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 […]
Tombstone Identification through Database Merging
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 […]
No Good Deed Goes Unpunished
The well-known saying, “No good deed goes unpunished,” may fairly be applied now to the monumental accomplishment of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) in bringing the records of the International Tracing Service (ITS) of the International Committee of the […]
Three Manhattan Databases: Using Newspapers to Find Bankruptcy Cases Leading to Court Cases
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 […]
Small Light
When she came to the phone, she said, “I know who you are.” It was about 5:00 p.m. on the East Coast, September 21, 2005. Her daughter, Amy, answered and said her mother was outside. Could she call me back? […]
A Journey to Ukraine: A World That Was but Is No More
At the end of our journey to Ukraine, an obvious question arose, a question that touched the very essence of our having been there—what was the meaning of our desire to visit lands in which we were not born, where […]
From Russia and Back—Full Circle in 99 Years
Unlike most of those who emigrated from Eastern Europe at the turn of the 20th century, my grandfather did speak quite a bit about the family he left behind. My father and his brother tended to roll their eyes when […]
My Faceless Grandfather
The challenge for us genealogists is to learn as much as possible about ancestors whom we never or hardly ever knew. We strive to give them a face, to bring them back to life through our research. I was fortunate […]
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 […]
Genealogy Changed My Life
“I have something to tell you, and I want you to hear it from me while I’m alive.” I had no idea what my mother was going to say. “You are Jewish.” I knew that her mother’s parents, Noemi David […]
Search and Find Story
For many years, my family and I longed to know what had become of my mother’s youngest sister, Laja Minc. There were five Minc sisters, one of whom, the second youngest, perished in the Holocaust; the other four survived the […]
Did They Really Meet on the Boat?
We all know about urban myths, legends, and fairy tales, et cetera. A story gets told, and retold, from person to person, until there’s no longer an original source, no factual back-up, and no way to know if the tale […]
How Henry Stern Found Fred Hertz after 67 Years
Within the last two years, AVOTAYNU has published two articles about families being reunited after many years of separation because of the Holocaust (“Finding a Holocaust Survivor after 63 Years,” by Howard Margol [Winter 2005] and “A Family Reunited after […]
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 […]
Careful researchers must always seek to verify an age or birth date
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 […]
SephardicGen: A Resource Guide for Navigating the Website and Exploring Its Riches
SephardicGen – www.SephardicGen.com – is a large website dedicated to providing the Sephardic genealogist with the tools and information needed to uncover Sephardic family histories. In an effort to remedy the absence of a Sephardic presence within JewishGen, a subset […]
From Our Mailbox: Fall 2007
Do You Tell Adopted Children? I read with great interest Richard Sobel’s article on privacy, “Guidelines for Respecting Privacy in Jewish Genealogy (AVOTAYNU, Vol. XXIII, No. 1, Spring 2007). An additional situation about which I would appreciate some comment concerns […]
Book Review: Germanic Genealogy: A Guide to Worldwide Sources and Migration Patterns
Germanic Genealogy: A Guide to Worldwide Sources and Migration Patterns, by Edward R. Brandt, PhD, Mary Sutter Bellingham, Kent Cutkomp, et al. 3rd edition, St. Paul, MN: Germanic Genealogy Society, 2006, 658 pp., $49 plus shipping and handling. Brandt and […]
Book Review: Jewish Migration to South Africa: The Record of the Poor Jews’ Temporary Shelter, 1885–1914
Jewish Migration to South Africa: The Record of the Poor Jews’ Temporary Shelter, 1885–1914. Edited by Aubrey N. Newman, Nicholas J. Evans, J. Graham Smith and Saul W. Issroff. Large format softbound book, 504 pages. Published by JPSA, Jewish Publications, […]
Jewish History as Reflected in the Documents of the State Archives of Odessa Region
A variant of this article appears on the Internet at http://www.rtrfoundation.org/Odessa.html. The State Archives of the Odessa Region (GAOO), one of the large-scale archives in southern Ukraine, holds 13,110 fonds (collections) with 2.2 million files, the majority in […]
Military Resources in Eretz Israel For the Genealogical Sleuth
The following article is adapted from a talk given at the IAJGS conference in Salt Lake City, July 2007—Ed. For thousands of years, Eretz Israel has been the crossroads of invasions and an arena for wars, but documentation of individual […]
Finding Emigrants Who Sailed Under a Different Name
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, […]
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 […]
Using the 1890 New York City Police Census To Find Family Records
I have had success in using the Steve Morse web portal <www.stevemorse.org> and the Ancestry.com for-fee website to research family members and to locate family records in United States censuses. Since I have learned from my research that one of […]