IAJGS Conference Early Registration is Now Open!

[Update: Ooops! Never mind. The IAJGS conference will now be virtual. No additional info is currently available. Conference planners are clearly feverishly working to figure out the virtual event schedule.]

 

The International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies Conference is being planned for August 2-5, 2021. The goal is to have the conference in-person in Philadelphia.*

Registration for the conference is now open.

I was asked to prepare a short (2 minute) video as a teaser for one of my talks: "Alien, Enemy, Declarant...Grief: Learning from Missteps in the Naturalization Process."

Allow me to tease you.

I will also be delivering two more talks:

• "Planning for Success: A Strategy for Effective Family History Research"
• "Learning Our Craft: Online Opportunities for Improving Research Skills"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

* I will admit to being a bit of a pessimist about holding the conference. But I am assured that conference planners are thinking of all contingencies including a virtual or hybrid conference. Stay tuned.

IAJGS at RootsTech Connect! 2021

315,000 (and counting) from 220 countries and territories! That's the number of registrations reported by RootsTech Connect yesterday. In its eleventh year, RootsTech has taken the conference completely virtual. The International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies (IAJGS) is  pleased to be a society sponsor of this year's exciting and groundbreaking virtual conference and has posted the following new release.[1]

 

Join IAJGS at RootsTech Connect 2021 

 

The IAJGS continues to assist in and promote the research of Jewish family history.  The Jewish genealogy community remains a strong and vibrant force, even when we are not together.  We continue to serve you with educational opportunities you can take advantage of from home.

 

Every year for the past ten years, RootsTech has held the largest family history technology conference in Salt Lake City.  This year, for the first time ever, the conference will be truly global, entirely virtual, and completely free.  RootsTech Connect kicks off February 25-27, 2021.

The main stage presentations for this virtual conference will run around the clock for the three days of the conference.  Videos of those presentations, and more than 1,000 additional presentations, will be available through RootsTech on-demand for a year.

 

IAJGS Participation

 

Visit the IAJGS virtual booth at RootsTech.  We will feature more than twenty, 5-20 minute presentations, featuring Jewish genealogy topics.  In addition, there will be five additional educational resources in Spanish, Portuguese, French, Swedish, and Polish.  Whether you are brand new to family history or an experienced genealogist, there are tips for all.

 

If you participate during the three days of the conference, there will be a Jewish Genealogist available for chat.  There you can download a Jewish Genealogy Quick Start Guide and Jewish Genealogy Research Tips.  You will also be able to explore resources from more than 90 Jewish Genealogy Societies around the world.  If you are not able to attend during the three live days of the conference, the IAJGS virtual booth resources will be accessible for up to a year.

 

For more information and to register for free, visit:  https://www.rootstech.org/

 

Learn More about IAJGS

 

The International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies (IAJGS) is an independent non-profit umbrella organization coordinating the activities and annual conference of 95 national and local Jewish Genealogical Societies (JGS) around the world.

 

Contact your local JGS for more information:  https://www.iajgs.org/membership/member-societies/

Notes:

1. I serve as a director on the board of IAJGS.

IAJGS 2018 Warsaw Conference - Day 6

I never understand why people leave conferences before they close. Excellent presentations are often given on the last day. When planning my flight home from Warsaw, I made sure that I selected a flight that would allow me to stay at the conference until the end (i.e., before lunch).

I heard two excellent presentations on Friday morning. In fact, I think these two were among the better ones I heard this year.

Ed Mitukiewicz presented, "Location, Location, Location: Using Historical Maps to Find Your Ancestral Towns in Eastern Europe." This presentation paired nicely with Carol Hoffman's on Wednesday afternoon. These should be required for anyone who is have difficulty locating their family shtetl.

Ed completely won me over when he noted a methodology dear to my heart: one should compare and correlate information from multiple sources to locate one's ancestral community. It is similar to triangulation - look for the area of intersection among evidence in one's sources.

Renee Carl's, " 'Did You Know Your Grandfather was a Twin?' And Other Questions I've Asked My Mother," addressed in another way a topic similar to the one I had presented on Tuesday in my talk "When It Takes a Village: Applying Cluster Research Techniques." She advocated for widening the net: collecting many records for many family members. 

She suggested that researchers should:

• gather oral history
• create research plans to answer questions
• try to prove or disprove information from gathered oral history
• question whether one really has a brick wall in one's research
• create wide trees (include collateral relatives)
• examine original sources 

Essentially, she argued for an iterative process between oral history and document research.

This was all very good stuff. And imagine! It was all in the last two hours of the conference!

See you in Cleveland in 2019!

