduct their own census in years ending in five to supplement the U.S. decennial census.
Connecticut
Vol. 19, No. 1, March 2007
Quest
The National Archives and Records Administration branch in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, lists information about its holdings online. <> Join online classes for novice genealogists at www.genclass.com. <> Contacts through ads and the Internet helped Linda and Jack Winkleman locate relatives descended from Gittel Rosenberg Winkleman in the United States and from Chaya Taube Winkleman (Mrs. Abraham Wartelsky) in Manchester, England. Data included marriage extracts 1904–55 from Brooklyn’s Kane Street Synagogue. (kanestreet.org/5200_marriage_ registry.htm)
Southwest Florida
Vol. 12, No. 1, March 2007
Mishpochology
Includes a list of guides published by Jewish genealogy societies (DC, New York, San Francisco Bay area, Germany and Austria, Latvia and Estonia, England and Lithuania, plus broader subjects). <> The Allen County Public Library (Ft. Wayne, Indiana) and its Genealogy Center have relocated to a new facility with computer writing and a café. <> The Poland Jewish Cemeteries Restoration Project wants to restore and publicize the 1,200–1,400 Jewish pre-war cemeteries. Ozarow’s cemetery was a successful pilot project. To date, the project has begun work on 45 cemeteries.
Illinois
Vol. 22, No. 5, Winter 2007
Morasha/Heritage
President Harriet Rudnit reviews the past year and individual accomplishments. <> The Jewish genealogy society requests volunteers for an editorial board to restore the journal’s quarterly publication schedule (contact president@jgsi.org). <> Ira Wolfman’s ideas for involving children in genealogy, such as attracting them with solving the puzzle of surname origins, conducting online searches, or relevant literature (see www.workman.com/family tree). Oral history projects teach and strengthen interviewing, writing and problem solving. Autobiography projects teach and strengthen organization. <> Book summary: Beyond Hitler’s Group, Michael Bar Zohar (1998), features the World War II era rescue of Bulgarian Jews (a secret until the Iron Curtain fell in 1991) when Bulgaria’s multicultural society opposed Nazi deportation of their Jewish citizens. Most of the survivors moved to Israel. <> Reprints from NGS News-Magazine (National Genealogical society) cover an adaptation of Connie Bradbury’s article on city directories (April/May/June 2006) and NARA registrar Claire Prechtel-Klusken’s breakdown of information available from different parts of the National Archives website (January/February/March 2006). <> Brigham Young University’s online library collections include a database for the ongoing LDS digitization project (www.lib.byu. edu/online.html).
Illinois and Indiana
Spring 2007
llliana
Banai Lynn Feldstein teaches how to surmount “brick walls” in genealogy, such as varied spellings and phonetics linked to different pronunciations. <> Includes an essay on identifying photographs.
Long Island (New York)
Vol. 18, No. 3/4, Summer 2006-Fall 2006
LIneage
The Hamburg Emigration Lists, 1890–1913, plus images, 1850–1934, are available at Ancestry.com. <> Steve Lasky demonstrates that Ellis Island arrival records may list incorrect residence information because of faded ink or misread handwriting. Lasky uses Warsaw (Warszawa), Poland (previously Russia), to show multiple town spellings, written letters easily confused, and letters pronounced differently (thus recorded differently) in different languages. Lasky found 72 spellings for Warsaw! <> Part 5 of History of the Jewish People covers 500–1500 CE (the Medieval Period). Jews had been dispersed throughout the Roman Empire before its fall (Italy, Spain, North Africa, Balkans). When Emperor Constantine adopted Christianity as a state religion and moved his court from Rome to Constantinople, power struggles erupted in the westernmost parts of the Empire (Western Europe, North Africa). The now-Byzantine Empire ruled Italy, Greece and Asia Minor, with Islamic rule in North Africa and Iberia and with Central Europe confederated under the Holy Roman Empire. Regional officials contracted the terms of Jewish residence in each location. After 10 religious Crusades attempted to capture Jerusalem and Islamic lands, 1000–1500 CE, Jews were alternately expelled and tolerated in various locations, culminating with the 15th-century Spanish and then Portuguese expulsions. The anonymous author notes the Middle Ages should not be noted for persecution, but for perseverance. <> Passenger manifests for ships leaving Britain 1890–1900 are available online at www.findmypast.com. Data for additional years should be added by mid-2007. Once an access fee has been paid, searching the data is free.
