Introduction The authors have considerable experience conducting DNA lineage studies, with a focus on Y-DNA studies of the world’s historic rabbinical lineages.[1], [2], [3], [4], [5] Each of these studies presents its own unique challenges. Two of the more challenging aspects […]
Tips for Successful Research Collaboration
Collaboration can improve productivity by combining resources and wisdom to obtain a greater amount of data and construct better-reasoned conclusions. However, collaboration is also a potential source of much anxiety, disagreement, and bad feeling. Significant research has looked at collaborative […]
An Attempt to Map “Jewish Geography”
If you happen to be Jewish, and at least culturally so, then you are probably already familiar with the concept of “Jewish Geography.” For those who are puzzled by what this is, you can search the internet for various definitions […]
The Avotaynu DNA Project Advances to Its Second Phase
One year ago we announced the new Avotaynu DNA Project AVOTAYNU, Fall 2016), an initiative managed by Adam Brown, Raquel Levy-Toledano and Michael Waas of the Avotaynu Research Partnership LLC that intends to compile a database comprising the DNA test […]
Leveraging Genealogy as an Academic Discipline
Genealogy as an academic discipline has been much discussed in recent years especially by Neville Lamdan, Daniel Wagner and Tom Jones, all of whom have considered the topic in detail. Lamdan is director of the International Institute for Jewish Genealogy […]
The Role of the Jewish Genealogist In Medical and Genetic Family History
Genealogists not only have been documenting their family histories, but have become the repository of vital medical and genetic history for their families. With the advent of widely available genetic testing, the giant leaps in disease identification, the dramatic growth […]
Personal Journeys: From One Photograph to Journeys of Research and Discovery
All I ever knew was that I am named after my great-uncle Moshe. Moshe died in a motor accident, six weeks before his planned wedding. The date of his death is unknown, but it was sometime between the late 1920s […]
The Jews of Tetuan, Morocco: Genealogy and Iconography
Tetuan Jewry, founded at the end of the 15th century by Spanish-speaking Jews, is a community apart in Morocco. Most other Moroccan Jewish communities were created much earlier and spoke Arabic. In this article, we review the major genealogical resources […]
Spanish-Jewish `Nobility’ of Aleppo, Syria
As recently as 1992, more than 4,000 Jews were being held against their will in Syria, unable to leave and kept under watch, branded as “Mussawi,” followers of Moses. At that time, 50,000 Jews from Syria lived in Brooklyn’s Flatbush […]
Tip of the Iceberg: What Y-DNA Lineages Can Tell Us About Jewish History and Migration
A screencast (video) is now available for those who were unable to attend the lecture with this title that I delivered at the IAJGS 2016 Conference due to the small capacity of the room, or for those who were unable to […]
Launching the Converso Genealogy Project: Tracking the Diaspora of the New Christians
I was born into a Roman Catholic family in Havana, Cuba, but from a young age, I felt Jewish and inexplicably was drawn to all things Jewish. After converting to Orthodox Judaism at age 34, I found clues along my […]
Announcing “A Nação Hebrea: A Relational Prosopographic Database of the Portuguese Jewish Nation 1500-1800
In today’s world, interest in Sephardic Jewry is greater than ever before, particularly with the recent laws in Portugal and Spain enacting the right for descendants of Iberian Jews to reclaim nationality that had been revoked by the Expulsion. The […]
Avotaynu Plans A Sephardi Y-DNA Study at the Seattle IAJGS Conference
The Avotaynu DNA Project managed by Adam Brown, Raquel Levy-Toledano and Michael Waas of the non-profit Avotaynu Research Partnership LLC has entered its second phase and now seeks male participants for a study of Eastern Sephardi paternal yDNA lineages, specifically […]
200 Years of Scottish Jewry: A Demographic and Genealogical Profile
The International Institute for Jewish Genealogy in Jerusalem is attempting the first-ever demographic and genealogical study of a national Jewry as a whole, from its inception to the present day. This article describes the project, its aims, methodology and preliminary […]
Personal Journeys: The Legacy of Lucian Skotnicki
Of all the grandparents I never got a chance to know, I feel closest to my mother’s father Lucian. Perhaps it was my mother’s vivid storytelling that made him seem accessible. I’ve inherited his talents and his temperament; so I […]
Case Study: Tracing a German Refugee, Rosa Katz Adler
In February 1939, Rosa Katz Adler wrote to to Mrs. Herbert H. Lehman, wife of the New York Governor. She was desperate for assistance in bringing her young daughter Lotte to the United States. Rosa’s letter is one of hundreds […]
The Y-DNA Fingerprint of the Shpoler Zeida, a Tzaddik Who Touched the World [AB-068]
Yehuda Leib of Shpola (c.1725 – 1811) – better known as the Shpoler Zeide (Yiddish for “Grandfather of Shpola”) or Saba Kadisha (Hebrew for “Holy Grandfather’) – was a beloved Chassidic folk rebbe, great kabbalist, and a revered tzaddik (saintly or holy […]
An Analytical Approach to Decoding Jewish Tombstones and Other Artifacts
Twenty years ago I accidentally discovered my own great-grandmother’s matzeva (tombstone) in a small cemetery in Kezmarok, Slovakia, a town by then devoid of living Jews. This astounding discovery spurred me to examine thousands of other abandoned, unvisited, ignored, […]
Geni.com Announces Integration of DNA Into Its World Family Tree
Geni.com, host of the online World Family Tree, and Family Tree DNA, a global leader in genetic genealogy, announced today that they have partnered to integrate Family Tree DNA test results into Geni’s World Family Tree. Today the partners activated a […]
Given Names of the Jewish Women of Damascus – 1583-1909
Among the many challenges one faces in Jewish genealogical research is the paucity of sources relating to female given names and surnames. This was clearly illustrated at the lecture of Dr. Lea Haber–Gedalia in the 2015 IAJGS Annual Conference in Jerusalem [1]. There are […]
An Alternative Path To Emancipation: Jewish Merchants and Cross-Cultural Networks in the 18th Century Italian Ghettos
On January 10, 1774, two Jews –Moïsè Beniamino Foà (1730-1821) and Emanuele Sacerdoti (1719-1804) – met somewhere in the ghetto of Modena – the capital city of the Este Duchy in Northern Italy – with a specific purpose. They founded the “Nuova […]
The Bohemian Origins of Justice Louis Brandeis
On the 100th anniversary of his appointment as the first Jewish Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, the Jewish Journal devoted four pages to the towering figure in American legal history, Louis D. Brandeis, recounting his unprecedented advocacy for free speech, […]
MyHeritage Launches Book Matching
Books have always been one of the best resources for family history: they are often very organized and well-researched, and many of them were written by contemporaries of our ancestors. But for those of us who have spent countless hours […]
Personal Journeys: Everything Happens for a Reason
1 December 2015 It happened again. I couldn’t believe it but I have two witnesses. Just as I was about to leave my weekly writing class at the library of the Simon Wiesenthal Center (SWC), I stopped by the entry […]
Does the Horowitz Family from Bohemia Really Descend from the Benvenisti Halevy Family from Spain? [AB-067]
Many published family trees of the historical Horowitz family of Prague and Horovice, Bohemia trace the origins of the family back to Catalonia, Spain and to Lunil, Provence, France, in particular to the esteemed Benvenisti Halevi Family, which included renowned early rabbinic […]
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