IAJGS 2018 Warsaw Conference - Day 5

Seems like something comes up nearly each year that I miss the Professional Genealogists BOF meeting. I managed to attend last year. Last year I missed attending the IAJGS Annual Meeting because I was making a presentation (I sent another member of the Phoenix Jewish Genealogy Group to represent us). This year I figured I should attend the IAJGS Annual Meeting, myself. That meant missing the Professional Genealogists BOF, which was scheduled at the same time - Thursday morning. Such is the IAJGS conference experience when one is involved in one's community!

IAJGS announced that new board members are Janette Silverman, Sarina Roffe and Christa Cowen (all U.S. residents). There was some animated discussion regarding the lack of new board members representing other countries this year. Apparently 1/3 of IAJGS member societies are international and the current board will not reflect that diversity. In the recruitment committee's defense, they apparently contacted representatives of non-USA societies and no one from those societies stepped up this year. I imaging that two year's from now some new tactics will be employed.

This past year the membership committee has been employing new tactics that resulted in ten new societies joining the IAJGS. These include societies in Albany, NY; Kansas City, MO; Hungary; northeast Florida and Fort Wayne, Indiana. Nice!

Two awards winners were announced. The Stern Award went to Litvak SIG for their "Vilna Household Register Books project." Reclaim the Records took the Stegman Award for their acquisition of the New York City birth and death indices.

Next year in Cleveland! - 28 July - 2 August 2019.

Thursday was just that sort of day, and I had to make a hard choice for my next event, as well. There were a number of good options and I chose to attend Doug Hykle's "Documenting the Life and Death of an Eastern European Shtetl - Research Sources for Genealogists." 

I first made Doug's acquaintance several year's ago when he asked me for contact information for my 2nd cousin once removed, Sally Eisner, who was born in Zaleszczyki, moved to nearby Torskie when she was about 10, and was interned in Tluste (Tovste) during part of WWII. Quite a few years ago Sally had recorded her recollections for the USC Shoah Foundation and Doug had some questions for her about her experiences and testimony. With information I was able to provide, Doug made contact and traveled to Sally's home to interview her in-person. He's that kind of researcher. 

He describes his work as "community-scale forensic genealogy" and he has created and manages a wonderful website on Tovste that chronicles both Jewish and non-Jewish life in the community. Original sources come from the State Archives in Lviv, where the earliest Tluste Jewish records date to 1787.

Through Yad Vashem databases, the International Tracing Service, Gesher Galicia; testimonies from the USC Shoah Foundation and the Fortunoff Collection (at Yale University); and Sefer Tluste Doug has developed a spreadsheet of about 2,600 victims in 700 families.

Doug Hykle's research is a tour de force. So glad I attended his session.

For this conference, as I have for the last several, I organized an informal Jewish genealogy blogger's get-together. This year we did a bring-your-own lunch. Ten bloggers (or blogger wanna-bes) attended - which was more than I expected. We chatted about the blogging platforms we use and their pros and cons. 

Several of us who use Blogger (a Google product) are worried that Google, based on past history with other apparently non-monetized products, might not continue to support it. We have no inside information, really. 

We also talked about different emphases and pages on our blogs that some use as lures for readers. These include Philip Trauring's forms and Compendium of Jewish Genealogy on Blood and Frogs; Lara Diamond's genetic genealogy articles on Lara's Genealogy; Banai Feldstein's WDYTYA nitpicker articles at The Ginger Jewish Genealogist. A year of so ago I added list of Jewish genealogy blogger's as a page on my blog.

Other current bloggers in attendance included: Marysia Galbraith - Uncovering Jewish Heritage; Mary-Jane Roth - MemoryKeeper's Notebook; and Daniel Horowitz, who contributes to the MyHeritage blog.

I'd a busy morning, but, fortunate for me, I was well-prepared for my presentation: "Learning Our Craft: Online Opportunities for Improving Our Research Skills." The concept for this presentation is that one ought to return to the IAJGS conference next year with a solid year's worth of genealogy learning and experience under one's belt. The talk provides information on how to find blogs, podcasts, webinars and online courses and programs. I had quite a good audience for this presentation - which was not recorded.

I attended Carol Hoffman's short presentation, "Where's My Shtetl OR What's in a Name?" because overcoming challenges in identifying towns of origin is one of my pet topics (and peeves).[1] I had no problems with Carol's presentation. Carol, past-President of Litvak SIG and 2018 IAJGS Volunteer of the Year, ably covered the topic within the limited time-frame. The limited time meant the presentation had to be basic and there was not a great deal of time for the audience to ask questions.

I have to admit that I am not a fan of the short presentation format that IAJGS has introduced in the last couple of years. I especially feel this format is unnecessary at a conference outside the USA where all presentations have been shortened to one hour (45 minute talk plus questions) from the usual 75 minutes (one hour talk plus questions). Short presentations (25 minutes) short-change discussion and push speakers to over-simplify their topics. 
  The general reception for all conference attendees was held immediate before the Thursday evening banquet. And immediately before that was the IAJGS President's reception. Since I am a JGS president, I was invited. I definitely did not need any more food! I like to eat breakfast and I am not used to eating as late as I have been at this conference. Polish people seem to do dinner a bit late in the evening. Eating late means I am still digesting when I wake up in the morning. At this reception I was, however, quite happy with the provided glass of wine.

