| 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 <iajgs.org/members/members.html>. A list of Special Interest Groups can be found at <www.jewishgen.org>.
Greater Boston Vol. 17, No. 1, Issue 58
Mass-pocha The society co-sponsored its first annual lecture for 2007 with Hebrew College, featuring Daniel Mendelsohn, who discussed The Lost: A Search for Six of Six Million, his search for information about his look-alike great-uncle, Shmiel Jaeger/Yaeger, and the family connection to Bolekhiv (formerly Bolechow), Ukraine. He found records back to 1724 with help from Alexander Dunai and the 12 remaining survivors of Bolechow’s Jewish community (now in Australia, Sweden, Belarus, and Israel). <> The state of Rhode Island attracted its Jewish community through a clause in the colony’s royal charter directing “free expression in the belief of God” for Christians. <> Austro-Hungarian research expert Henry Wellisch reviews evolution of Jewish community life and language in the Austro-Hungarian Empire and its successor territories, including Austria, Bohemia and Moravia (Czech Republic), Slovakia, Hungary, Galicia and Lodomeria, Bukovina, Carpatho-Ukraine, Transylvania, Slovenia, Croatia, and Bosnia Herzegovina. <> Dartmouth’s Project Preservation provided students to help restore Jurbarkas (Yurburg) cemetery. The college students engaged local high school students for help. Joel Alpert and Nancy Lefkowitz undertook this effort at the request of Zalman Kaplan. <> In Part II of a “Boston Queries” column, John Barr gets help locating family graves and death index entries. <> Thomas Fischer Weiss introduces a “Technology and Genealogy” column by searching for Austrian burials in 25 cemeteries, using the website <Friedhof.IKG-Wien.at/search.asp? lang=en>. The cemeteries are located in Baden, Eisenstadt, Floridsdorf, Gostling, Graz, Grazauer hal, Gronzersdorf, Hartackerstrasse, Horn/Donau, Klosterneuburg, Kobersdorf, Krems, Lackenbach, Mistelbach, Modling, Neunkirchen, Oberstockstall, St. Polten, Stockerau, Wahringer, Waidhofen/Thaya, Wien (Vienna), Zentralfriedhof I. Tor, Zentralfriedhof IV. Tor, and Zwettl. <> Elaine (Kaufman) Abrams used genealogy to fully understand her family’s sudden change of surname and citizenship. Widowed grandmother Rebecca Abroms brought her small children from Ontario to Massachusetts and later remarried a Mr. Kaufman. <> Judith Romney Wegner has used South Pacific passenger lists and registries, plus various newspapers, to trace the descendants and migrations of Sophia Marks and her son, Mark Marks, a hatter.
`Vol. 17, No. 2, Issue 59, June 2008. President Heidi Urich predicts that wider access to the International Tracing Service records will show that most American Jews lost relatives in the Holocaust. <> Marjorie Duby reminds us that Boston data for researchers: immigration, weddings, obituaries, and burials, plus indexes to some Massachusetts vital records can all be found online. <> In April, Suzan Wynne taught the Society about Galicia, the Southern Polish area once centered on Krakow and L’viv (Lemberg)—Polish on the west, Ukrainian on the east. In 1772, Austrian rule introduced the Kahal system, where each Jewish district had religious leadership and elected delegates to an overall Kahal until about 1900. Because Galicia and its poor population became largely Hasidic by 1850, those non-religious, civil vital records that survive undercount the number of births and often marriages. <> U.S. immigration Boards of Special Inquiry appeared in 1893. Look for “SI” passengers at the end of a ship’s passenger list. Younger passengers, women, and all immigrants with inadequate funds were detained until U.S. relatives could assist—see “X” marked on the passenger list. Although these pages do not appear in the Ellis Island Database films, they can be searched through <SteveMorse.org>. <> Cary Aufseeser uses his Schoenfaerber relatives to demonstrate his research techniques. Aufseeser starts with the JewishGen Family Finder and proceeds to the Family Tree of the Jewish People. He is flexible about spellings and found the family link to Europe in Cleveland’s Schanfarber family. <> Stephen Denker’s Epstein relatives in the Hamburg Emigration Index are listed with the surname Shaten for the final passage from Liverpool to New York. Allan Jordan avoided the surname problem by searching in Ancestry.com for travel Liverpool-to-New York arrival in 1891, and no last name, plus specific ages and first names from the Hamburg Index. <> Social networking is not just for youthful communication. Share family trees online at <www.tinyurl.com/ 2NVF2V> and <Geni.com> within <www.YouTube.com>. <> Video Review: Who Do You Think You Are, Stephen Fry? <tinyurl.com/6JVZ8M> follows British actor and author Fry as he researches his paternal and Jewish maternal roots.
