The Sousa Mendes Foundation actively seeks families who received lifesaving visas from the Portuguese diplomat Aristides de Sousa Mendes in the Spring of 1940. Sousa Mendes, stationed in Bordeaux, France, rescued thousands from the Holocaust by providing them visas to […]
“Galicianer Shtetl” – Jews of Galicia Remembrance Days – Tarnow, Poland, June 11-14
“The Galicianer Shtetl” – Jews of Galicia Remembrance Days program is an annual series of events scheduled this year from June 11th to 14th, in the town of Tarnów. The Remembrance Days are organized by the Regional Museum in Tarnów (Muzeum […]
A Family Tree of Scottish Jewry: Records-Retrieval Stage Completed!
The International Institute for Jewish Genealogy (IIJG) has been engaged for three years in an exhaustive demographic study of the Scottish Jewish community from the founding of the community to the present. The IIJG is pleased to announce that Michael […]
Intergenerational Gathering of Sighet-Maramorish Descendants – Sighet, May 14-18
The Intergenerational Gathering of Sighet-Maramorish Descendants will take place in Sighet, Romania May 14-18, 2015. This event is co-sponsored by the Sighet-Maramorish Municipality under Mayor Ovidiu Nemes and the local Jewish Community. Some of the many exciting features of the […]
Jewish Families and the Habsburg Tobacco Monopoly
Tobacco was unknown in Europe before the discovery of America. However, unlike other imports from the Americas that enriched European cuisine and coffers, European society did not uniformly embrace tobacco. At first welcomed as a miracle drug and cherished as a […]
A Brief History and Detailed Listing of the Jews of Tàrrega, Spain, Before and After the Black Death and Pogrom of 1348
Maria Jose Surribas Camps The Jewish community or aljama of Tàrrega, on the Royal Road between Barcelona and Lleida, dates back to 1278 or earlier.[1] What follows is a description of that community from a genealogical perspective, from its earliest […]
Tracing German-Jewish Ancestry to the 17th Century — And Much Earlier, by Arthur Obermayer [AB-057]
With the help of Y-DNA analysis, fortuitous acquaintanceship with an extraordinary researcher and the use of some relatively unknown sources, I have traced my Obermayer family history unequivocally to 1655 and, with less certainty, even earlier than that — a […]
Updated: Future Developments in Jewish Family History Research
As amply documented by Avotaynu over the last three decades, members of the Jewish genealogical community have made important contributions to the field of online genealogy with innovations such as the Jewish Genealogical Family Finder, the Daitch-Mokotoff Soundex, JewishGen, and […]
Announcing Avotaynu Online!
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 […]
Archives and Genealogy: Utilizing the Leo Baeck Institute in Support of German-Jewish Family Research
The Leo Baeck Institute (LBI) was established as an archive to preserve the history and culture of German-speaking Jews. While the LBI archives contain valuable information for family researchers, archivists in the past who collected and catalogued the materials were […]
10 Steps for Managing A Successful DNA Project
Create buzz by tying your project to a Facebook page and a Project website. Web sites are dirt cheap and now easier than ever to manage, and Facebook and social networking sites are free. There is no excuse for not […]
European Union’s Proposed “Right to be Forgotten” Described
We have been reading and hearing about the European Union’s “Right to be Forgotten” and “Right to be Erased” both through a proposed data privacy regulation and a recent European Union Court of Justice decision. This article is an attempt […]
My 5th-Grade Family Tree Project
My son Joey’s fifth-grade class at Sinai Akiba Academy is participating in the worldwide “My Family Story” competition sponsored by Beit Hatfutsot, the Museum of the Jewish People, on the campus of Tel Aviv University. The kids have to start […]
12 Exciting Tours and Research Visits Prior To This Summer’s IAJGS conference in Jerusalem! by Garri Regev
The organizers of this year’s conference in Israel of the International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies have announced a variety of exciting research and touring options for Sunday, July 5th, the day immediately preceding the 35th Annual IAJGS Conference on Jewish […]
Opinion: Concerns About “Collaborative Genealogy” Websites
The presentation of Adam Brown and E. Randol Schoenberg at the International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies’ conference in Boston in August 2013 and their articles in AVOTAYNU, Summer 2013, examine the future of genealogy research with particular attention to […]
Opinion: Is Our Tree Better Than My Tree? The Benefits and Pitfalls of Collaborative Genealogy
Until recently, we began by building our own individual family trees. We started with our parents, siblings, children, spouses and continued to fill in as much as we could. When we reached a branch where we did not know the […]
Opinion: On Certainty in Genealogy
In June, I wrote an article on collaborative genealogy for Avotaynu entitled “Is Our Tree Better Than My Tree? The Benefits and Pitfalls of Collaborative Genealogy,” In recent articles, two Avotaynu authors have responded by raising concerns about collaborative genealogy, […]
The Jews of Óbuda, Miskolc, and Pest: A Grassroots Genealogical Approach
Avant Propos – a Genealogical Approach to Jewish History In an episode of the NBC television show Who do you think You are?, a show in which Hollywood actors and other entertainers search for their family roots, two historians helped a […]
IAJGS 2011 Washington, DC
Washington, DC, “honey-pot” of world-class resources and repositories, will be the site of the 31st International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies (IAJGS) Conference on Jewish Genealogy on August 14–19, 2011. The Jewish Genealogy Society of Greater Washington (JGSGW) will host […]
Using Family Finder DNA Analysis To Unravel an Intricate Problem
Some genealogical problems seem destined never to be solved. However, the new Family Finder DNA analysis introduced by Family Tree DNA (FTDNA) in May 2010 solved a seemingly intractable problem that had resisted all efforts at solution for nearly 10 […]
Three Steps To Use DNA Testing To Determine If Families Are Related
My maternal great-grandmother’s maiden name, Leidesdorf, is relatively uncommon, and family lore is rich in fantastic tales about purported relatives from multiple European cities who were fabulously rich, extremely famous, and/or incredibly successful. Over three decades, I had accumulated information […]
IAJGS 2010 Conference Is Coming to Los Angeles
Are you passionate about genealogy, but have never attended an IAJGS International Conference on Jewish Genalogy? Do you need to jump-start your research? Maybe 2010 will be the year for you to join the world’s largest gathering of Jewish genealogists, […]
Creating Master Indexes of Names For Districts Surrounding Major Shtetls, by Ronald Doctor
The Kremenets District Research Group has recently published its Indexed Concordance of Personal Names and Town Names, a master index that now has almost 73,000 entries. The group’s experiences in creating the Concordance suggest that it may be a fruitful […]
JewishGen’s Online Worldwide Burial Registry (JOWBR)
JOWBR, one of JewishGen’s most popular databases, seeks to catalogue data about Jewish cemeteries and burial records worldwide, from the earliest records to the present, and to be the central search location for Jewish burial records. JewishGen charges no fees […]
FamilySearch Indexing Initiative
The FamilySearch* Indexing initiative announced that it has indexed 250 million genealogically relevant records in just two years—an incredible feat achieved by thousands of online volunteer indexers who, donating a little time here and there, using a web-based application built […]