Early in the conference Max Heffler offered to reserved a seat for me at the JewishGen table during the banquet. That was pretty nice because the table is in the front row (it was also nice because there were some nice people at the table).

The banquet speaker was Kanstanty Gebert, listed as a journalist and Jewish activist. He also has taught a universities in Poland, Israel and the USA. His talk at the banquet centered on the complex development of Polish feelings toward remembering the Holocaust and the place the Jewish community once had in Polish society. I know that few things in life are one-sided or black and white. And Gebert's talk, placing the evolution of Polish and Jewish attitudes in recent historical context, surely bore that out.

The IAJGS Lifetime Achievement Award went to Mark Halpern. All I can say is that Mark is one of the kindest, most generous and accessible genealogists I know. I, like so many others, are indebted to him for his good work and his willingness to help and share.

Banai Feldstein won the award for Outstanding Project/Resource/Program for CSI: Crowd Sourced Indexing Project 

Outstanding Publication by a Jewish genealogical society went to Venturing Into Our Past, JGS of Conejo Valley (California).

I mentioned earlier that Carol Hoffman was named Volunteer of the Year. They actually gave two awards this year. Another went to Max Heffler.
 
A Special Award for volunteer service went to Susan Edel. 

Notes:
1. As a matter of fact, this is a topic I have spoken on at several past conferences and published on in Avotaynu. I did not offer to present on this topic this year.

IAJGS 2018 Warsaw Conference - Day 4

I had the pleasure of breakfast with Judy Golan this morning. I have been enamored with her prize-winning work tracking marriages and contacts among Jewish people in the Opatow area of Poland ("Reading Between the Lines: Mining Jewish History Through Extraction of Polish Archive Data"). Take a look at the International Institute for Jewish Genealogy and the Paul Jacobi Center website to read her research report. 

I see her work as quite anthropological (and just up my alley). Unfortunately, I could not attend her presentation Tuesday morning since mine was scheduled at the same time. 

Judy has also been very helpful to me in seeking JRI-Poland indexed records for researching my Aunt Lee Urbass Wilson's family from Opatow and Ostrowiec. Thank you Judy for making time for a fan.

Wednesday morning belonged to Ukraine SIG. I attended the Ukraine Special Interest Group meeting followed by the luncheon. 

Ukraine SIG's mission is to collect, transcribe, translate and create indices for records from towns within the Russian Empire portions of today's Ukraine. 

There are now 4,163 subscribers to the JewishGen's Ukraine SIG Discussion Group. This year, there are 11 new town leaders and several new kehilalink (ancestral town) websites hosted on JewishGen.

The SIG is slowly working through 1897 Russian census records (67,000 pages) and has translated 600 pages, resuting in 1,644 lines of information. 

A 1916 business directory covering Kiev, Podolia and Volhynia gubernias the latest project.

At the luncheon, Lara Diamond, Phyllis Grossman and Anna Royzner spoke about their successful (and sometimes poignant) roots trips. These should be inspirational to anyone planning such a community visit in the old country.

After lunch I attended the Bukovina BOF get-together. It was rather free-form. Some of the same tpics discussed at the RomSIG meeting the previous day were discussed. One of the challenges that I see it that there are several unrelated websites hosting Bukovina Jewish records. While JewishGen's RomSIG page includes some links. They do not include all of them.

Later in the day, I took in "Unique Surname Gives insight Into the History, Adoption, and Regulation of Jewish Surnames: Poland, Galicia," presented by Drs. David Elbaum and Heshel Teitelbaum. One of the reasons I wanted to attend this talk was to meet Heshel. He and I have crossed paths since he came up as a fairly close relative of a couple of my father's first cousins (siblings). My cousins are related to me via their father. They are related to Heshel via their mother's family. It was nice to make the connection.

The talk was interesting but I have to admit the time of day and emphasis on rabbinic genealogy conspired to make me miss portions of the talk. Their apparently provocative hypothesis was that Rabbi Yakov Koppel Likower of Poland was actually an Italian Jew (possibly from Amsterdam or Venice). I kept on thinking that DNA testing might be a good idea.

The JewishGen 2018 Annual Meeting was at 6:00 PM. 

JewishGen now has over 1000 volunteers working all over the world. They announced Yefim Kogan, of Bessarabia SIG, as volunteer of the year. 

