Subscribe to IAJGS Records-Access Alert!

Filed Under Collaboration, Crowdsourcing By Jan Meisels Allen on October 31, 2015

In February 2013, the International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies (IAJGS), started a new announcement list, the IAJGS Records Access Alert. At that time it was decided to open the Alert only to subscribers that were members of IAJGS member societies and any person subscribed to the JewishGen Discussion Group or Special Interest Group (SIG) hosted by or owned by JewishGen. At the IAJGS 2015 October Board meeting it was decided to open the registration to the Alert to anyone who is interested in records access. Registration and a listing of your organization affiliation (genealogy society, etc.) may now go to: http://lists.iajgs.org/mailman/listinfo/records-access-alerts. You will receive an email response that you have to reply to or the subscription will not be finalized.

For those who may wish to access the archives of the IAJGS Records Access Alerts, go to: http://lists.iajgs.org/mailman/private/records-access-alerts/. You must be registered to access the archives.

As this is an announcement list, you may not post comments as you may on a discussion list. However, we do want to hear from the list subscribers worldwide if they know of public records access issues or have something relevant to add about the postings. Please send notices and comments to the following email address: RecordsAccess@iajgs.org. Where appropriate, the list owner will issue a posting. Alerts posted to this new service will be made only when there is something of an important nature regarding public records access; therefore, do not expect this alert on a routinely daily or weekly basis.

About Jan Meisels Allen

Since 2004, Jan Meisels Allen is the chairperson of the International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies (IAJGS) Public Records Access Monitoring Committee. She is the IAJGS sponsoring member to the Records Preservation and Access Committee (RPAC)* and has served on RPAC representing IAJGS since 2004. Jan served on the IAJGS Board of Directors from 2004-2013 first as a member-at-large and then vice president. Jan presents at the annual FGS, NGS and IAJGS conferences on records access as well as spoken on access to holocaust records in Berlin, Germany (2014) to a committee of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA). In 2013, Jan was awarded the National Genealogical Society (NGS) President’s Citation for her “outstanding and continuing contributions to the Society for her work on records access”. Jan posts frequently on records access issues on the IAJGS Leadership Forum and JewishGen Discussion Group and is the responsible person for the IAJGS Records Access Alert- an announcement list specific to international records access issues. She has authored articles in Avotaynu, Venturing Into Our Past and other genealogical newsletters and journals. Jan is the president and a founding member of the Jewish Genealogical Society of the Conejo Valley and Ventura County (JGSCV). She is a former board member and program vice president of the Jewish Genealogical Society of Los Angeles (JGSLA). Jan started her genealogy quest in 1998 and has been researching her Polish, Galician and Hungarian roots. She was the Yizkor Book Translation Coordinator for JewishGen.org for two of her shtetls: Sochaczew and Stawiski, Poland. Prior to retiring she was a lobbyist for the health insurance industry.

* RPAC is a joint committee of the Federation of Genealogical Societies (FGS), the National Genealogical Society (NGS), and the International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies (IAJGS) as sponsoring members. The Association of Professional Genealogists (APG), the Board for Certification of Genealogists (BCG), International Commission for the Accreditation of Professional Genealogists (ICAPGen), and the American Society of Genealogists (ASG) also serve as participating members. By invitation, RPAC also includes participation from a few commercial providers of genealogical information.

Comments

Jo Ellen Cole says

November 8, 2015 at 6:22 am

So interesting but overwhelming too. Most of my family was lost in the holocaust and I don’t even know where to start. Compounding the problem is my last name, Cohen, very common Jewish name. It was anglecized to Cole by my father before I was born.
Jan Meisels Allen says

November 13, 2015 at 2:48 am

Dear Jo Ellen,

Thank you for writing. Yes, there is so much with records access that it can be overwhelming. What Records Access Alert is, is a forum for announcing what is happening in different parts of the world with access to the records we want as genealogists–whether they be birth, marriage, death, census, etc. Wjat it is not, is a compendium of resources to find records.

I too have Cohen as a name I study–not one of my primary names–and it is very difficult to study, “Cohen” changed their name from Kreplak once the immigrated to NYC.

Have you contacted the International Tracing Service (ITS) https://www.its-arolsen.org/en/homepage/index.html to see if they have any information on your family? Many people perished in the Shoah without records-the further east they perished the fewer records. I know there are no records of some of my family who perished–also some camps like Treblinka there are no records. Have you contacted the USHMM to see if they have any information https://www.its-arolsen.org/en/homepage/index.html or Yad Vashem at http://www.yadvashem.org

I hope this is of some assistance

Jan Meisels Allen
Chairperson, IAJGS Public Records Access Monitoring Committee

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