FamilySearch, JewishGen and Litvak SIG: What are they hiding?

I like to keep up with records newly digitized by FamilySearch. A couple of years ago I posted an article about locating new record listings on a variety of websites - including FamilySearch. I assumed that their list accurately reflected their online holdings. Guess again!

Turns out that JewishGen and the Lithuanian-Jewish Special Interest Group (LitvakSIG) have some options for seeing indexed digitized records in their All Lithuania Database. They link to records digitized by FamilySearch from Family History Library microfilm. But, if one tries to locate the digitized records from the Historic Record Collections list on FamilySearch, one will not find them.

The All Lithuania Database

The All Lithuania Database is a cooperative venture between JewishGen and LitvakSIG). LitvakSIG, an independent  organization, works with researchers and archives in Lithuania to locate and index Jewish records. They also identify and index Lithuanian Jewish records that the Family History Library has on microfilm. Once LitvakSIG uploads indexes, they are available only to paid members of a one of their district groups for 18 months. After 18 months the records become available - for free - in the All Lithuania Database, which may be accessed via LitvakSIG and JewishGen.

The key concept behind LitvakSIG - and much of JewishGen - is that they provide indexes, but usually not digitized original records. Database summaries associated with each collection of indexed records should provide enough information for researchers to independently access the originals. Fortunate researchers who find indexed family records may have to contact archives in Lithuania or order microfilm from the Family History Library.

But recently, JewishGen and LitvakSIG seem to be following in the innovative footsteps of Jewish Records Indexing-Poland. During the last few years, this last group has worked cooperatively with Polish Archives to index and link to records that have been placed online by Polish archives. With just a few  clicks, one may be sitting in one's jammies looking, virtually, at records in Warsaw. Very slick.

So, Here's the Rub!

With regard to JewishGen and LitvakSIG, some records in the All Lithuania Database that were indexed from FamilySearch microfilm are now linked to records digitized and online at FamilySearch [I understand from Marion Werle that similar links may be found for LatviaSIG records on JewishGen.]. This great news! Unfortunately, one is unlikely to know about this unless one searches via the All Lithuania Database portal. 

For some reason, FamilySearch does not include these records on the long list of those collections that have been digitized. So, if one goes to their Historical Record Collections list, one will not see them. It ought to be listed between Liechtenstein and Louisiana, below - but, no.



To locate the Jewish Lithuanian records on FamilySearch  one must search their catalog for Lithuania and Jewish records. Metrical Books from Kovno show many film rolls. The vast majority have been digitized, as indicated by a little camera icon on the right side of the page. Those that have not been digitized are indicated by a microfilm roll icon.
 

Access via the All Lithuania database (JewishGen and LitvakSIG)

I located the All Lithuania Database by clicking the Databases tab on the JewishGen home page.

This took me to JewishGen's long list of databases. Scrolling down to Lithuania, I clicked on LitvakSIG "All Lithuania" Database. This took me to a search page on the LitvakSIG webpage.

For the case I was researching, I entered a surname as well as a community. Since I was searching a common name (Levin), I reasoned that specifying a town would limit results to those Levins most relevant to my research interest. 

I also specified phonetic search in both cases. This took into account the fact that original records were likely written in a different alphabet and that the town name may have been slightly different, as well. 

Results included records in several component databases within the All Lithuania Database. The following listing was included in the LitvakSIG "Lithuania Marriages and Divorces" list. 

To my joy, I found, not just an indexed record and a reference to a collection in a Lithuanian archive and a Family History Library microfilm, but, on the far left (red arrow), a hot link to FamilySearch (the website associated with the Family History Library). Note the information shown for the record number and year (blue arrow) as well as the microfilm item number and image number (red arrow). This information may be useful for finding the FamilySearch digital image of the original record.

Family History Library microfilms often contain more than one collection or collections that have been subdivided into "items." In this case, the far right column of the indexed record entry provides the microfilm number (2,291,760), item number (2), and image number (691). LVIA and Fond numbers in the last line would be terrific information if one decided to try to acquire the record directly from the Lithuanian archive. But, no need for that here. While on the All Lithuania Database results page, click the hot link (red arrow) and head directly to FamilySearch.

