This paper is based upon a talk given at the IAJGS Conference in Chicago, August 2008.—Ed.
| Many genealogists have discovered the value of the Internet to search for information about Jewish ancestors, descendants who migrated to other lands and their extended families. Websites proliferate at an exponential rate, driven in part by volunteer genealogical enthusiasts and organizations that place data on the Internet and also partly by entrepreneurs who seek financial gain through developing sites that primarily use research provided by others. Along with the many new sites come copyright and privacy issues. Although the research described in this article was undertaken to explore the author’s Latvian roots, the sites explored are relevant to other European Jewish genealogical research as well. |
Jewish genealogical research has been immeasurably enhanced by the creation of search engines, such as Google, and directories, such as Cindy’s List, that provide links to other databases. In addition, archival databases, such as JewishGen, have been created whose website is maintained and secured and whose functionality is improved constantly. Other categories of databases are personal databases, such as <Liepajajews.com>, family websites created by programmers with their own code and hosting arrangements and also shtetl (ancestral village) sites that may tell you about the family and its history. In addition, the “new frontier” of worldwide social interaction networks such as Facebook, Geni and numerous others assist in family history research.
The Beginning: Search Engines and Directories
Novice genealogists frequently try to find information about ancestors and extended family by using search engines and directories. That “swing for a home run” approach rarely is successful, but search engines and directories can be valuable. Although Google is the best known and most frequently used search engine, many other useful search engines also exist. Among them are Dogpile, Cuil, Live Roots, Altavista, Alltheweb and About.com.
Google <www.google.com> generally is recognized as the world’s largest search engine providing a free and easy-to-use service. Its mission is “to organize the immense amount of information available on the web,” and as a result, most genealogists begin their web searches with Google. This does not, however, always bring the best results. When entering the words “Latvia Jews” into Google, the resulting site ranked first was entitled, “Genealogical Resources—Jewish Latvia.” The heading suggested that it likely would provide detailed Latvian genealogical resources, but instead it was the memorial site of Rumbula (a Holocaust massacre site) and a directory that provides links to other websites. Although it is important in itself, this site does not provide much in the way of genealogical data for beginning a web search for Latvian ancestors. (Of course, the search also yielded numerous other hits to pursue.) According to Frank Perazzini at J.D. Power and Associates, however, “Google continues to be particularly successful in making its name and brand synonymous with the execution of an Internet search.”
The same search on a different search engine typically produces different results. In part this results because not all indexes are exactly the same, and results depend on how the search engine interprets what it finds at a particular site or on the keywords the researcher submitted to define the search. Furthermore, different search engines often use different algorithms to search through the indexes. The algorithm is used to determine the relevance of the information in the index to the topic the researcher is searching.
Dogpile <www.dogpile.com> claims to have all the best search engines piled into one. It notes that “based on everything from how information is arranged on a web page, to what each search engine pinpoints as most relevant, search results can vary widely across each search provider.” Dogpile is useful for the different results that, in turn, lead to further avenues of research.
Cuil <www.cuil.com> is a new search engine that claims to be the world’s largest, searching more pages on the web than any other—three times as many as Google and ten times as many as Microsoft. The company claims that rather than rely on what it calls “popularity metrics,” it differentiates itself by searching for and ranking pages based on their content. Thus, when it finds a page with the requested key words, it stays on that page and analyzes the rest of its contents, its concepts, their inter-relationships and the page’s coherency.
Cuil further claims that its goal is to solve the two great problems of searching: how to index the entire Internet and not just part of it, and how to analyze and sort out its pages so that the searcher receives relevant results. Cuil gives the following example: Imagine that the telephone company decided to stop listing infrequently called numbers in its directory. Maybe no one telephones your grandmother often, but if her friend from the old neighborhood wants to get in touch, shouldn’t Grandma’s number be in the book? Cuil lists all the numbers because someday someone will need that number.
Furthermore, Cuil also addresses the issue of privacy, claiming that it analyzes web pages and not how an individual uses the web. It claims that Cuil does not collect any personally identifiable information, insisting that it does not know who sends queries—“not by name, not by IP address and not by cookie.”
Live Roots <www.liveroots.com> is a just-released search engine that claims two points of distinction. First, it claims to allow a variety of searches across hundreds of different data providers and publishes it all at once and with the most up-to-date versions of the catalog listings. Secondly, it has a “live” function. The searches conducted include resources from which one may obtain information with the assistance of a live person whom the inquirer commissions for a nominal fee.