Michigan
Vol. 22, No. 1, Spring 2007
Generations
The Jewish Genealogy Society library has a new location (Zekelman Family Holocaust Memorial Center, 28123 Orchard Lake Road, Farmington Hills). <> New member Julius Cohen from Hurleyville, New York, descended from Lithuanian (Vilnius) immigrants. <> Ruthie Rosenberg finds historical and contemporary names for U.S. cities in The Handy Book for Genealogists, 7th ed., Everton Publishers. <> University of Texas at Austin has an excellent map collection accessible onsite and online. <> Rand McNally’s 1895 U.S. railroad maps show obscure place names (see www.livgenmi.com/1895). <> The Tay-Sachs gene inspired researchers Dori and Michael Goldman (cousins). Their family includes Herbert Liebhardt (founder of Tropicana Juice), Abraham Sutzkever of Vilnius (YIVO poet) and the Yopkovitch/ Goldman family of Libau, Germany (and Detroit). <> Noni (Norma) St. Amand is researching descendants of her grandfather, David Gup, who emigrated from Moscow to New York City. Relatives include the Pies, Pais and Krovetz families, plus paternal relatives from Kupel.
Southern Nevada
Vol. 9, No. 4, 2006
Family Legacies
Includes list of JGS officers elected December 2006. Shelly Weiner will succeed Mary Barkan as journal editor. Outgoing President Charlotte Showel was declared Member of the Year.
Central New Jersey
Winter 2007
Newsletter
There really is a difference between everyday Coca Cola and the drink Kosher for Passover, thanks to Rabbi Tobias Geffen (b. Lithuania), of Atlanta, Georgia.
New York
Vol. 28, No. 2, Winter 2006–2007
Dorot
April 22nd will be observed with a day-long seminar on the Holocaust. Speakers include Nolan Altman (JewishGen cemetery burial index), Zvi Bernhardt (Yad Vashem Hall of Names and reference), Jan T. Gross (Princeton University), Peter Lande (U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum volunteer), Robert Moses Shapiro (City University of New York, scholar of Holocaust diaries and contemporary journalism). <> Peter Lande describes primary sources of Holocaust-era information: Jewish Refugees in Tashkent (1942), U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM); 8-volume Book of Memory of Jewish Soldiers Who Fell in Battle with Nazism, 1941–1945 (Moscow, 1994–2002); Gulag Database of Soviet deportations, late 1930s–1953, part of the data underlying www.stevemorse.org; Soviet Extraordinary Commission, USHMM record group 22.002M (organized geographically), documents impact of German occupation; 20-volume Karta Center Collection, www.karta.org.pl (in Polish), documents Soviet deportations and murders in Poland (using interwar borders); Central Committee of Polish Jews, USHMM record group 15.057M or Jewish Historical Institute (Warsaw), contains registers of Polish Jews returning after World War II from hiding or concentration camps or the Soviet Union (in order of Polish soundex); varied Polish publications, including 5-volume Jewish Military Casualties in the Polish Armies in World War II (Benjamin Meirtchak, Tel Aviv, 1994–99); Post-world war survivor lists, mostly from German Displaced Persons camps, particularly from World Jewish Congress and Sharit ha-Platah. Document lists are available from USHMM and Yad Vashem. <> A review of early 20th-century Jewish Cuban history summarizes Jewish Community of Cuba: The Golden Years: 1906–1958 (Dr. Jay Levinson, 2006, Nashville: Westview Book Publishing). <> Michael Pertain uses relative Morris Jaffe as a case study of research starting with only tombstone information. <> American Jewish Historical Society has filmed records alphabetized A-Led from Boston’s Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, 1930–77. <> Brooklyn Historical Society is open after seven years (see www. brooklynhistory.org, plus the catalog at www.bobcat.nyu.edu). <> YIVO has released access to 80 letters from Otto Frank, seeking support or a visa to exit Nazi-occupied Europe. <> Online catalogue for the Center for Jewish History is now accessible at www.catalog. cjh.org. <> http://eldridge street.org includes a recreated list of that synagogue’s congregants 1850s–1950s. Click on “Get Involved,” then “Family Connections.” <> Searchable indexes are available for Queens County Supreme Court naturalizations, 1906–57, and Suffolk County marriages, 1908–35.