Cleveland Vol. 17, No. 2, Summer 2008
The Kol Society meetings from January through March will occur on Sunday afternoons rather than on Wednesday evenings. <> Stephen Morse explains variations in the relationship between Hebrew and secular calendars, noting that Hebrew characters represent both letters and numbers. <> Wallace Huskonen charts the chronology and criteria of WWI draft registrations, June 1917–September 1918. WWII registrations from 1942 include men born between April 16, 1877, and February 17, 1897. <> Carolyn Lea recommends searching for obituaries more than 20 years past through newspapers and less than 20 years past through county library holdings. <> Selected 1951 phone directory data are available at <http://tinyurl. com/6espro>. <> Research on family or location is more fruitful with more reliable results than investigating possible meanings or sources of names. <> Logan Kleinwaks has posted selected pre-WWII directories at <www.kalter.org/ search>. <> A compilation of data from Russian memorial books is searchable at <www.jgsny.org/russianintro.htm>.
Colorado Spring 2008
Chai from Colorado The society recommends Colo- rado resources at the Colorado State Genealogical Society, the Colorado State Archives, and the Denver Public Library: Statewide Index to Marriages, 1858–1939; Statewide Divorce Index, 1880–1939; Denver Death Index, 1870–1905; Denver Obituary Index, 1938–2005; and vital records available from the Colorado Department of Health and Environment, plus online records available through Ancestry.com. <> Terry Lasky reminds us of the under-used 1892–1952 immigration records for the St. Albans Border Crossing on the U.S.-Canadian border. The Denver Public Library has access to more complete data than Ancestry.com. <> The Mizel Museum wants names of Babi Yar’s Holocaust-era victims for a renovation of Denver’s Babi Yar Park (contact Museum Director Ellen Premack, at 303-394-9993 x1 or ellen@mizelmuseum.org). <> The Stutthof Museum wants eyewitness testimonies from Stutthof, 1939–45 <stutthof@stutthof.pl>. <> The Intermountain Jewish News (April 18, 2008) reports the Holocaust-related Claims Conference has begun collecting survivor testimonies <http://memoirs.claimscon. org>. <> Mark Fearer reminds amateur genealogists they share common regrets with professional researchers: missing the opportunity to interview relatives, inadequately citing resources, insufficiently organized data.
Conejo Valley & Ventura County (California)
Vol. 3, No. 6, March 2008
Venturing Into Our Past Includes a list of new society officers. <> Yad Vashem can match up researchers who are using its Pages of Testimony <www.yadvashem.org>.
Vol. 3, No. 8, May 2008. Includes a summary of data available through the Yad Vashem website. <> The Santa Maria Valley Historical Society’s exhibit on 1870s Jewish culture included communities in Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo, Paso Robles, Lompoc, Guadalupe, San Simeon.