This year's meeting included announcement of additional partnerships that can only enhance JewishGen's status of a go-to center for Jewish genealogy:

• Miriam Weiner Routes to Roots Collection - this collection includes items Miriam collected over the years as she researched in archives in Eastern Europe. Material is and will be searchable via JewishGen's search box. Som material is already online. More will come. The collection includes more than 15,000 Holocaust records, maps, name lists for Poland and Ukraine, antique postcards and both Miriam Weiner's books.
• Israel Genealogy Research Association - by Fall 2018 one will be able to search their website via access through JewishGen (and vice versa).
• Jewish Galicia & Bukovina.org - 10,000 burial records will soon be added to JOWBR. 
• Gesher Galicia - received a grant from JewishGen to index 8,000 Holocaust records from the Polish State Archives in Nowy Sacz and Rzeszow.
• Beit Hatfutsot - Their family trees will be included when one searches JewishGen's Family Tree of the Jewish People.

Of great interest to me, since I am one of the moderators of the JewishGen Discussion Group, was the long-overdue announcement about improving the group by replacing the Lyris software. The new software will have html capability, allow plain text and non-Latin characters. Hurrah!!!

In the next few year, JewishGen will start the process to replace and update their website. 

In the meantime, the current JewishGen site now includes a unified search capability that it did not previous have. Now one can search the Family Tree of the Jewish People, the JewishGen Family Finder, Jewish Records Indexing-Poland, and all-country and all-topic databases from one search box. This is a significant improvement for reesearchers.

IAJGS 2018 Warsaw Conference - Day 3

I started Tuesday, day 3, at 8 A.M. with the first of my two presentations at the conference: "When It Takes a Village: Applying Cluster Research Techniques." This talk discussed the advantages of researching those who associated with your subject relative. This is an especially useful strategy when information about a particular family member is scant. I discussed the case of Feiga Grinfeld who I only knew from a passenger manifest. She appeared to be a family member. But I could not determine how she might be related to my family.

Through following other immigrants from Feiga's Russian Empire town of origin and broadening the search to include their relatives and in-laws I was able to locate Feiga geographically far from where she was initially expected to be. 

Once I located her and still could not identify family links, it was possible to conduct genealogical research to find her current relatives, test their DNA and compare the results to my known relatives. Through a combination of DNA analysis and document research I was able to place Feiga Grinfeld within my family tree.

I had a slight break in action before heading to the JewishGen Expert Table in the Resource Room at 10:15 to help walk-ups with their genealogy queries. I spoke several researchers and tried to help. Sometimes I was more successful than other times. But I always enjoy the interactions and challenges. 

I then attended the Romania Special Interest Group (SIG) lunch. This year, due to reorganization/rejuvenation of RomSIG, this was an informal affair - but well-attended.  

After lunch I listened to my friend Janette Silverman's interesting talk about her research into Displaced Persons Camps after World War II: "From DP Camp to the US and Back to Europe."  

Janette generously donated her time and research skills to find information about her friend Ruth Ebner who arrived in the United States with her mother and father sometime between 1948 and 1950. 

For this type of research the best bets are Yad Vashem, US Holocaust Memorial Museum and International Tracing Service (ITS) databases. Often an online search will locate information that then may be acquired by emailing the repository. In Ebner's case, their passenger manifest was in a United Nations compilation accessible in ITS records.

Please Review the Presentations You Attended
I was told that last year I had many more reviews of my presentations than any other speaker at the conference. One of reasons, I believe, is that I always include a slide near the end of my presentations showing people where to find the review form in the conference app. 

It is not too late to review presentations at this year's conference (but do it soon!). Go into the app, find the presentation page and click on the clipboard (see, below). The complete the review. The presenters, many of whom will benefit from constructive feedback, with thank you.

 

IAJGS 2018 Warsaw Conference - Day 2

I have lagged in the blogging this conference. I left my laptop home and expected to blog my Eastern European visit via my iPad as I had done five years ago. Now, however, iPad apps for using Blogger are no longer supported by Google. Thus, I had to blog directly in the browser (Safari) on my iPad. 

This method is far from user friendly. I stopped and started several posts and then decided to finish them when I returned State-side and could work in Blogger via my laptop. 