Orlando
Vol. 17, No. 3, Spring 2007
Etz Chaim
A handout from the society’s lecture on digitally restoring photos is available at www.enchelmayer.com/paul/. Click on “Lectures.” <> Alan Moss is descended from Lithuanian and Ukrainian immigrants to the United Kingdom. He was able to show wife, Sandy, and granddaughter, Jenny, ancestral headstones in North London’s Jewish Federation Cemetery (Edmonton). Photos show headstones for Jennie (Mrs. Nathan) Moscovitch (1905–45), Philip Reuben (1870–1950), Minnie Reuben (1870–1943), Nathan Moscovitch (1905–68) and Pearl (Mrs. E.) Moscovitch. <> Book reviews: one-volume Encyclopedia of Judaism; Grandeur and Glory (Rabbi Meir Wunder) is the first of a 4-volume gazetteer for Galicia. Volume 1 covers Eastern Galician towns with names beginning A-O.
Philadelphia
Vol. 25, No. 1, January 2007
Chronicles
Harry Boonin discusses doing research in Philadelphia. Funeral homes may hold Yiddish-language synagogue records. Cemetery offices may be willing to forward correspondence to caretaker of record for a burial site. Pushcart vendors are rarely listed in directories but may appear in newspaper stories. Philadelphia city atlases name property owners, a useful supplement to the damaged 1890 census. The Jewish Exponent newspaper reported immigrant news only for 1887–97, in separate Philadelphia and Baltimore editions (microfilmed together haphazardly to create a single sequence). Building permits are available at the City Archives, organized by street address (make note of the year as well as the permit number). Federal bankruptcy records, 1898–1960, are organized chronologically at the National Archives and Records Administration. Birth records (birth “returns”), 1860–1903, are available on FHL films or in record 76.17 at the Philadelphia City Archives, organized by midwife or doctor. (Boonin has a finding aid for doctors’ names and residential addresses.) The Philadelphia Realty Directory, 1926–1959, records property sales (see Central Bookstacks at the main branch of the Free Library of Philadelphia [oversize, call number 333p53r, vol. 1926–1959 Material, Reference], which appear interspersed on the microfilm). Use the Jewish Times for immigrant news, 1898–1926. <> Two Yiddish-language books related Philadelphia’s Jewish immigration history: 50 Years of Jewish Life in Philadelphia, Moses Freeman, 1929 and 1934; Philadelphia Jewish Institutions and Their Leaders, Yod Lamut Malamud, 1942. <> Genealogists find clues helping the court appointed administrator connect the estate of Regina Adler and living relatives (reprint of an article by Selma Neubauer, PJAC News, vol. 58, summer 2006). <> Mark Halpern displays early 20th-century inspection, health and identification documents used by his father (Yehuda / Juda/Jules Halpern, b. 1903) and other relatives from Galicia.
San Diego
Vol. 21, No. 4, Fall 2006
Discovery
Individuals with books and with documents or other items related to the Dominican Republic’s Jewish community of Sosua (Island) should contact Ilona Moradof at New York’s Museum of Jewish Heritage (36 Battery Pl., New York, NY 10280). <> Online data now include Russian Jewish life, www.friendspartners.org/partners/ beyond-the-pale; Estonian Jewish history, http://eja.pri.ee; and immigration to Canada in the 19th and mid-20th centuries, www.collectionscanada.ca/ immigrants.
San Francisco Bay Area
Vol. 26, No. 4, November/December 2006
ZichronNote
The genealogy society averages two events each month throughout its 25th anniversary. Personal interaction at world meetings provides social and mentoring opportunities, while reassuring and encouraging new member-researchers. <> University of California, Berkeley, students, 1864–1936, are listed in The Golden Book (1937), organized alphabetically by surname and geographically (by residence at time of publication). University resources include Officers and Students, 1894–1945 (published triennially), and yearbooks. Yearbooks may limit student photos to fraternity members. <> Jeremy Frankel reminds us to donate Yiddish recordings to the Judaica Sound Archives at Florida Atlantic University (see faujsa.fau.edu). <> Steven Lasky has extracted information about Warsaw and its emigrants for his lists at www.museumoffamilyhistory.com (reprinted from JewishGen correspondence).