Vol. 3, No. 9, June 2008. The society is co-sponsoring a discussion session with Temple Adat Elohim of Thousand Oaks, California (host site for society meetings). <> Read about surnames in Moment magazine, March/April 2, 2008 at <www.momentmag.com/exclusive/2008/2008-03/200803 Names.html>. Los Angeles city and street address directories are available from the Los Angeles Public Library at <http://rescarta.lapl.org:8080/ResCarta-Web/jsp/RcWeb Browse.jsp>. <> U.S. vital records online now include Arizona births 1855–1932 and deaths 1844–1957 <http:// genealogy.az.gov> plus Missouri deaths 1910–57 <www. sos.mo.gov/archives/resources/deathcertificates/>.
Southwest Florida Vol. 13, No. 1, March 2008
Mishpochology Search for family names across 1,331 databases by using <http://MyHeritage. com>. <> Denver’s American Medical Center (AMC) Cancer Research Center began in 1903 as JCRS (Jewish Consumptives’ Relief Society) to serve local patients with tuberculosis <http://library.du.edu/About/collections/Special Collections/JCRS> or <www.isaacsolomonsynagogue.org>. <> Jews with Italian roots joined for a February conference on genealogical research, including Rabbis Barbara Aiello and Frank Tamburello.
Vol. 13, No. 2, Summer 2008. Includes a timeline/ chronology of Jewish Florida, 1763–2007 (summarized from <www.floridajewish.com/florida_jewish_history.php>. <> Landsmanshaften groups convened immigrants from a single hometown or region for mutual aid <www. jewishgen.org/belarus/accessing_yivo_records.htm>. For a list of 1,000 groups, see <http://home.att.net/~landsmanshaft/ yivo.htm>.
Illinois Vol. 23, No. 1, Winter 2008
Heritage/Morasha The society has arranged a member discount for DNA tests and has almost prepared searchable databases for burials at Westlawn, Jewish Graceland, and some of Oak Woods cemeteries. <> Peggy Morrow knew her family’s original name was Morrowitz, but few details remained once her father and aunt were orphaned. By comparing details on the few documents left, Morrow found her way to Mt. Carmel Cemetery (Philadelphia). Information from several family headstones included the surname Morovitz, a spelling used in early 20th-century censuses. <> Eastman’s Online Genealogy Newsletter reports that Chicago’s Newberry Library (of Humanities) posts interactive Chicago maps online at <ChicagoAncestors.org> with history and resources related to various city locations.
Illinois and Indiana Spring 2008
Illiana Read explanations of different types of image files (reprinted from Genealogy Gems: News from the Fort Wayne Library, No. 45, November 30, 2007). <> Belarus Digest (November 30, 2007) reports that Belgium is moving Jewish immigrant and emigrant data from the Office des Etrangers Archives (Brussels) to the National General Archives. The article includes no information on data access.
Summer 2008. Shoah Foundation interviews are filed with the University of Southern California as the Shoah Foundation Institute Visual History Archive. An online index or Testimony Catalogue is searchable by names and locations <http://tc.usc.edu/vhitc/(blf5kv2iutqkvur5apj0nnu4)/ default.aspx>. <> Michael Bernet suggests that European rabbis and cantors whose fathers had the same occupation as they did were obliged to find work and residence away from their home. <> Howard Margol reports a change in Lithuania’s privacy laws. The new restrictions are 50 years for death records, 70 years for marriage and divorce records, and 100 years for birth records.