So during the next few days, despite being in the throes of jet lag, I will complete my self-assigned task.

~~~~~~~~~~

On Monday, 6 Aug 2018, I started the day with an topic unfortunately relevant to much of my Eastern European research: "Hopeless Case Studies: How to Search for Family Roots in Towns Without Records." This talk by Jakub Czuprynski was quite good. Jakub, a Polish native, speaks  excellent English. He was easily understood.

Jakub explained that the paucity of records in some places is related to destruction due to a variety of events. Building fires and World War I and World War II caused record loss. In addition, there were poor archival practices in the Austrian Empire before 1875. In some cases there was deliberate and systematic disposal of documents. 

In 1876, the Austrian administration created the position of clerk for vital records registration. It wasn't until 1919 that the Polish State Archives (PSA) was created. At that point local repositories were to send their records to the PSA.

Jakob's take-away message was that persistent research can bring some results. Passport applications, notorial records, land and mortgage books, and court records may be located in municipal and district offices. He also mentioned the Antoni Schneider Collection - an unfinished encyclopedia of Galicia research by the late historian. This collection is in the National Archives in Krakow.

Next on my schedule was the Romania Special Interest Group meeting chaired by Barbara Hershey. I have recently agreed to serve on the new board for this group that is retooling after a change in leadership. Barbara explained that we have quite a few records in our possession that need indexing. Hew priority is to index those in hand before seeking out additional collections. There is much to do!

Those with interest should know that there are RomSIG records uploaded to Crowd Sourced Indexing. They are ready for those who have the ability and desire to help.

It seemed to be "Hopeless genealogy" day for me and I next attended the Disna Birds of a Feather (BOF) meeting chaired by Ralph Salinger. The discussion was quite interesting to me. 

A few years ago Ralph took over the group within Litvak SIG and did a great job finding records from the Disna District in what is now Belarus and Lithuania. But shortly after starting he announced that all records had been found. 

I recall asking if Litvak SIG had search archives in Belarus. He said, "No," and promised they would do so. Then shortly after that, he again announced that all records had been located. Needless to say, there were few records from my community, Kozyany, and none representing my family.

Paul Zoglin, an expert in Belarus records, pressed Ralph on Litvak SIG's methods of collection and record discovery. I now hope that the group will refocus their search.

The next talk on my schedule was cancelled, so I spend time in the Resource Room reviewing my PowerPoint for my talk tomorrow morning. 

I attended the conference "Meet and Greet Reception" and intended to listen to the Pamela Weissberger Memorial Lecture by Dr. Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett in the evening. But, a friend asked me to dinner and I took that opportunity instead.

IAJGS 2018 Warsaw Blogger Compendium

The blogger population is a bit thin at this year's conference, but true to the pattern of the last few years, this post will collect and post links to all blogged content relating to the conference. Please check back daily for updates.

Bloggers, please send me a link to your first post on the conference and I will include you on the list. I understand that some of us (me included) are having issues with using the Blogger.com platform - which no longer supports use with iPads. So, unfortunately, some individual's posts may not be fully realized until the writers return home to their usual hardware. I will, as needed, continue to update this compendium for a week or so after the conference.

Lara Diamond - Lara's Jewnealogy
"IAJGS2018 - Part 1" https://larasgenealogy.blogspot.com/2018/08/iajgs2018-part-1.html 
"IAJGS2018 - Part 2" https://larasgenealogy.blogspot.com/2018/08/iajgs2018-part-2.html 
"IAJGS2018 - Part 3" https://larasgenealogy.blogspot.com/2018/08/iajgs2018-part-3.html 
"IAJGS2018 - Part 4 (JewishGen Updates)" https://larasgenealogy.blogspot.com/2018/08/iajgs2018-part-4-jewishgen-updates.html
 

Banai Feldstein - The Ginger Jewish Genealogist
"IAJGS Conference - Summer 2018 Trip, Part 2" http://idogenealogy.com/2018/08/18/iajgs-conference-summer-2018-trip-part-2/
Follow Banai as she journeys through Eastern Europe.
 
Emily Garber - Extra Yad
"IAJGS 2018 Warsaw Conference - Pre-Conference"  
https://extrayad.blogspot.com/2018/08/iajgs-2018-warsaw-conference-pre.html
"IAJGS 2018 Warsaw - Day 1" https://extrayad.blogspot.com/2018/08/iajgs-2018-warsaw-conference-day-1.html
"IAJGS 2018 Warsaw Conference - Day 2" https://extrayad.blogspot.com/2018/08/iajgs-2018-warsaw-conference-day-2.html 
"IAJGS 2018 Warsaw Conference - Day 3" https://extrayad.blogspot.com/2018/08/iajgs-2018-warsaw-conference-day-3.html 
"IAJGS 2018 Warsaw Conference - Day 4" https://extrayad.blogspot.com/2018/08/iajgs-2018-warsaw-conference-day-4.html 
"IAJGS 2018 Warsaw Conference - Day 5" https://extrayad.blogspot.com/2018/08/iajgs-2018-warsaw-conference-day-5.html
