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RESEARCH INTO THE ORIGINS AND MIGRATIONS OF THE JEWISH PEOPLE

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Photo Identification: The Process of Finding and Interpreting Clues in a Photograph

Filed Under Methods, z Not yet categorized By Ava Cohn on October 1, 2009

In an ideal world, a genealogist inherits the perfect family photograph—one in which relatives are thoughtfully posed in a well-lighted photography studio. The photograph had been passed down in pristine condition with the photographer’s imprint and logo clearly marked, and […]

The Value of Creating a Family Name Website

Filed Under Collaboration, Methods, Online Trees By Mike Ross and Sallyann Sack-Pikus on July 1, 2009

Why create a genealogy website? All genealogists researching an uncommon family name should make use of modern communication medium and display their research on a public website. This is our emphatic conclusion two-plus years after publishing the Amdur family website […]

Directories

Filed Under Deutschland, Israel יִשְׂרָאֵל, Methods, Polska, United States By Alex E. Friedlander on April 1, 2009

This section will discuss four categories of directories whose contents can be useful for genealogical research: city directories, telephone directories, biographical directories, and professional directories. All of these valuable reference sources can be found in the United States and internationally. […]

Publish or Perish: How I Got the Rubinoff-Naftolin Family Saga into Print

Filed Under Collaboration, Methods By BIll Gladstone on December 1, 2008

“Zhhlobin–Market Street” reads the caption of this rare postcard photograph, circa 1900, of the Belarussian shtetl where my great-grandparents lived before bringing their children to Canada around 1910. The postcard is part of an incredible collection of more than 100 […]

Book Review: Google Your Family Tree, by Daniel M. Lynch

Filed Under Methods By Gary Mokotoff on October 1, 2008

Google Your Family Tree, by Daniel M. Lynch. Softcover, xii + 340 pp. FamilyLink.com, Inc. $34.95. Available through Avotaynu, <www.avotaynu.com/books/ Google Your-Family-Tree.htm> I rarely get excited about new things. The last time that happened was when a man named Stephen […]

Newspaper and Magazine Websites Valuable For Genealogical Research

Filed Under Methods, New World By Edward David Luft on October 1, 2008

     Newspapers from the 19th and early 20th centuries are rich sources of genealogical data, but gaining access to them can be difficult and time-consuming. This article discusses two new websites that offer full-text, key-word access to these newspapers: […]

Beider-Morse Phonetic Matching: An Alternative to Soundex with Fewer False Hits

Filed Under Methods By Alexander Beider and Stephen P. Morse on July 1, 2008

Searching for names in large databases containing spelling variations has always been a problem. A solution to the problem was proposed by Robert Russell in 1912 when he patented the first soundex system. A variation of Russell’s work, called the […]

Coming to America through Hamburg and Liverpool Part II: Crossing the Atlantic

Filed Under Deutschland, Methods, United Kingdom, United States By Harry Boonin on April 1, 2008

In Part I of the saga, “Coming to America Through Hamburg and Liverpool,” in AVOTAYNU, Vol. XXII, No. 4, (Winter 2006), pp. 15–22, we tracked the six Boonin children across Europe to Hamburg, their crossing of the North Sea, their […]

Tombstone Identification through Database Merging

Filed Under Methods By H. Daniel Wagner on April 1, 2008

This article originally appeared in the Fall/Winter issue of Roots-Key, the journal of the Jewish Genealogical Society of Los Angeles. It is reprinted with permission—Ed. The development of sophisticated tools designed to integrate—or merge—family data from different sources and databases […]

Three Manhattan Databases: Using Newspapers to Find Bankruptcy Cases Leading to Court Cases

Filed Under Methods By Edward David Luft and Bruce Abrams on December 1, 2007

This article describes the use of three separate resources to augment information about an ancestor, including approximate date of residence in a specific locale, addresses and general lifestyle (in this case down to the type and number of underclothes the […]

Careful researchers must always seek to verify an age or birth date

Filed Under Methods By Shalom Bronstein on December 1, 2007

Originally published under the title: “Age Makes a Difference”. Genealogists typically pay close attention to the ages and birth dates of individuals. Often this data is used to determine whether or not a given individual is a particular ancestor being […]

Finding Emigrants Who Sailed Under a Different Name

Filed Under Canada, Methods, United States By Stephen Denker on October 1, 2007

After five years of fruitless searching, I finally found the ship manifest for my grandfather and his parents. I had critical help. Someone else actually did it. The method used may be useful to others. A marine historian, Allan Jordan, […]

Book Review: A Practical Guide to Jewish Cemeteries

Filed Under Methods By Contributing Editors on July 1, 2007

A Practical Guide to Jewish Cemeteries, by Nolan Menachemson. Hardcover, 248 pages + vii. Bergenfield, NJ: Avotaynu, 2007. As becomes apparent from the pages of this tome (pun intended), there is richness even in death. This is the most concise […]

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