Los Angeles Vol. 28, No. 2, Summer 2008
Roots-Key Ada Green added some of the oldest Jew- ish burials in British Columbia to the JewishGen Online Worldwide Burial Registry, documenting Victoria‘s Congregation Emanu-El Cemetery and Vancouver’s Mountain View Cemetery (Jewish section). Green reports her successful search for the 1897 grave of David Oppenheimer, Vancouver’s second mayor. Oppenheimer and his wife are buried in Brooklyn, New York’s Salem Fields Cemetery, regardless of multiple denials by cemetery staff. <> Sandra Ball and Barbara Algaze conducted simultaneous research from opposite sides of the world on their common Gutfeld relatives from Germany and the Netherlands. <> Bruce Wexler combined his passion for singer Al Jolson with his LitvakSig research and discovered Jolson’s 1886 birth and the Jolson parents’ 1878 marriage records from the Siauliai towns of Seredzius, Kursenai, and Seduva. <> Werner Frank describes sample Holocaust documents found at the Simon Wiesenthal Center Library and Archive, such as the Slovakian Manuscript (700 deported survivors from towns including Kivjast, Presov, Jelsava, Kosice, Uzhorod); Koszeg Register of Births, 1866–1947 (with a 1944–45 death register and a 1947 birth). Address questions to the Center Library in person (1399 S. Roxbury Dr., Los Angeles, California), by phone: 310-772-7605, fax: 310-772-7628, or e-mail: library@wiesenthal.net. <> Ann Rabinowitz found valuable Mexico-U.S. border crossings, 1903–57, among the new immigration databases on Ancestry.com. Rabinowitz details search strategies and many errors in East European names and notes, pointing out the microfilm’s transcriptions are sometimes hard to read. <> The privacy window for each U.S. census is roughly 72 years, based on a 1942 transfer from U.S. Commerce to National Archives facilities. <> The Belarus SIG struggles with World War II’s destruction of many official records. For a growing list of resources, start with JewishGen.org home page, selecting “Databases,” then “Belarus,” then “The JewishGen Belarus Database.” <> Book Review: The Jews of Sing Sing, (by Society member Ron Arons, Barricade Books, 2008). Arons includes his strategy for researching the estimated 6,000 Jewish inmates, 1980–2008. A matching database can be found at <www. jewsofsingsing.com>. <> Film Reviews: Imaginary Witness: Hollywood and the Holocaust (Ankar Productions, 2004), <www.ShadowDistribution.com>. Hiding and Seeking: Faith and Tolerance after the Holocaust follows Menachem Daum as he follows his parents’ origins in Zedunska Wola, Poland <www.pbs.org/pov2005/hidingandseeking/ about.html>.
Michigan Vol. 23, No. 2, Summer 2008
Generations Includes monthly schedule of society field trips: Burton Historical Collection, Detroit Public Library; Abrams Genealogy Collection, State Library of Michigan, Lansing; Family History Center, Mormon Library, Bloomfield Hills. <> Judi Rosen-Davis poses questions common to many beginning genealogists at the society’s tutorial taught by Marc Manson. So far, Rosen-David knows that paternal ancestors, Louis and Sonya Roshinson (Rosen), immigrated to the United States about 1910–12, possibly from Vitebsk, and her maternal grandparents were Phillip Rothart (Roth) and Sarah Starlasky Roth. Another beginner, Randy Gvorin, has paternal relatives from Lublin, including the Rubinfire or Rubenfaer family immigrating in the 1920s and a maternal grandmother, Sadie Isaacson (Charlotte Saxon), who immigrated in 1905. <> Book Reviews: Guidebook for Sephardic and Oriental Genealogical Sources in Israel, by Mathilde A. Tagger and Yitzchak Kerem (Avotaynu, 2006), relates to research on 46 countries, with a name index and sources for researching deportations to Bergen-Belsen. <> Avotaynu has created a one-stop name index covering data from JRI-Poland, JewishGen’s Family Finder, and the all-country databases for Belarus, Lithuania, and Latvia. <> Reports from Family Chronicle (September/October 2007) provide tips for the novice through advanced genealogists. We should all be specific in our correspondence, with clear questions that include background details and comply with an institution’s or person’s published guidelines such as fee scales. Of course, be patient and express your gratitude. <> Particularly up-to-date resources from the Mormon Family History Library include <http://labs.familysearch.org> (items not yet included in the comprehensive index), <http:// familysearchsupport.org> (blog sites), and <https://wiki.familysearch.org>. <> Eastman reports that new U.S. data files are available from the National Archives and Records Administration <http://aaad.archives. gov/aad/index.jsp>. <> Miriam Robbins Midkiff provides checklists and worksheets at her site <http://freepages/gene alogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~kidmiff/forms.htm>.
