We are pleased to announce the founding of Avotaynu Online, an exciting new venture intended to stimulate collaboration among genealogists and historians in all its forms, with a particular focus on Jewish genealogy. This includes coverage of conferences and meetings, DNA studies, online family trees, social networking, the development of genealogical standards suitable for the Internet age, and developments in related fields (i.e., history, law, computer science) that have an impact on Jewish genealogy. Leading participants in these areas will provide in-depth reports on events and discoveries on a regular basis.

Our reports  will be available at no charge from the venture’s Web site at http://adam.learnpress.esy.es/, which will be shared simultaneously on Facebook and Twitter in different formats, including text, video, and podcasts.

Please subscribe to our news by (1)  “Liking” our page on Facebook or the social network of your choice such as Twitter  @AvotaynuOnline or Google+  –AND- (2) go to the top of our web page and enter your name and email address.

By virtue of its focus on the in-depth reporting of specific subjects, Avotaynu Online is intended to be entirely distinct from the existing print journal, AVOTAYNU, which for over three decades has covered the broad spectrum of Jewish family history research, and from the weekly Nu? What’s New?, which reports breaking stories in the world of genealogy.

Avotaynu Online intends to stimulate activity in our field. One excellent example relates to the field of Jewish DNA studies, in which Avotaynu Online has taken up the challenge of helping genetic genealogists develop, execute and publish studies of publishable quality. To accomplish this, Avotaynu Online has teamed up to create the Avotaynu Foundation DNA Project at FamilyTreeDNA.com. This project will help fund the development of a worldwide Jewish DNA database and will assemble a team of experts to help nurture studies that will make use of the database to illuminate recent and ancient Jewish history. Avotaynu Online, with its ability to publish stories of virtually unlimited length and detail, hopes to bring these new academic-quality studies to its readers.

Avotaynu Online aims to promote conversation within the genealogical community on the subjects it covers. Unlike print, which is a one-way medium, readers of articles will be encouraged to respond to our authors directly from our pages, and to engage them in developing new lines of thinking. Similarly, unlike print, our authors will encouraged to revise their articles with new or revised information as soon as it becomes available, so that their stories will continue over time to remain fresh and accurate.

Avotaynu intends to experiment and collaborate. It is our belief that there are subjects tangential to Jewish genealogy that may be of great interest to our readers, such as Jewish travel, history, demographics, and health issues. In the past we have been limited by available space in our quarterly when deciding whether to cover these interesting subjects.  The availability of virtually unlimited space on our Avotaynu Online web site will free us from this limitation.  We have also developed partnerships with prestigious institutions such as the Leo Baeck Institute and the International Institute of Jewish Genealogy, among others, so that we may bring you the best thinking from some of genealogy’s leading experts.

Sallyann Amdur Sack-Pikus will be Editor-in-Chief and Gary Mokotoff will be Publisher. As a bonus to readers, AVOTAYNU archives from 2007 through 2011 will be made available for free on the Avotaynu Online website.  Archives from all other years will continue to be available on a subscription basis by visiting www.Avotaynu.com.

Avotaynu Inc. began in 1985 as the publisher of its namesake, AVOTAYNU, the International Review of Jewish Genealogy. To date, 117 issues of AVOTAYNU have been published. In 1991, the company expanded its efforts to provide the tools genealogists need to research their Jewish family history by publishing its first book, the award-winning Where Once We Walked, and since then has published 70 more books. For its publishing efforts, the company received the “Body of Work” award of the Association of Jewish Libraries. This award has been given only five times in the past 30 years. In 2001, Avotaynu added “Nu? What’s New?,” a weekly e-zine that provides information about current events that affect Jewish family history. In 2009, Avotaynu introduced the AVOTAYNU Anthology, which provides the online ability to search back issues of the publication using a full word search engine provided by Google. Avotaynu Online is its newest venture.