Washington, D.C.
Vol. 26, No. 1, Winter 2007
Mishpacha
A brief biography of Rabbi Malcolm H. Stern includes information on the gift fund he started to create microfilms and finding aids for the National Archives and Records Administration. Includes a list of the donations made by this fund nicknamed Dollars for Documents. <> Jeff Miller recommends focusing on a very few goals when conducting research at the Family History Library in Salt Lake City, Utah. Besides traditional paper and microfilm resources, the library has an extensive map collection plus computers and offers access to databases otherwise available through subscription. <> Olga Zabludoff reports on the newest Litvak Special Interest Group (SIG) project: working with Lithuanian-Jewish materials from the Central Archives for the Jewish people (Jerusalem).
Special Interest Groups (SIGs)
Gesher Galicia
Vol. 14, No. 2, February 2007
The Galitzianer
Galician programs at the 2007 IAJGS summer conference will cluster around Monday, July 16. <> Funding is complete for translation of the Rozniatow yizkor book ($5,000 over seven years). <> Racheli Kreisberg-Zakarin and Paulinka Kreisberg-Wiesenthal are coordinating a project to identify Skala residents and relationships by analyzing house numbers from different sources (includes tabulated data). <> LDS microfilms include Lithuanian historical records not mentioned in the film descriptions: vital records from Velyki Ochi begin in 1791; marriage records include Grzymalow (Grimaylov), 1920s–40s, and Pidvolochysk through 1942, plus name changes from Mykulyni, 1905–22. However, films do not include Galician or Ukrainian property or notarial records from Lviv archives. Current film organization is geographical (by Lviv province, rather than by town). A list of record types and years organized by town is reprinted from the newsletter of the Los Angeles JGS. <> Drohobycz birth and death records, 1816–69, and selected marriage records, 1935, are being transcribed. Coordinators are Mark Jacobson and Carole Glick Feinberg. A coordinator is needed for Sambor birth records, 1829, 1833–52 and 1829–76, plus marriage and death records, 1829–76. <> Kolomyya vital records data, 1904–05, should appear online in 2007. Holocaust survivor data can be found at www.shtetlinks.jewishgen.org/kolomea/ kol_surv.htm. <> Shoah Foundation films include five interviews for Skala. <> Douglas Hykle plans a town website for Tluste/Tovste, where he is renovating the family property. <> Alan Weiser advises how to hire a researcher overseas. First, define your goals and schedule in detail, including what type or format of reports you might want. Set out what a proposal must include, such as researcher’s name and address(es) and electronic contacts (e-mail, phone, fax). Ask for proposals to include a proposed price and a resume, note of relevant education, character references (names and contact information), plus a list of similar research projects including description, contact person and starting and ending dates. Second, wait to see what approach is suggested in any proposals, and evaluate the submissions. Third, reconcile any differences in terms and prepare a written contract, noting your and the researcher’s responsibilities. Sign the contract and send it to the researcher for signature and return. Fourth, keep track of the researcher’s performance and make appropriate payments. <> Part 3 of Arye Barkai’s The Remarkable Ringelheims: The Story of a Galician Jewish Family. Contemporary descendants have family names including Ashenberg, Eisbart, Elon, Fass, Gurfein, Koffler, Troy, Weinschenk and Wolper. Records at the Rzeszow City Hall mention some Ringelheims. <> Extracts from the 1929 Polish Business Directory, organized by town within township, list property owners and the size of their land.