Southern Nevada Vol. 11, No. 1–2, Winter‑Spring 2008
Family Legacies Includes vital records indexes posted online by public libraries <http://home.att.net/~wee-monster/vitalrecords.html> and <www.deathindexes.com>. <> Part 3 of “Genealogy Resources: Mailing Lists” contains listservs on the subjects of newspapers, occupations, surnames, travel, and vital rec-ords. <> Elaine Powell explains how to copy and store rec-ords with minimum deterioration. Recommending “archival quality” means that you use “materials or products that are permanent, durable, and/or chemically stable.” Remember that computer storage is not permanent, as technology changes quickly.
New York Vol. 29, No. 2, Winter 2007–2008
Dorot Lists films planned for the 2008 Jewish genealogy conference. <> The society has arranged a process for holding Mormon microfilms on indefinite loan at the Center for Jewish History. <> <Jewishdata.com> publishes New York cemetery records from Linden Hill (Ridgewood, Queens), Washington Cemetery (Brooklyn, beginning in the 1880s), Bet David (Elmont, Nassau County), Wellwood Cemetery (Pinelawn, Suffolk County, beginning in the 1940s). Records are being processed for Israeli cemetery data from Tiberias, Safed, and Jerusalem (Har Menuchos, Mt. of Olives, Sheikh Bader). <> Valery Bazarov briefly reviews the life of Polish veteran Gregory Meisler (1900–53), director of Post-WWII HIAS office in Bremen, Germany. <> Susana Leistner Bloch sets out the steps for reviving a shtetl via a research group and website. <> David Kleiman explains how to make a file copy of online research results and recommends several websites for Jewish genealogy research: <www.cyndis list.com>, <www.familysearch.org>, <www.genealogybank .com> plus <www.loc.gov> and <www. nypl.org>. <> The Rymalower (Grzymalow) Benevolent Association is an extant Galician landsmanshaft formed in 1913. John Diener is working with the Association to photograph its Staten Island and Long Island cemetery plots. <> Congregation Shearith Israel will eventually restore its Manhattan cemeteries on St. James Place (1683–1828), 11th Street (1805–29), and 21st between 6th and 7th Avenue (1829–51). The synagogue office holds these cemetery records (8 West 70th at Central Park West). <> Mike Karsen offers tips on why and how to write a family history at <www.MikeKarsen.com>. <> YIVO now has records from the Amdurer (Belarus) Benevolent Association (1912–2005). <> Highlights of Gesher Galicia’s fourth annual regional meeting: background for the cadastral map project on property tax records, 1785–88, 1817, and 1869. The first projects are Bolechow, Dobromil, Grzymalow, Rozdol. Restoration projects include the Bukachevtsy cemetery fence, plus the Bolechow cemetery and synagogue building. <> Part 4 (continuation) of Ann Rabinowitz’s originally 3-part series about online research for British-related genealogy, including the United States, Canada, and South Africa: <www.sagenealogy.co.za> for South Africa in general; <www.1820settlers.com> for the British settling in South Africa; <www.zjc.org.il/showpage.php?pageid=1>, many Jewish settlers in Zimbabwe (Rhodesia) came from Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Turkey, or Rhodes; <www.haruth.com/ JewsKenya.htm>, supplement this general information on Jews in Kenya with the online Jewish Chronicle; <www.telfed.org.il> for South Africans making aliyah (immigration to Israel); <www.rookwoodjewishcemetery.com.au/page/search-for-a-grave> covers the world’s largest cemetery and many South African Jewish emigrants to Australia; <www.sephardicgen. com/databases/ databases.html>, particularly for emigrants from Rhodes; <http://archive.guardian.co.uk> includes Britain’s daily Guardian (1821–1975) and Sunday Observer (1900–75); <www.census.nationalarchives.ie> includes increasing amounts of the 1911 Census of Ireland, beginning with County Dublin; and <www.footnote.com> displays images from various historic documents. <> Digitized resources now include The Russian Empire and Soviet Union: A Guide to Manuscripts and Archival Materials in the United States (Steven A. Grant and John H. Brown, 1981) <http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.gdc/scd0001.20071205001ru.2>, and the Gedenkbuch, 2nd ed., a Holocaust memorial book for German Jews and Polish Jews residing in Germany <www.bundesarchiv.de/gedenbuch/directory.html>.