Live Roots claims that its basic concept was to build a single resource that bridges the gaps among independent genealogy websites, large commercial ancestry repositories and many other printed family history materials still to be digitized and published on the web. It notes that “Live Roots extends beyond the typical bounds of a traditional search engine or link directory by facilitating access to offline records and publications through partnerships with amateur and professional researchers who either own copies or are geographically closer to the libraries and archives that do.”
World Vital Records <www.worldvitalrecords.com>, part of a family of services that includes FamilyHistoryLink.com, WebTree.com and We’re Related and My Family on Facebook has just celebrated its second anniversary and claims more than 1.2 billion names in more than 11,000 databases. One of its primary strategies has been to partner with as many companies as possible to acquire valuable genealogical content, sharing revenues and royalties with the content providers. World Vital Records claims to have more than 30 partner companies.
Search Engine Issues
Relevance Versus Redundancy. The use of search engines often helps provide direction and focus to a genealogical quest. On the other hand, scrolling through hundreds of “hits” can be like searching for diamonds in alluvial mines. A large number of hits provides merely useless repetition and often is not new content but simply copies of copies.
Directing the researcher to other search engines may be like viewing a series of mirrors that reflect one another without providing additional content. The way the Internet is structured makes it difficult to access information of substance and real value.
Rank Versus Relevance. Search engines provide information that is not necessarily relevant. The volume and traffic to a website from search engines is improved through search engine optimization, resulting in a higher page rank within the particular search engine. That does not, however, necessarily result in the data found being more relevant.
No Peer Review. Some material posted on the web has been vigorously authenticated. This likely is the case for academic disciplines, government websites and some corporate websites on which information must be accurate. For most of the web, however, no claim is made that material is either authoritative or valuable; researchers must decide for themselves. Books generally have fewer errors, because the authoritativeness of a particular book can rather easily be judged. The Internet does not have this capability. As a result, one may find outrageous claims and outright errors.
Useful Genealogical Websites
Cindy’s List <cindyslist.com> which provides links and claims to list more than 65,000 genealogical sites by surname, place name, type of record and other genealogically relevant parameters. This website must be regarded as a road sign rather than a destination. Nevertheless, it includes an enormous amount of information that can direct a researcher to directly valuable sites.
Steve Morse’s One-Step Search Tools. Although thousands of researchers visit Morse’s website <stevemorse. org> daily for his well-known Ellis Island One-Step tools, he also has created and/or been instrumental in creating alternative search forms for census records and other databases. Morse explains that “whenever I come across a site that offers some valuable service, but does not provide the most flexible means of accessing that service, I am motivated to improve the situation.” Morse’s alternate means of accessing some websites and his own databases and programs to facilitate genealogical research all appear on this website.
Consolidated Jewish Surname Index. Avotaynu <www.avotaynu.com> created the Consolidated Jewish Surname Index (CJSI) <www.avotaynu.com/csi/databases. htm>, an indispensable gateway to information about 699,084 mostly Jewish surnames that appear in 42 unique databases that combined include more than 7.3 million records. CJSI is sequenced phonetically, rather than alphabetically, according to the Daitch-Mokotoff Soundex. As a result, spelling variants of a name that sound the same are grouped together, thus simplifying research.
Archival Data
Hosted websites, such as JewishGen, with archival data play a major role in Jewish genealogical research. JewishGen.org and other such websites constantly improve and update the content posted to their sites. Other examples of archival databases include the Latvia Holocaust Jewish Names Project, Yad Vashem, Family Search (LDS [Mormon] Church), Geneanet and the cluster that belongs to the Generations Network: RootsWeb, Ancestry, MyFamily, Genealogy.com and Family Tree Maker.
JewishGen <www.JewishGen.org>. Founded in 1987 by Susan King, JewishGen became one of the first genealogy websites to allow text-based e-mail searches of data, including the JewishGen Family Finder, the yizkor (memorial) book database and Jewish Records Indexing-Poland (JRI-P).
JewishGen Family Finder, created originally by Gary Mokotoff, is a compilation of surnames and towns currently researched by more than 80,000 Jewish genealogists worldwide. It includes more than 400,000 entries of 100,000 ancestral surnames and 18, 000 town names.
JewishGen Family Links Data Base provides a number of web pages on specific families. Researchers can link into an already existing family web page by being allowed to add a family link.
Yad Vashem <www.yadvashem.org>, the Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem, maintains the extremely important Central Database of Shoah Victims’ Names database of nearly three million names. The database is composed of information taken from resources at Yad Vashem, especially its Pages of Testimony, which are forms created by relatives and/or friends of Shoah victims that often provide data about names, place and date of birth, and names of parents, spouses and children.