Note a few things:

• the film number (004221369) shown, above, in the image thumbnail area and also in the detail, below, does not match the actual Family History Library microfilm number. The microfilm number (2291760) is acknowledged in the first image of the digitized roll.

• from the FamilySearch thumbnail screen, one may look at thumbnails or switch to different views by clicking on one of the symbols on the right. The plus (+) will increase the size of the view. Minus (-) will decrease it. The solid square within a small frame allows one to toggle between numerous thumbnails and a single image. The broken square allows for full screen view.

• in this roll, as shown in the thumbnail view above, the fourth image with a large numeral 1 indicates the start of item 1 on the roll. Item 1 will also end with a similar image and item 2 will start immediately after that. One may scroll through the images seeking those item numbers (as shown, below). 

Finding the record - Alternative 1

In this case, the easiest option is to search via the date of the record (1893) and record number (5). In the digitized record book, look at the first few pages after FamilySearch item 2. It includes images of the original book's index.

The index indicates that marriage records from 1893 will be found in record book pages 131 through 140. Navigating to page 131 (on FamilySearch, see image 682), finds a title page for 1893 records. Continue scrolling to record number 5 (circled in green, below) to find the Levin record. It is on record book page 136 (blue oval). Note that this image is number 691 (I've circled it in red). You may recall that the assigned number 691 was the image number identified in the right column of the All Lithuania Database search result for this record.

This alternative for record access may be a bit easier that alternative 2. But, one will not always be so fortunate to work with a metrical record book that contains an index. One may have to punt. So, here is an alternative browse strategy.

Finding the record - Alternative 2

As noted above, the database provided the film image number: 691. The image number, unfortunately, does not coincide with the FamilySearch digital image number because the digital images also count the microfilm roll number image and several administrative images at the start of each film. So, one may enter 691 to get close to the image on the roll, but one will still need to do a bit of browsing to find the correct page.

Above, I entered 691 and hit <new line>, which took me to an image showing 695. No "Levin" on this page. If I scroll back four images, I find a page imaged with the target number 691. Image 691 is actually on FamilySearch digitized image number 687. Levin, underlined in pencil on the page (and circled in red by me), is on this page. The first two letters are on one line and the last three on on the next. It helps, in this case to know what the name Левин [Levin] will look like in Cyrillic script.

The Up-shot

Why are these online digitized Lithuanian Jewish records not listed in the FamilySearch Historic Record Collections list? I have no idea (I will have to send a query to them, I guess). 

I have always assumed that past a certain point, as the digitized Historic Records Collection list gets larger,  FamilySearch would have to ditch the list and find a more elegant solution. Perhaps that is in the offing. But, right now it appears that some digitized records have not made the existing list. 

Bottom line? 

• It is important to know how to search a website's catalog. That is true whether one is using FamilySearch, Ancestry, JewishGen, or any genealogy website. And don't just check it once and be done with it. Particularly with FamilySearch, it seems they are picking up the pace of digitization. One doesn't want to miss anything and ... one may be pleasantly surprised. 

• Learn how to browse FamilySearch digitized microfilm for records of interest. FamilySearch is uploading digitized records at a fantastic pace and, in most cases, indexing has not kept up. Be flexible in one's browsing strategy. Each collection will have it's own peculiarities.

• And, of course, note that indexing activities by Jewish genealogy groups are allowing us to locate our family records within newly online data sets. Don't forget to thank them with monetary contributions (JewishGen donation page; LitvakSIG donation page).

All warm and fuzzy: Finding success with JewishGen's and JRI-Poland's new fuzzy search

Fuzzy (from Pixabay.com)

Searching is definitely an art. And that art often involves working with and, sometimes, around the tools, restrictions and options offered on particular database-offering websites. The research goal is not only to locate records that were recorded and indexed correctly, but also to find those records where erroneous information has been introduced. 

Earlier this summer while reporting from the Jerusalem IAJGS conference, I noted that JewishGen.org and JRI-Poland.org had added fuzzy search options to their search parameters (actually, the organizations share search parameters, so they both changed to include the same options). I wasn't quite sure what fuzzy search would do for me. I can now report that fuzzy makes me happy. Fuzzy is a wonderful tool for working around transcription errors.