Vol. 29, No. 3, Spring 2008. The society website has been redesigned <www.jgsny.org>. <> Robert M. Kern followed the trail from marriage indexes to Municipal Archive and census records to wills in Bronx County Surrogate’s Court. The name of a “new” second cousin led eventually to relatives in Budapest. Kern received information about the fate of cousins during the Holocaust from the American Red Cross while still awaiting a response from the International Tracing Service. <> Resources available through <Jewishdata.com> include Who’s Who in American Jewry, 1938, some burials in New York cemeteries, and some Declarations of Intent for U.S. citizenship. Use clues from <Jewishdata.com> to refine further searches, often using other online resources, such as obituaries in <www.ancestry.com>, databases on <www.JewishGen. org>, various journals and newspapers, and city directories. <> Includes examples of documents detailing the life of artist Arthur Szyk. <> Elyse Schein and Paula Bernstein (separately adopted twins) began their searches for blood relatives by each searching for her birth name. Each used the New York Public Library History and Genealogy Division. <> Use voter records at the New York Public Library to establish U.S. citizenship (only citizens may vote), addresses at various times, and family migration patterns.
Orlando Vol. 18, No. 4, Summer 2008
Etz Chaim The society maintains a stimulating schedule, but membership is not holding steady. <> Memorials: Joe Wittenstein’s 1998 history of Jewish Florida is reprinted (published first in vol. 8, no. 3, Spring 1998). The Wittensteins, who emigrated in 1898, sponsored Orlando Congregation Ohev Shalom in 1917 and a dairy in 1927. Joe, born 1914, served as a Navy Lieutenant in WWII and worked as a Certified Public Accountant. Audrey M. Pearlman, born in Savannah, opened Kane Furniture with her husband, Dave. They are namesakes of the Pearlman Pantry at Jewish Family Services. <> Steven Morse recommends his Gold search form for Jewish genealogists. <> The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum will accept research requests for records of the International Tracing Service (ITS) at <http://itsrequest.ushmm.org/ its/getting_started.php>. Provide as much detail as possible. Requests from Holocaust survivors and immediate relatives get priority. <> Roy Jacobson’s online research inadvertently fiound a second cousin twice removed and revealed the current location of a 75-year-old family tree going back to the 1700s. <> Mark Schulman, a computer analyst, notes preservation issues for digital photos. For now, he recommends storing data on non-rewriteable computer discs. <> Book reviews: Tide and Wreck: The History of the Jews of Vardar Macedonia (Avotaynu, 2007) is an English translation of Hebrew and Serbian volumes, adding information about Yugoslavian Jewish culture and impacts of the Holocaust. But He Was Good to His Mother, by Robert A. Rockaway, introduces U.S. Jewish gangsters of the 1930s–40s.
San Diego Vol. 22 & 23, Fall 2007 & Winter 2008
Discovery Includes photos from the society’s 25th anniversary celebration and a note of new items in the society library. <> Jackye Sullins reports on the 2007 summer genealogy conference and her very successful meeting of British-Jewry researchers. <> Information from the International Tracing Service (ITS) will be available through the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum as records are transferred, 2007–2010.