Family Search <www.familysearch.org>. This site, owned and operated by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons), has considerable genealogical value. On this site, researchers may search by surname, record type and locality. To search for records of a given geographical location, go to the “Search Records” tab and link to “Library Catalog.”
Geneanet and others do not use their own archival material to do research. Rather, much of their data has been provided through associations or partnerships with other archival sites and/or by providing free web space on which genealogists may place their family trees and data.
The Generations Network. RootsWeb.com, Ancestry.com and My Family.com are sister companies owned and operated by The Generations Network. These sites all are important for Jewish research, even more so since they formed a partnership with JewishGen and the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee.
RootsWeb is a site that can be used to research family members. Although it is similar to Ancestry.com, it contains different databases.
Genealogy.Com has some databases and census indexes that are different from those on other Generations sites.
Personal Family Websites
Personal family websites are important and can yield useful information related to one’s ancestry. Only a few are described here, but the Internet has thousands, with the numbers increasing daily. The author’s first genealogical breakthrough came from this family site and it enabled him to create links with the Koenigsfest family that in turn opened the door to a first meaningful genealogical experience. I wrote to thank the webmaster for providing me with my initial big breakthrough but received no reply, a not-uncommon result. Many sites are started with great enthusiasm—but as time passes, interest is lost or the original webmaster cannot continue. Sites become dormant, hosting fees are no longer paid and they are disconnected, going into oblivion.
Dumes Family site is one of the more sophisticated sites and provides video material, historical background, photographs, documents, travel information and archival family film clips.
Blumberg Family site website was developed by the author and his sons. It includes a family tree, family photographs, views of Latvian shtetls as our ancestors would have seen them and articles of Latvian genealogical interest. As it is developed, it will trace the Blumberg family of Grobina and Liepaja from their ancestor Meier Blumberg going back to 1796. It will also include the family Altschule, the extended family of Lochowitz, Hirschhorn and Gabbe.
Shtetl and City Sites
Through these sites genealogists often find other researchers with mutual interests and discover living descendants who bridge the gap between the present and the archival material of the past. Many such sites have given the author additional focus to research. Talsen, Tuckum and Valdemarpils may be accessed on the JewishGen’s Latvia SIG site by going to “Shtetl Focus” Others can be found on the JewishGen Shtetl Links: Dagda, Jekabpils, Kuldiga, Liepaja, Ludza, Riga, Riebini, Subate, Varaklani and Viski.
Social Interaction Networks
Social interaction networks such as Facebook, Geni, My Heritage and many others enhance the ability to communicate and to exchange information. Their software allows users to create and share content and search for other users. These networks also facilitate the enhanced flow of intergenerational communication.
Facebook claims more than 100 million users. Toronto, Canada, is a major hub of Facebook with some university networks numbering more than 100,000 “friends.” Many users of Facebook have aggregated around family groups. Once Facebook had developed millions of users, it opened up its software to outside developers who create plug-in modules and applications that users can install to share specific types of content such as family trees. With theses applications, genealogists can invite members to their network or manually enter information and images.
Family Tree <http://www.facebook.com/applications/ Family_Tree/2359239297>, a subset of Facebook, claims that its Familybuilder is a fun tool for finding relatives, building a family tree, preserving family history, scrap booking the lives of the user and his/her family, remembering loved ones and staying in touch with family.
Family Facts <www.facebook.com/apps/application.php? id=6183067965>, a site also linked to Facebook, asks “Who were your ancestors? How did their lives affect yours? Learn fun facts about you, your family and your friends—things you probably don’t know but will teach you a little more about who you are.”
Geni <www.geni.com>, led by David Sacks, is extremely easy to use. Sacks, a former CEO of PayPal, asserted in an interview that Geni is creating a “family tree of the whole world, and layering in a family social network and family wiki on top of that. We want to become a place to connect and preserve the family. In terms of how we’re doing, we’re growing really fast.” By using the word “wiki,” he was referring to a page or collection of web pages designed to enable anyone who accesses it. Sacks claimed that Geni has about 2 million users who have created 30 million profiles on the site. Sacks claims that what differentiates Geni from other sites is that they are “not just going vertically back in time, we’re also branching and going horizontally among all your living relatives.” New features include a process for tree merging and video sharing.
