NGS Conference Live Streaming

Last May I attended the National Genealogical Society (NGS) Conference in Las Vegas. This year the conference will be in Richmond, Virginia (7-10 May) and I'm going, virtually.

NGS will be live-streaming several presentations that one may watch from the comfort of one's computer (or other capable electronic devise) and one may purchase access to two tracks of offerings. The deadline for purchase is 30 April 2014, midnight. Click on the links, below, to see further information about each talk.

Times are in listed for the Eastern Time Zone.

Track One: Records and Research Techniques

Thursday, 8 May 2014

2:30 p.m. T241 – "Using Evidence Creatively: Spotting Clues in Run-of-the-Mill Records," Elizabeth Shown Mills, CG, CGL, FASG, FUGA, FNGS
4:00 p.m. T252 – "Can a Complex Research Problem Be Solved Solely Online?," Thomas W. Jones, CG, CGL, FASG, FUGA, FNGS

Friday, 9 May 2014

8:00 a.m. F308 – "Using NARA’s Finding Aids and Website," Pamela Boyer Sayre, CG, CGL
9:30 a.m. F311 – "Disputes and Unhappy Differences: Surprises in Land Records," Sharon Tate Moody, CG
11:00 a.m. F321 – " 'Of Sound Mind and Healthy Body': Using Probate Records in Your Research," Michael Hait, CG

Track Two: Virginia Resources and Migration Patterns

Friday, 9 May 2014

2:30 p.m. F342 – "From Ulster to Virginia and the Carolinas," David E. Rencher, AG, CG, FIGRS, FUGA
4:00 p.m. F355 – "Researching a Civil War Soldier in Virginia," Craig Roberts Scott, CG

Saturday, 10 May 2014

8:00 a.m. S403 – "The Migration Triangle: Virginia, the Carolinas, and Tennessee," J. Mark Lowe, CG, FUGA
9:30 a.m. S415 – "A Treasure Trove of Rarely Used Records," Barbara Vines Little, CG, FNGS, FVGS
11:00 a.m. S425 – "Colonial Migrations In and Out of the Shenandoah Valley," Vic Dunn, CG

Purchase of access grants live streaming and three-month access to the stream files. In addition one will receive an electronic version of the conference syllablus. For members of NGS, it's $65 for access to one track or $115 for both. Non-members [oh, become a member!] pay $80 per track, or $145 for both.

For more information see the registration page at http://conference.ngsgenealogy.org/attend/live-streaming-at-ngs2014gen/.

Waxing Philosophical: Final Elizabeth Shown Mills NY Times Genealogy Advice

The past Wednesday, the New York Times Booming Section ran the fourth and final installment of genealogy questions answered by genealogy methodology maven Elizabeth Shown Mills.

In part 4, Mills covered questions regarding:

• Research Stalemates on the American Frontier

• Identifying an Immigrant’s Place of Origin

• Why Genealogy?

The answers to the first two include the FAN principle and exhaustive searches - themes Mills explores successfully throughout her research and teaching career.

I was particularly drawn to the second question because this is a topic I have explored for several years - first, in an article published in Avotaynu in 2011, and more recently in my August 2013 International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies presentation in Boston.[1] [2]  

My specific interest is in determining which location from among villages of similar-sounding names is the correct one. My research methodology (as reported in the Avotaynu article) included the FAN principle on steroids - analysis of all immigrant families in two landsmanshaft (community association) burial plots in a New York City cemetery. I have not yet explored this subject in this blog, but should - and will.

Mills struck a philosophical note in response to the last theme: why genealogy? Her words are absolutely correct for me and my research: "Acknowledging our personal pasts, reconstructing the lives of our ancestors and restoring them to human memory can validate the struggles they invested in creating the world we now enjoy." 

For me, the Holocaust, long an abstraction, has become much more personal since I began my research. One of my greatest thrills was sending a large family tree to a Holocaust survivor relative whom I have not yet met. The fact that our family has grown, thrived, and continued to contribute to our society was an excellent and satisfying response to those who pictured a world free of Jewish people. 

Notes:
1. Garber, Emily H. "Using Landsmanshaft Burial Plots to Discover and Confirm the Location of a Family Shtetl," Avotaynu: The International Review of Jewish  Genealogy, Volume XXVII, Number 1, Spring 2011: 3-9.
2. Garber, Emily H. ""Beyond the Manifest: Methods for Confirming One's Ancestral Origins," Presentation 6 August 2013, International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies Conference, Boston, Massachusetts.

More E.S. Mills Genealogy Advice, Part 3, NY Times

The third installment of Elizabeth Shown Mills responding to questions from the public regarding genealogy research is in this morning's New York Times. Part 2, was here; part 1, here. Part 4 will be published next Wednesday.