Vol. 23, No. 2, Spring 2008. Marge Kealey has researched genealogical uses for school records. <> The National Archives and Records Administration has digitized the data comprising Germans to America, 1850–97; Italians to America, 1855–1900; Russians to America, 1834–97. Data show the Russian immigrants identified with Russia but simultaneously with Armenia, Finland, Galicia, Lithuania, Poland, Russian Poland, and Ukraine.
San Francisco Vol. 28, No. 2, May 2008
ZichronNote Includes an acknowledgment of the many genealogy experts who are society members. <> Memorial: Jacob Rubin, born in Wloclawek, Poland, used a fold-out rather than a fold-up family tree, adding newer generations at the outer edges. <> Society calendar includes meetings of the San Mateo County Genealogical Society and the annual Southern California Genealogy jamboree. <> Jeff Lewy represents genealogists of the 1960s who had little family history. Lewy relates his search for paternal cousin “Lady Rose Hendrickse” (nee Lewy) of England, who supported Settlement Houses in London’s East End <www.20thcenturylondon.org.uk>. Lady Rose Louise Loewe (born 1889 of Silesian descent) and Sir Basil Lucas Quixano Henriques (born 1890 of Portuguese descent) founded a boys’ and a girls’ club in London just before WWI. After Sir Basil’s wartime service, they focused on immigrant assistance, starting the St. George’s Jewish Settlement, St. George’s Settlement Synagogue, and the 125-room Bernhard Baron Settlement. Lady Rose also worked near Bergen-Belsen assisting Displaced Persons, 1945–50. Lewy relied on LDS films of English vital records 1837–1985, death certificate requests, and online historical inquiries.
Greater Washington Vol. 27, No. 3, Summer 2008
Mishpacha Society announces a new mailing address (JGSGW, P.O. Box 1614, Rockville MD 20849-1614). <> Includes final rules and fees for requesting information from the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service. <> New Society librarian, Gene Sadick, relates the history of the Society library as it moves to the Chod Media Center at B’nai Israel Synagogue. Library hours will include Monday evenings and early afternoons on Wednesdays and on the first Sunday of each month. <> Rosine Nussenblatt summarizes Anita Novinsky’s research on Marrano or Anusim or crypto-Jewish names in Brazil (as printed in Revue des etudes Juives, vol. 165, July–December 2006). Novinsky argues these surnames overlap the Portuguese surnames of the so-called Brazilian “Old Christians.” <> Milton Koch used the opportunity of a trip to his birthplace in Cuba to review family documents identifying Ukrainian (Polish) hometowns of Yahilnytsya (Jagielnica) and Podvolochisk (Podwoloczyska). JewishGen databases revealed Koch’s ancestors as great-grandmother Schlome Selzer and great-grandfather Chaim Koch. Yad Vashem’s Pages of Testimony connected Koch with a great-uncle in New York. <> Descendants of the late Kenneth Poch donated his research on Jewish soldiers buried in Arlington National Cemetery to the Greater Washington society. The collection includes photos, correspondence, and documenting research collected by Poch over 10 years. <>
Special Interest Groups (SIGs)
Gesher Galicia Vol. 15, No. 3, May 2008
The Galitzianer Includes a detailed description of relevant programs scheduled for the 2008 IAJGS Conference. <> Pamela Weisberger describes the International Tracing Service archives in Bad Arolsen, Germany. Research begins with Central Names Index building before proceeding to buildings for particular types of historic documents or confiscated possessions. The Bad Arolsen computer index is not soundexed but does accept a wild card character “%” in the fields for name, surname, and date of birth. There are no other search fields. Staff created the Central Names Index one name and citation at a time as they discovered names in various documents. These documents are coded on the index card for each name, and Weisberger provides Arolsen’s glossary of abbreviations. T/D files contain correspondence, a particularly rich source of data. Weisberger warns that no records remain from the Belzec concentration camp and that the archives have only partial records from Auschwitz. Weisberger traveled to Vienna to visit the Israelitische Kultus Gemeinde Wien (Jewish Community of Vienna) office. Director Wolf-Erich Eckstein searched a database to identify appropriate metrical books for the town of Grzymalow. Weisberger found a marriage record for relative Abraham Grunhaut and tried to research him further in the town’s State Archives, at the Gasometer. Vienna’s Austrian National Library holds many 19th–20th century school record books, noting graduating students and information about the school program.