Suwalk-Lomza
Vol. 16, No. 3–4, December 2006
Landsmen
The latest installment of data from Szaki includes a brief recapitulation of data published in previous issues. Data published in this issue extend from the 1784 Jewish Census to World War I. (Interwar information is available on JewishGen under Shtetlinks.) Name lists include a 1915 surname list for Jewish families evicted from Szaki and surrounding villages. Use eviction lists as geographical clues if you cannot locate a family in records for the expected home town. <> A history of Szaki draws on Slownik geograficzny, the Polish gazetteer and Jewish Cities, Towns and Villages in Lithuania (Berl Kagan, 1991). Unfortunately, census data only selectively use patronymics and use the terms son and daughter for actual children, a child’s spouse and grandchildren. The Special Interest Group will delay publishing information from Szaki census records for 1765 until more complete records have been obtained and the data can be linked with that from later records. <> The earliest Szaki Jews were part of the Jurbarkas kahal. <> Margaret Myers summarizes her translation of an 1844–1920 Hebrew diary by her great-grandfather, Eliezer Mordechai Altschuler of Suwalki. <> Ralph Salinger is coordinating support to photograph the Jewish cemetery in Vilkaviskis, protected by the local town council (see picturetrail.com/ralphs11). <> Tables in this issue show death data, 1817–35, extracts for Szaki civil records from the Lithuanian State Historical Archives. Mormon microfilms do not include these records. Tables also show marriage data, 1825–41, extracts for Preny civil records. The next issue of Landsmen will contain Preny extracts for 1841–65 data.
Germany
Issue 30, Winter 2006
Stammbaum
Family correspondence from 1820 provided Ralph Baer with leads to a second family town (Landau) and connected several surnames. Ralph Baer used 19th-century correspondence to expand an old family tree, centered on the town of Pfaffenhoffen, Alsace. Surnames added to the Baer/Klein tree include Schneeberger, Sonnentheil and Seligmann. <> Janet Isenberg used vital records to supplement the memories of elderly relatives. She used this research to set an itinerary for escorting her mother back to her home town of Floridsdorf and to Vienna. Isenberg’s husband and son accompanied them to towns along the way: Budapest, Stupava and Laab in Slovakia; Vienna; Floridsdorf and Prague. <> The Jewish population of Bad Buchau (Buchau) dates back to 1575, with records in the Municipal Archives for the Free Imperial City (1661–1802) and the town within the Kingdom of Wurttemberg (beginning 1803). Records include legal proceedings, a cemetery inventory, family registers and 1828–49 probate records. A table lists the town’s Jewish families, 1722 and 1726. <> Jona Schellekens analyzed reported dates for the Jews of Altona by comparing these dates (and surnames) against tombstones (see list of deaths, 1638–75). <> Adam Yamey relates the 1849 trip from Bavaria to Cape Town, South Africa, as reported by his maternal relative Henry Bergmann (1831–66). The trip lasted 108 days. <> George Arnstein reviews the evidence of Jewish military service in Austria, 1781 to roughly the 1930s. <> Twentieth-century German Jewish emigrants to Argentina share the characteristics of ambivalence, isolation and reliance on the German language. <> The Nazis collected and destroyed many original Jewish vital records from Bohemia and Moravia (Sudetenland), 1784–1949, but duplicate records survive. Julius Muller explains where duplicates existed and why. <> When the German-Jewish Congregation Ohav Sholaum closed, the Special Interest Group worked with the Judaica Museum, returning unclaimed, 19th-century prayerbooks to German towns and museums and, where possible, to descendants of the original owners. <> The Bundesarchiv (German Federal Archive) has published an expanded memorial book for the Nazis’ German-Jewish victims (Gedenkbuch, 2d ed. 2006), accompanied by a searchable computer disc (CD-ROM). Newly published information includes places of birth, residence and deportation.
Sephardic
Vol. 9, No. 35, December 2006
Etsi
Written in French, English and Ladino, with an index of family and place names mentioned. <> Paris resources for studying the 19th-century Jews of Oran (Algeria) include archives of the Alliance Israelite Universelle, the Algerian French-language press (Le Moniteur Algerien) and the region’s administrative files in the Archives Nationales de France (record group F19). Tables show 1880 donations, 1842 subscriptions for memorial statuary and 1897 voters list. <> Barbara Algaze and Vivian Salama (with Mathilde Tagger and Jeffrey Malka) have prepared an extensive list of Internet sites useful for Sephardic research, organized by cultural region: Ottoman Empire, the Iberian sphere of influence (Spain, Portugal, South America), Great Britain, Egypt and the Middle East, French North Africa (the Maghreb). <> Laurence Abensur-Hazan describes the Monferrato section of Italy’s Piedmont region, first attracting Jews from France and Spain in the 16th century.