"IAJGS 2018 Warsaw Conference - Day 6" https://extrayad.blogspot.com/2018/08/iajgs-2018-warsawconference-day-6.html

Harriet Levin Millan
"First Day in Poland" http://www.harrietlevinmillan.com/first-day-in-poland
"Poland/Ukraine Day 2" http://www.harrietlevinmillan.com/poland-ukraine-day-2
"3rd Day Poland/Ukraine" http://www.harrietlevinmillan.com/post-title3
"Poland/Ukraine Day 4" http://www.harrietlevinmillan.com/poland-ukraine-day-4 
Continue to follow Harriet as she journals about her roots trip through Ukraine.

Mary-Jane Roth - MemoryKeeper's Notebook
"IAJGS 2018 in Warsaw, Part one" https://memorykeepersnotebook.blogspot.com/2018/08/iajgs-2018-in-warsaw-part-one.html
"IAJGS 2018 in Warsaw - Part 2 Warsaw Outside the Conference" https://memorykeepersnotebook.blogspot.com/2018/08/iajgs-2018-in-warsaw-part-2-warsaw.html

Janette Silverman, Ancestry ProGenealogists - Relativatree
"It's Sunday in Warsaw - let the fun begin!" 
https://relativatree.wordpress.com/2018/08/05/its-sunday-in-warsaw-let-the-fun-begin/
"Shifting Time" https://relativatree.wordpress.com/2018/08/06/shifting-time/
"Tuesday, 7 Aug - last full day in Warsaw" https://relativatree.wordpress.com/2018/08/08/tuesday-7-aug-last-full-day-in-warsaw/ 
Continue to follow Janette as she and her team from Ancestry Pro-Genealogists travel throughout Eastern Europe.

Susan Weinberg - Layers of the Onion
"Phantom Presence: How Past Influences Present," https://sgweinberg.blogspot.com/2018/08/phantom-presence-how-past-influences.html
Continue to follow Susan as she visits ancestral community Radom, Poland.

IAJGS 2018 Warsaw Conference - Day 1

I usually stay close to the venue when attending IAJGS Conferences (this is my seventh) but having never been to Warsaw, I decided tomiss some of the morning sessions and  take one of the Taube Tours, "Jewish Warsaw from A-Z," on Sunday morning.

They piled us into a large van (or a short bus) and we started our journey at the south end of the WWII ghetto. I liked the technology they provided: small receivers with an earphone attachment so that no matter how softly the guide spoke, we heard him.

We began at one of the ghetto wall remnants where there is a map of the ghetto. The guide's presentation was chronological. It started with the establishment of the ghetto where much of Warsaw's Jews already lived. In this small area up to 300,000 people were interned. When the German's had removed all but 60,000, the stage was set by those who remained for the uprising. After all, what did they have to lose? We saw several monuments to those who suffered and died and those who rebelled. A sobering morning.

In the afternoon (from 3-5 PM), I served Romania Special Interest Group (SIG)  at their table in the Share Fair. Usually I work for Ukraine SIG, but this year I moved to Romania. The Share Fair room, as usual, was crowded and somewhat loud, but I managed to help (I hope) several people with their research. I also managed to eat some chocolates provided to all by the conference.

Nearly all repaired to the Ballroom for the conference opening. Ken Bravo, IAJGS president, welcomed us and then gave way to Rabbi Michael Schudrich, Chief Rabbi of Poland. Mark Halpern of Jewish Records Indexing - Poland, one of the conference sponsors, and Dr. Wojciech Wozniak, General Director of the Polish State Archives extolled their long-term agreement that has, as of now, resulted in about 5.5 million indexed Jewish Records on JRI-P. The agreement started with Stan Diamond in 1997. We have all benefitted from Stan's and PSA's foresight and inspiration.

Mark's and Dr. Wozniak's words were followed by Dr. Antony Polansky, an historian and scholar inresidence for the conference. Among his other laurels, he is professor emeritus at Brandeis University. He discussed the thought that history and genealogy are a continuum with history elucidating the context of the events and experiences in our ancestor's lives. Then Professor Dariusz Stola, who was the Director of the Polin Museum of the History of Polish Jews when it opened in 2014, spoke of the museum's success: 1.4 million people have seen the core exhibit thus far. The museum has been recognized with several awards for its design and exhibits.

Last we heard from Holocaust survivor and Chairman of the Board of the Polin Museum, Marian Turski. His passion for his subject was clear and movng. It is truly wonderful that he has been able to guide such a lasting remembrance and legacy. The thought occurred to me that seeing the large ballroom filled with hundreds of genealogists whose passion is remembering and reconstructing lost family must have been a moving thing for Mr. Turski, as well.

I did not stay for the final event of the evening: a performance of Chelm stories. Dinner called and we made our way to a Polish restaurant called Folk Gospoda. The restaurant is but a few blocks from the hotel and others from the conference seemed to have the same idea. A Rohatyn group treked in. A group from Ancestry ProGenealogists made an appearance, as well. Genealogists fairly filled the outside patio. The pirogi and beer were quite good and filling.

IAJGS 2017 Conference Blogger Compendium

We have been in Orlando, Florida for a few days at the International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies conferencing. Here are the bloggers who have posted thus far. Please check back daily. I will be updating the list as new blogs are posted.