The New York City Public Library, Slavic-Baltic Division, holds an 1871 city directory for L’viv (Lemberg or Lwow). A translated excerpt describes L’viv’s layout, street numbering system, and five city regions. A searchable database of information from the directory will be available on the Special Interest Group’s website. <> The Kolbuszowa Group has acquired list of deaths, 1925–87, from New York’s Congregation B’nai Yosef Tribe of Ephraim. <> The Suchostava Group is raising funds to photograph Jewish cemeteries and other sites in Podwoloczyska and Zbaraz. The Skalat Group translation project is delayed until translation quality can be ensured. <> Alan Weiser is converting Kolomyya (Kolomea) school records, 1878–1914, to a searchable database. <> Fay Bussgang relates the search for a stranger’s family that introduced her to Jewish genealogy and brought photographs of pre-World War I L’viv to New York’s YIVO Archives. The images are printed from 150 glass negatives in the L’viv Historical Museum. <> Israel Pickholtz has evidence that ancestors help us with research. Pickholtz has located Kwoczka burials in Queens’ Mt. Hebron Cemetery, plus Pickholtz and Brumer burials in Long Island’s Beth David Cemetery. <> Rivka Mor-Schirman looks dispassionately at how Galician Jewish were impacted by Austrian laws, 1669–1911 (includes a chronological tabulation, 1669–1890). She distinguishes among legislation motivated by anti-Semitism, legislation with the potential to negatively impact the Jewish community, and legislation praised by some and criticized by other Jewish groups. <> Tabulations show 19th-century Galician prices and wages, expressed in contemporary U.S. dollars. <> Alisa Caspi (Lusha Strudler) is looking for her sister, Klara Chaya Strudler (also known as Christina Stronska), who may have planned to emigrate from Lviv to the United States during World War II. The sisters were separated in 1942.
Sefarad Vol. 10, No. 38, September 2007
Etsi mon arbre Includes surnames and some first names of 1877 donors to Turkish Relief from records in Paris’ Alliance Israelite. Donors came from the Moroccan towns of Chauen, Tetouan, and Larache. Phillip Abensur points out that Alliance lists comprise either those wealthy enough to donate or poor enough to need assistance and few in between. Includes the donors’ surnames plus the first names of those from Chauen. <> Evyatar Chelouche used Overseas Archives to look for his family name in North Africa. He uses tables to look for naming patterns and to analyze varied spellings attributed partly to differing pronunciation between Arabic-speaking Algerian Jews and French-speaking officials. <> Vidal Serfaty reports on presentations from the Conference on the Jewish Life of Fez, sponsored by Israeli Jews of Fez Descent. His selections include History of the Fez Jewish Community, 1492–present; Fez as a repository of Spanish Judaism; Poetry of Rabbis Yaacov Ebn Tsur of Fez and Moshe Elbaz, of Sefrou.
Vol. 10, No. 39, December 2007. Includes a reference list for researching Sephardic names, in general and specifically from North Africa, Spain, Greece, Italy, Turkey, and Yemen. <> The Purim of Saragossa was discussed in a previous issue (vol. 2, no. 5, Summer 1999). Maggy Saragossi has now established the year as 1405 and the location as Syracuse, rather than Saragossa. She places events in context by recounting the history of Sicily, the region containing Syracuse. <> Laurence Abensur-Hazan introduces the Turkish carpet weavers and merchants of Smyrna, focusing on several Jewish families: Barki, Habif, Polako, Soncino, and Pontremoli. Includes a family tree ca. 1916 linking the Soncino and Polako families.