My Heritage. <myheritage.com> This Israeli-based site claims to have more than 26 million members and more than 278 million names with more than 4.5 million family sites. Innovations are said to include face recognition technology and a search engine that aggregates hundreds of online databases. Other features include family tree building, family calendars and Smart Matching technology which allow the service to compare family trees for overlap. The company has announced that it now can automatically tag photographs in an instant, remember faces from previous photos and identify these people in new photographs. My Heritage is available in 24 languages and claims to be the second most trafficked genealogy company on the web after the Generations Network.
Genebase. <www.genebase.com> claims to offer a “wide panel of personal genomics assays which allows people to use DNA to find out more about themselves. One of Genebase’s best known products, ‘The DNA Ancestry Project’ is a branch of personal genomics which allows users to look into their past using their own DNA ancestral markers.” Genebase also claims that it contains a “deep ancestry” database (for tracing lineage back tens of thousands of years) as well as an “indigenous DNA” database (for users to discover which indigenous populations in the world most closely matches their own DNA). The Genebase User Database also allows users to network with people around the world using their DNA and continues to grow as membership grows.
The company says that its network is based on the genetic linkages between family members, and this is made possible by the Genebase family trees. It further claims that it is the world’s first family tree social network and that it “automatically links various family lineages together to facilitate collaborative studies between different family members to uncover the roots of different lines of the family tree and discover the inheritance of genetic traits.”
Concerns and Benefits:
Many genealogists place material on websites, taking advantage of the ability to use it to post their material without having to pay to construct or host a website. In the case of JewishGen and all websites that invite genealogists to place material on their sites, it is important to refer to their Donor Agreement or Terms of Usage. Be aware of what rights are retained and what rights are granted after placing genealogical research material on such sites. The concern relates to the loss of full, in some cases, and partial ownership, in other cases, of intellectual property. Where care is not taken, concerns may arise regarding rights of privacy.
In all cases where information is donated, it is important to refer to the Terms of Use or Terms of Service, which define your rights, responsibilities and benefits that accrue to the donor. Regrettably, most researchers only cursorily read the respective Terms of Usage or Donor Agreement and hastily “click through” those terms.
JewishGen sets out requirements that must be met. Among those are, first, the requirement that the donor certify that the donor has all the rights to donate the material to JewishGen and has all the applicable permissions from others who supplied any portion of the material to the donor and where written or copyright material has been obtained copies have to be included with the agreement.
Furthermore, in terms of rights, the donor, for no additional consideration, grants to JewishGen a non-exclusive perpetual right to use, publish or distribute the donated material. It should be noted that in addition to JewishGen itself publishing the material, it also has the right to distribute such material. The Donor Agreement refers to the non-exclusivity of this grant and states that the donor retains all rights to such data or information and may use, publish or distribute such data or information in any way donor chooses. This grant may not be revoked after the date of this agreement. Unlike many other websites, JewishGen states that it will only be able to accept the material for publication on its server when a signed copy of this agreement has been received in their corporate office. If this project is a “work in progress,” all additional material will be donated to JewishGen under the same conditions as set forth in Sections 1 and 2 above. Most of the other websites provide for agreement to the Terms of Usage without a signed hard copy of the agreement but accept agreement by clicking acceptance on the website. Other popular websites have quite different terms of service.
Many concerns have been raised about the use of social networks, and warnings are issued about the dangers of publishing identifiable personal details such as name, date of birth, mother’s maiden name, hometown, contact information and personal life. Providing personal details can not only lead to identity theft, but much of the information available on social networks may create sufficient information to enable someone to use another identity to register for web services. The use by banks of information such as date of birth or mother’s maiden name to identify a customer has become obsolete, although it still is used in many instances.
Many sites have attempted to meet such concerns by providing users with a number of controls to protect themselves online, and they do so by choosing the appropriate settings. It is up to individuals to check and ensure that appropriate settings are in place.
In addition, there is the issue of ownership of intellectual property and either ceding total ownership of such rights as distribution, sharing and publication, among others. While there are concerns, it should be noted that social network sites provide unprecedented opportunities for knowledge sharing across intergenerational lines. Furthermore, it offers web space and the exposure that such sites provide to the researcher.
Conclusion
While this paper is an overview of various genealogical websites, it is important to keep in mind that any website that can provide added genealogical information is relevant as our ancestors migrated through various countries. Furthermore, while the sites referred to above range from custom databases and ones hosted to personal websites and also the new frontier of worldwide social networks with its inherent dangers, it is not all encompassing and new sites are being launched daily.
Henry Blumberg, a lawyer living in Toronto, is president of the Latvia SIG and a board member of the Liepaja Memorial Wall. He has been involved in a project to erect a memorial to Grobina Jews murdered in 1941.