Lara Diamond - Lara's Jewnealogy
"IAJGS2017 Coming up!"  
"IAJGS2017, Day 1" 
"IAJGS Conference, Days 2-3"

Janice Sellers - Ancestral Discoveries
"IAJGS International Conference on Jewish Genealogy in Florida (in July!)"
"IAJGS Conference, Days 3 and 4" 
"IAJGS Conference, Days 5 and 6 and Going Home"

Marian B. Wood - Climbing My Family Tree
"IAJGS Day 1: From Railways to DNA" 
"IAJGS Day 2: Research Tricks and Preservation Tips" 
"IAJGS Day 3: Blogging Breakfast and Much More"
"IAJGS Day 4: Litvak, More Litvak, and Search Tips" 
"IAJGS Day 5: Resources and Queries"

Emily H. Garber - The Extra Yad
"IAJGS 2017, Days 1 and 2: busy, busy, busy!"
"IAJGS 2017, Day 3 (Tuesday, 25 July)"
"IAJGS 2017, Day 4 (Wednesday, 26 July)" 
"IAJGS 2017, Days 5 and 6 (Thursday and Friday, 27-28 July)" 

Banai Feldstein - The Ginger Jewish Genealogist
"IAJGS 2017" 

Louis Kessler - Behold Blog
"DMT Version 1.5.1 and IAJGS and DMT Workshop"
"The IAJGS Conference 2017" 

Dick Eastman - Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter
"IAJGS Conference in Orlando is a Success"

IAJGS 2015, Jerusalem: Day 5

I am an avid Friday (last day of conference) presentation attender. One, I feel badly that anyone has to be scheduled the last day - and risk having few in the audience; two, some of the best presentations are given on the last day; and three, the audiences are always at rapt attention - they really want to be there to hear what is said. It always seems that these last-day presentations - even when well-attended - wind up being a bit more informal with a great deal of fairly intelligent give and take with the audience.

"Teaching Jewish Genealogy to Teenagers"

I applaud anyone trying to teach anything to teenagers. Arnon Hershovitz and Rony Golan not only took the challenge but prepared a creative and fascinating elective course for their teenage audience: 12-13 year old gifted students.

The course was thirteen sessions of 1.5 hours each. They designed it with what they described as a spiral curriculum: designed to revisit core material at periodic intervals and build on previously introduced material. 

Herskovitz and Golan described each of the 13 sessions. This course was amazing and took vast amounts of teacher preparation. The children prepared genealogy charts for television and cartoon families, did interviewing with video recording, visited a cemetery (the teachers visited the cemetery before-hand to note interesting stones), listened to guest speakers, and met with the deputy mayor (whose genealogy the children prepared in advance).

Not surprisingly (considering the teacher time commitment), this course has only been taught once. Although it is clear that it had a great effect on many of the students.

"Yad Vashem Resources for Advanced Level"

I had attended the full-day pre-conference tour/research opportunity at Yad Vashem, so I was interested in hearing what else Zvi Bernhardt would offer.

The Shoah Names Database is not just pages of testimony about people killed in the Holocaust. POTs are only about 40% of the database. It also includes information from the Soviet Extraordinary Commission; post-war Jewish memorial projects (tombstones and plaques); records about anyone who did not survive WWII, and information about those who were evacuated from Eastern Europe in advance of the Nazi occupation.

One of the frustrations with searching broadly in the database is that it will not return results in excess of 1000 records. They do this to avoid stressing their computer system. To overcome this difficulty, Bernhardt recommends that researchers use the updates fields - updated since. . .up-dated until - to search smaller chunks of the database and, therefore, return fewer results for each search.

Other online resources include:

• The Untold Stories

• Transports to Extinction database - includes deportations, maps and testimonies

• Righteous Among Nations - one may search by righteous or rescued person 

• Online photo archive and documents archive - only a small percentage of collections are online yet

"Search as an Art" 

Banai Feldstein, my hotel roomie during the conference provided, I think, a much-needed summary of the issues one should consider when searching in a variety of genealogy websites. Unfortunately, she was a victim of the last-day-of-conference syndrome and the conference did not provide anyone to introduce her. So, I jumped up to do so. Luckily, I knew enough about her background to provide an adequate introduction. 

Banai said we should not assume that particular websites use American Soundex. In fact, Ancestry and FamilySearch have their own name search parameters. JewishGen, of course, uses Daitch-Mokotoff and Beider-Morse Soundex. [And, as I know from previous Crista Cowan talks, Ancestry will apply Daitch-Mokotoff if one specifies "Jewish" under the Collection Focus drop down menu at the lower part of their search boxes.]

Banai covered the tried and true search strategies that beginners don't always appreciate: search without a surname, use a child's name to locate the family, add or remove details when there are too many of too few results. She also shared that genealogy databases often present their results in weighted lists. So, for example, Ancestry's results list may be ordered by most popular data collect (such as the 1940 census). Page through the results to locate the records you may find more interesting. 

