For the first time, a panel wholly dedicated to Jewish genealogy was held at the triennial Congress of the World Union of Jewish Studies (Jerusalem, August 2–6, 2009). That precedent-setting event was sponsored by the International Institute […]
The Value of Creating a Family Name Website
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 […]
Interactive website Brings Our Family Tree to Life
Genealogists Adam and Jacob Brown describe the genealogical breakthroughs achieved via the Geni.com genealogical platform.
Break the Brick Wall by Creating a ShtetLinks Site
How many times have I heard “but there’s no information on my shtetl”? Perhaps there’s no information readily available on the Internet, and you’ve tried Google and JewishGen’s databases and Ancestry.com, but alas…nothing. Yet plenty of information does exist about […]
Projects Undertaken by Jewish Genealogical Societies
Most genealogy societies undertake projects of one sort or another—and try to publicize them. The problem is that we genealogists tend to suffer from stimulus overload and cannot always remember what we have read or heard about this or that […]
Publish or Perish: How I Got the Rubinoff-Naftolin Family Saga into Print
“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 […]
Jewish Genealogical Search Engines, Databases and Social Interaction Networks
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 […]
Philadelphia: Site of 29th International IAJGS Conference on Jewish Genealogy
It has been 28 years since the Philadelphia Phillies won baseball’s World Series, and it has been 20 years since the IAJGS International Conference on Jewish Genealogy visited Philadelphia. In summer 2009, however, the 29th conference will come to Philadelphia. […]
JRI-Poland Database and Rabbinic Data Merging
In the Spring 2008 issue of AVOTAYNU, in an article that focuses on tombstone identification, Professor Daniel Wagner highlights the integration of “family data from different sources and databases from different repositories” (“Tombstone Identification through Database Merging”). In a similar […]
Transatlantic Gap: Publishing “Private” Personal Data
This article first appeared in French in the Revue of the Cercle de Genealogie Juive—Ed. Jewish genealogists have become a worldwide community: Worldwide because, although Jews forever have been migrating, the events of the 20th century have dispersed us over […]
28th IAJGS International Conference On Jewish Genealogy in Chicago
From the opening ceremony to the closing banquet, the 28th International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies (IAJGS) International Conference on Jewish Genealogy offered more than 200 events, lectures, workshops, films, meetings, luncheons, trips, and research opportunities that required the 800 […]
About the JewishGen and Ancestry.com Alliance,
This past July, JewishGen entered into a cooperative agreement with Ancestry.com, part of The Generations Network (TGN). While I can’t give a blow-by-blow account of the negotiations that led to the agreement, I can describe the principles that guided us […]
International Institute for Jewish Genealogy Reports on Its First Two Years
The International Institute for Jewish Genealogy and Paul Jacobi Center opened its doors in January 2006. In these first two years, it has established itself at the Jewish National and University Library in Jerusalem, embarked on a series of pioneering […]
IAJGS Chicago 2008 Program: Guns, Cats and DNA
Perplexing as it may seem, the program for the 28th International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies (IAJGS) Conference on Jewish Genealogy to be held in Chicago, August 17–22, 2008, may in fact be largely characterized as “guns, cats and DNA.” […]
Susan King Steps Down as JewishGen Director; Warren Blatt Assumes Leadership
JewishGen, the preeminent Jewish genealogical website <www.jewishgen.org>, has had a change in leadership. Susan E. King, the ebullient founder and director of JewishGen, relinquished the reins effective March 31, 2008. Warren Blatt, JewishGen’s vice-president and editor-in-chief since 2004, has taken […]
Can DNA Testing Confirm Jewish Ancestry?
People often ask, “Can DNA tell me if I am Jewish?” The answer, of course, is “no,” since DNA shows genetic history while religion refers to one’s current belief system. If, however, the question is reframed as, “Can DNA reveal […]
New York Deli and DNA
My maternal grandmother, Kate Weisberg, was born in Lomza, Poland. She died when I was only nine years old, so I never had the chance to ask her about her family. From my mother, aunts and uncles, I learned the […]
IAJGS Chicago 2008: Research Opportunities in the Windy City
To register and/or find out all about the 28th IAJGS International Conference on Jewish Genealogy, to be held at the Chicago Marriott Downtown Magnificent Mile, August 17–22, 2008, see the website at . This conference will be co-hosted by the […]
Galitzianer-Litvak Divide: Demolished by Y-DNA Studies
My Y-DNA cousins, Herb Huebscher and Elise Friedman, wrote (“DNA and Jewish Genealogy Join Forces,” AVOTAYNU, Vol. XXIII, No. 2, Summer 2007) about the use of DNA studies showing possible connections between more than 43 families, collectively termed WIRTH (Wolinsky, […]
Interview with Mathilde Tagger, Recipient of 2007 IAJGS Lifetime Achievement Award
The International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies (IAJGS) registered two “firsts” when it conferred its Lifetime Achievement Award on Jerusalemite Mathilde Tagger at the 26th annual IAJGS International Conference on Jewish Genealogy in Salt Lake City, July 22, 2007. The […]
A Conference to Sing About: Chicago 2008—28th IAJGS International Conference on Jewish Genealogy
Just how many songs have been written about Chicago? Take a look at Wikipedia and search “Songs about Chicago.”1 The sheer number of celebratory tunes is amazing. Who doesn’t think of Frank ‘Old Blue Eyes’ Sinatra’s “My Kind of Town” […]
IAJGS Salt Lake City 2007: 27th IAJGS International Conference on Jewish Genealogy
Whew! The week of July 15–20, 2007, in Salt Lake City went by at whirlwind speed with some 650 keen attendees having to make difficult choices among, for example, listening to an amazing array of inspiring and knowledgeable speakers, Special […]
Deep Linking and Deeper Linking: Getting the Most Out of Existing Search Applications
This article first appeared in APG Quarterly, the magazine of the Association of Professional Genealogists. My website at <http://stevemorse.org> consists of web-based tools that I’ve developed. Many of those tools use deep linking to allow you to search databases on […]
IAJGS 2006: Strategies for Assigning Surnames to Early JRI-Poland Records
Jewish genealogists who trace family to the early 19th century frequently encounter difficulty trying to follow the trail back to the time when their ancestors did not use hereditary family names. Researchers who find records without surnames often cannot determine […]
DNA and Jewish Genealogy Join Forces
The application of DNA to genealogy has made great strides since its beginnings in 2000. The benefits of joining DNA and classical paper-trail methodologies are becoming evident. This article is about an advanced genealogy project currently underway that had its […]