I've been collecting and analyzing records from people with the Wenkert surname from eastern Galicia. Wenkert was the maiden name of my great grandmother Bertha Wenkert Liebross (ca. 1867-1937, Brooklyn, NY) and her sister Perl Wenkert Ett (ca. 1850-1895, Skole, Austrian Empire). Their parents were Israel Hersch and Reisel Wenkert from Zaleszczyki. Beyond that, I run out of Wenkert relatives.

The lengthy gap between the Wenkert sisters' births seems to cry out for information about additional siblings. But, none are known.

Records I viewed at the Lviv Achives during my visit in 2013 indicate that there were Wenkerts in the Zaleszczyki area in 1820.

Alexander Beider, who has produced the seminal work on ononomastics (name origins) for the area, writes that the surname Wenkert has been found in Stryj, Zaleszczyki, Horodenka, Borszczow, Czortkow, Husiatyn, Tarnopol, and Kolomyja.[1] With the exception of Stryj (which is close, actually, to Skole), all of these are within close proximity in eastern Galicia.

So, I've developed a spreadsheet within which I am recording vital records for Wenkerts. I am reconstructing families and trying to see which towns they are from and how they might be related to each other. 

I thought I'd located all the records identified and indexed, thus far, by JewishGen and Jewish Records Indexing-Poland (which is hosted on JewishGen's website). I had been dutifully searching, sometimes using exact and other times using the Daitch-Mokotoff Soundex (Sounds Like). I would return to the databases periodically to see if salient records had been added.

Phonetically gives one access to the Beider-Morse Soundex (which provides fewer false positives and, therefore, a shorter list of alternative spellings).[2]

Fuzzy Match, directs search to include spellings with one letter different than what one had entered. Fuzzier Match provides results with two changes from the searched name. Fuzziest Match allows up to 1/3 divergence from the searched entry. 

A few weeks ago, in preparation for a short presentation for the Phoenix Jewish Genealogy Group on what new things I'd learned at this past summer's IAJGS conference, I finally tried the new fuzzy search. 

I found new records! Actually, not new records, but ones I'd not located before on JRI-Poland.
 

Several vital records for offspring of Frieda Wenkert and Chaim Bonuss were listed on my spread sheet. But I had no marriage record for the couple.

Fuzzy Match provided versions of Wenkert with one letter changed: Wenkerl and Wenert. It was clear from other information provided, that these records were likely related to the same Chaim and Frieda Bonuss I'd located previously.

I was curious to see if the error in the Wenkert name was the clerk's or transcriber's. So, I looked at the digitized record by clicking on View Nearby Image. This takes one to the website for the archive in Warsaw in which the record resides.

Here's the Wenkerl portion of  Akta 24, the Bonuss-Wenkerl marriage record.

Years ago, those writing a t at the end of a word often brought the  line at the end of the letter up sharply and did not cross the t. This is the case here. The transcriber misread the letter as l. Thus, Wenkerl. If one compares the last letter in the name Scheindel (in the second to last line) with the one in Wenkert, it is easy to see how the error occurred. They look similar.

I now have a marriage record that tells me that Friede Wenkert was born in 1864 - about 3 years before my great grandmother, Bertha. I am still not certain if Friede is related to me (her father was Hersch Wenkert, but her mother was not Reisel, but Scheindel).

Transcription error also hindered location of Froim's birth record. Akta 156 (transcribed as Wenert) was originally written by the clerk as Wenkert. Instead of mis-reading a letter, the transcriber created a typographical error by leaving out the k. 

Fuzzy search to the rescue! I've located a delayed marriage for Friede and Chaim and an additional child, Froim. Both of these records had been inaccessible to me previously due to the options I'd selected and the options available to me in searching. I realize, in retrospect, that I might have located these if I'd used starts with as a search parameter. With starts with Wenk in the JRI-Poland search box, I receive 115 hits. That's really not too many to peruse. I imagine, however, that someone seeking a name with a more common first few letters (such as Lieb...) would receive too many hits beyond useful.

Blurry (from en.wikipedia.org)

For me, Fuzzier Match and Fuzziest Match on Wenkert and a couple of other tested names, did not result in good hits. But, they may work for others. So, by all means try them.