Today ESM covers the following issues:

• A Reconstruction-era Ex-Slave Businessman
• Clues to Origins and Parentage of an Enslaved Man
• Tracing Jamaican Roots
• Records for a New York-New Jersey Couple  
• Naturalization Files for New York
• Name Change at Ellis Island?

This week's article is rich in methodological advice. One should read the responses to all six questions even if one has little or no interest in slavery records or Jamaica. While not actually mentioning the terms, Mills extolls the virtues of cluster research or the FAN principle (i.e., looking into the records of friends, associates and neighbors) to break through obstacles in one's research paths. 

Jewish Genealogy Resources, Elizabeth Shown Mills and the NY Times

The New York Times Booming section published Elizabeth Shown Mills' "Advice on How to Research Family History, Part 2," on 13 November 2013.

Among the topics ESM addressed are two regarding Holocaust-related research:

• Geographic ‘Memory Holes’ Created by the Holocaust
• Migration of Holocaust Survivors to Argentina

I was actually pleasantly surprised to see this because ESM's case study examples are usually from the southern part of the United States. ESM gave all the correct advice, but the  concept of a "geographic 'memory hole' " (whatever that may be) may be somewhat challenged by the good works in progress by several Jewish genealogists and special interest groups. Most of these projects are free access - although many depend upon donations to keep them going.

Riga, Latvia - See the JewishGen Latvia Database which has over 160,000 records. A query on Riga netted 26,000 results.

Kaunas, Lithuania - Litvak SIG reports that the Kaunas District (Uyezd) Research Group has spend upwards of $35,000 thus far acquiring, translating and distributing 160,000 individual records from this area. The area includes Kaunas and many surrounding villages. Much of this is accessible via the All Lithuanian Database (with 1 million + records) or the JewishGen Lithuanian Database (with 1.5 million records) hosted on JewishGen. Some are currently only accessible via paid membership in the Litvak SIG Kaunas District group.

Moscow, Russia - see the Moscow kehilalinks webpage hosted on JewishGen.

Warsaw, Poland - Jewish Records Indexing-Poland has indexed more than 5 million vital records since it began in 1995. These records are included in registers from many former Polish Commonwealth towns in Eastern Europe, including Warsaw. The most exciting news is that the Polish State Archives is in the process digitizing all their records. As Jewish records are digitized, JRI-Poland creates direct links to them from their indices.

There are many Warsaw records located within the Warsaw archives and among the many not-yet-digitized microfilms of the Family History Library. See JRI-Poland's Warsaw page for the status of indexing these records.

Budapest, Hungary - Ongoing data collection/indexing projects are listed on JewishGen's Hungarian SIG pages.

Vienna  - Genteam has been indexing records from archives in Vienna and the vicinity for several years. They now have more than 8 million records indexed. Many of these are Jewish records.

While there's no question that records have been lost, I like to think that Jewish genealogists may be able to learn from the burned courthouse issues with which U.S. Southern states' genealogists (such as ESM) contend. I think the landowner records/cadastral maps that Gesher Galicia (the Galicia SIG) has been collecting may, for many shtetlach, be the partial answer to Jewish genealogists' missing European records issues. As someone recently pointed out, we need to love the records we have. I think that there is more and more to love.

ESM also addressed several additional questions regarding:

• Identifying Ancestral Photos
• Genealogical Templates for Citing Sources
• Numbering Systems for Genealogy
• Researching a Railroad Employee in 1921
• Beginning Indian Research from the U.S.
• Becoming a Professional Genealogist

I like the fact that the questions selected for treatment are not all beginner issues. And I excitedly await the third installment next week of ESM's New York Times' question and answer sessions. 

ESM in the NYT!*

For those of us who read widely in genealogy methodology there is no greater name than Elizabeth Shown Mills (fondly known, even to those who've never been formally introduced to her, as ESM). There are two ESM websites of interest here and here. Last week in their "Booming" section, the New York Times announced that ESM would answer questions starting the following Wednesday.

That announcement was greeted in the online responses section by 94 messages from people hopeful of being selected for ESM treatment. In today's ESM response (part 1), she answers 5 questions regarding:

1. Starting our genealogical journey
2. Genetic genealogy
3. Coping with  mass of genetic matches
4. Online trees
5. Preserving our information at online subscription sites

Booming is an existing NYT section for Baby Boomers that one may access directly at nytimes.com/booming or subscribe to using RSS feed. So as not to miss a saintly ESM word, click on the RSS feed button at the end of the article. In my case, since I use Feedly to aggregate my blog subscriptions, it gave me the immediate option of subscribing via Feedly.  Done!
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* Thank you to Saul Issroff who alerted us to this NYT series via his message in the JewishGen Discussion Group.