Why Are We So Hung Up On Polygamy? In the March 2015 elections in Israel, two Muslim polygamists were elected to the Knesset on the United Arab list. Numerous news outlets reported this fact and questioned whether it would be […]
Book Review: The Synagogues of Central and Western Pennsylvania, by Julian H. Preisler
The Jewish communities of the United States have tended to be concentrated in major urban centers, such as New York City, Chicago and Los Angeles. Many books have been written about these and similar communities, but to get a fuller […]
Privacy Issues with Online Trees
The right to privacy is a relatively recent legal construction, and one that is still evolving. As genealogists, people whose goal is to learn and write about personal details of other people, we often hear complaints about invasion of privacy. […]
Jewish Historical and Genealogical Resources in Delaware
Of the original 13 American colonies, Delaware was the second (after New York) to permit Jews to be admitted legally. The first Jews believed to come to Delaware were Isaac Israel and Isaac Cardozo, agents of the Dutch West Indies […]
The Jews of the Crimea and their Names
The ancient history of Jewish settlement in the Crimea (in Russian, “Krym”) dates back over 2,000 years to the time of the Bosporan Kingdom, a Roman client state (438 BC-370 AD). From the eighth to the tenth centuries, the Crimea fell […]
Jewish Historical and Genealogical Resources in West Virginia
Since Jews first settled two centuries ago in the future state of West Virginia (a portion of Virginia that refused to secede the American Civil War), Jews involved themselves in all aspects of wholesaling and retailing. In most cities and […]
Shealtiel Family World Reunion in Mexico City, July 1st – 5th, 2015
The Shealtiel Family World Association is delighted to announce its exciting 8th World Family Reunion from July 1 – 5, 2015 in Mexico City. The reunion, packed with interesting activities from beginning to end, is an opportunity for cousins from […]
Census: A Primary Genealogy Tool Under Challenge
The Future of Census Records for Genealogists: Will Privacy and Cost Eliminate Them? Concerns about privacy and cost are threatening the detailed census records that we and prior generations of genealogists have relied upon as an essential tool in our […]
“Sousa Mendes’s List” — The Search for Survivors
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 […]
Ethical Wills: A Most Unusual Genealogical Source!
Ethical Will “Found in the Briefcase of a Tsaddik”, Warsaw, 1845, described in this article. Courtesy of the National Library of Israel: Ethical wills are the culmination of a person’s spiritual heritage which he or she wishes to leave to […]
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 […]
5 Steps To Finding and Interpreting Clues in a Family Photograph
In an ideal world, a genealogist inherits the perfect family photograph — one in which relatives are thoughtfully posed in a well-lighted photography studio. Family members have passed down the photograph in pristine condition with the photographer’s imprint and logo clearly […]
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 […]
The Garnethill Hostel for Nazi-Era Refugees 1939-1948, in Glasgow
The Scottish Jewish Archives Centre is housed in the beautiful Garnethill Synagogue, Scotland’s first purpose-built synagogue, erected in the Garnethill district of Glasgow during 1879. The Centre houses a diverse collection of records of the Jewish experience in Scotland since […]
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 […]
The Obermayers: A History of a Jewish Family in Germany and America, 1618—2009, by Kenneth Libo and Michael Feldberg
The Obermayers: A History of a Jewish Family in Germany and America, 1618—2009, by Kenneth Libo and Michael Feldberg. The book contains histories and genealogies of the Obermayer, Lehmann, Sinsheimer, and Oberndoerfer families from Creglingen, Augsburg, Furth, and other towns […]
Jewish Oklahomans
Considering that Jews constitute a mere one-tenth of one percent of Oklahoma’s population, their contribution to the state is staggering. As one native gentile business leader commented, “Without a doubt, per capita, the Jews have contributed overwhelmingly more to Oklahoma […]
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 […]
Rural Jewish Population of Minsk Guberniya, 1795–1914
Although Jews typically are viewed as urban dwellers, there was a considerable rural Jewish population in early modern Eastern Europe. The census of Jews in the Polish crown lands conducted in 1764-65 indicated that, of the total number of Jews in the […]
5 Steps to Publishing a Family History
So you want to publish your family history, but think you can’t do it yourself, and the costs are too high to produce the few copies needed? In reality, it may be easy enough to accomplish the task, and a […]
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 […]
- « Previous Page
- 1
- …
- 3
- 4
- 5
- 6
- 7
- …
- 16
- Next Page »