IAJGS 2015, Jerusalem: Day 4

Well, it's a week after the conference ended and, after a week of travel in Israel, I am jeg-lagged and trying to acclimate to my Pacific Daylight Time schedule. I'm getting back to posting my day-by-day impressions of the conference.

Since I was prepping for my presentation at 3 P.M., I limited my attendance at sessions Thursday morning.

Thursday 

"Multidisciplinary Academic Research in Genealogy"

There were several talks presented and I wish I could have heard all of them. I did take in "Genealogy and heritage Tourism" by Dr. Amos Roth and Dr. Dallen Timothy and "Jewish Daily Life in Eastern Europe in the Modern Age" by Dr. Judith Kalik.

Roth and Timothy examined the links between heritage tourism and genealogy. Genealogy tourism is multi-generational.

They see genealogy tourism related to visiting relatives, family reunions, return travel, diaspora tours, hobbyists (WWII, coin and stamp collectors), and religious tourism.

Nothing hugely new here for those of us who can be accused of being the genealogy tourists, but interesting none-the-less.

Dr. Kalik described the rural Jewish community in Minsk Gubernia prior to and after peasant emancipation in 1861. Prior to emancipation, many were lease-holders - mostly innkeepers. The provided guest houses and some locally distilled alcohol.

Rural Jews had some advantages in times of change because they were among the few who had first-hand knowledge of both nobility and peasants. They became middlemen in the economy. The coming of the railroads and increasing opportunity for grain trade meant decline for the local liquor industry. May rural Jews became farmers or grain traders.

The size the rural Jewish family before and 1861 reflected these economic changes. In the early 1800s, there were 3.2 people/family. By the 1897 census and the advent of the industrial age, families were much larger. 

"Jewish Vital Records From the Period of the Holocaust in Eastern Galicia (1941-44)"

There was a short period of time between rule by Poland and rule by Nazi Germany when Galicia was under the authority of the Soviet Union. Tony Kahane laments the lack of records from the Soviet period and documents where collections from this period, though meager, are found (mostly in Warsaw where they are not yet publicly available due to the Polish 80-year rule for withholding death records). 

Other researchers may be heartened by the collection inventory tables Tony provided. I guess I was hoping against hope for some revelation, but my area of main concern in Galicia - Zaleszczyki (and Torskie, Ustechko and Tluste) - were not, as I should have expected, included among the collections in Warsaw. My Galician communities are a big black hole for any vital records. 

One important point Tony made: the lack of records from this period could be a function of the Soviets taking records with them as they retreated. If so, then archives in the Soviet Union may ultimately yield Galician treasures.

"When it Takes a Village: Applying Cluster Research Techniques"

I was pleased with the turn-out at my presentation (and also pleased that the time and venue had been changed from the original conference schedule because the new room was larger than the first one, which would not have accommodated this group).

My talk dealt with using resources and information about collateral relatives (i.e., going beyond one's ancestors), friends, associates, and neighbors to break through on difficult genealogy problems.

The example I used was my pursuit of Feiga Grinfeld. Feiga was a possible relative only identified on two NY manifests from 1922 - once as the relative left behind in the old country and then as the passenger accompanying my great grandfather to NYC in November 1922. If she was a relation, how? I'd not located her where expected from her identified intended destination on the manifest. Without much to go on, I eventually located Feiga (turned Fannie Greenfield) in Cincinnati by tracking possible associates from her hometown of Baranivka, Ukraine. I used standard genealogical records and DNA results.

A written version of this talk will be published in the next issue of Avotaynu. I will be giving a longer version of this presentation on Monday, 4 April 2016 for the Jewish Genealogyl Society of Conejo Valley and Ventura County. 

"The History, Adoption, and Regulation of Jewish Surnames in the Russian Empire"

I was particularly interested in Jeffrey Mark Paull's (and Jeffrey Briskman's) presentation because my Feiga Grinfeld research had led me, ultimately, to questions about how Jewish people in this area of the Russian Empire had acquired surnames in the nineteenth century. 

The adoption of hereditary surnames (versus patronymics) was imposed on Russian Jews. The first edict was in 1804. The next in 1835. By 1850 Jews were no longer switching their surnames at will. Kahals often developed lists of Jewish surnames.

According to Paull, historical evidence suggests that member sof the same families, if living in different households, had to adopt different surnames - perhaps to avoid conscription of taxes. He provided Revision List records from 1804 and before from Slutsk showing brothers adopting different surnames.

A paper of the same title by Paull and Briskman may be viewed online at academia.edu.