My only issue now is that it is not clear on either JewishGen or JRI-Poland how to provide corrections for transcription errors. I will likely wait to collect several errors and then send a note to whomever I can contact outlining my concerns. 

Notes:
1. Alexander Beider, A Dictionary of Jewish Surnames from Galicia (Bergenfield, New Jersey: Avotaynu, 2004), p. 572.
2. For example, I searched for Wenkert in the Ukraine database on JewishGen.  Using Sounds Like search, resulted in 245 hits in exclusively JewishGen databases as well as the following on JRI-Poland: 40 in the Lwow Wojewodztwo, 69 in Stanislawow W., 80 in Tarnopol W., and 62 in Volhynia. For Phonetically Like I received 36 hits in JewishGen databases and 1 in Lwow W., 65 in Stanislawow W., and 32 in Tarnopol W. in JRI-Poland.

FamilySearch Adds Hungarian Jewish Vital Records Index

On 19 December 2013, FamilySearch added an index: "Hungary, Jewish Vital Records". The index addresses 11,066 records ranging from 1800 to 1945. The title of this record set in Hungarian is "Magyarország, Zsidó Anyakönyvek." 

The FamilySearch description of the record set indicates that this index may also be foud online on JewishGen. However, it is not clear from browsing JewishGen's Hungarian databases where this might be located (JewishGen do not seem to have a record set with exactly 11,066 records).

The citation for this collection is:

“Hungary, Jewish Vital Records, 1800-1945,” database, FamilySearch Record Search ([ https://familysearch.org/ Record Search]); from Magyar Orszagos Leveltar (Hungary). “Index of Jewish vital records from the Kingdom of Hungary". Magyar Orszagos Leveltar (Hungary), Budapest. FHL microfilm, 26 reels. Family History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah.

Tombstone Tuesday: Perl Garber Zabarsky

There is no tombstone for Perl Garber Zabarsky. In fact, we are not entirely sure where she is buried. Perl was the eldest of three daughters of Avrum and Chana Garber, my great grandparents. She was their second child, likely born in 1888. Perl, along with her youngest child, her only daughter, Chana, was murdered during the German occupation of Labun during World War II. 

Thanks to my visit to Ukraine this past June, I have photographs of memorial plaques placed at the two mass murder sites where Labun Jewish residents were killed. I did two posts during my trip (here and here) regarding my visits to these sites.

First murder site in the forest south of Trojeshchina

Trojeshchina Forest memorial to Jewish Labun victims (photo by author, June 2013)

--------

Cherished

memory

to the Soviet

citizens

victims 

of Fascism

                       July

                       August

                     1941

 --------

This and the second memorial (shown below) were erected about 1970 by the local Ukrainian town's people. The memorials are in Ukrainian. I am indebted to several volunteers (whom I have already thanked personally) who responded to my post on JewishGen's ViewMate application and translated the first word. It literally means "light." However, in this context, it reflects the sentiment that their neighbors will not be forgotten.

As is typical of this time period and its war memorials, there is no mention of the fact that the victims were killed because they were Jewish.

This first site is about 1.5 miles from town in the forest to the south of Trojeshchina (the town adjoining Yurovshchina). The second site is in the forest on the road toward Polonne. On the map, below, the red oval represents the first site. The blue oval, the second.

Approximate locations of two mass murder sites outside Labun/Yurovshchina. Base map from Google Maps, accessed 9 September 2013

Velyka Berezna Forest memorial to Jewish Labun victims (photo by author, June 2013) 

The second memorial is similar to the first and only omits the reference to "Soviet citizens." 

--------

Cherished memory

to the victims of Fascism

August-September

1941

--------

On 13 September 1911 in Labun, Perl married Isseck Zabarsky of Gritsev.[1] They had four children: Usher (20 August 1914 - 26 April 2004), Leib Ber (8 December 1916 - October 1941), Motel/Mark (19 December 1918 - June 1943) and Chana (a August 1926 - ca. 1941). Isseck emigrated to the United States in 1935.[2] He was unable to successfully arrange passage for his family and they remained in the Soviet Union. He died in Boston on 4 August 1971.

The best information I have regarding Perl comes from Kniga Skorbatyi (The Book of Sorrows) published in Ukraine in 2003. As I understand it, this book in one in a series of volumes compiled based upon archival research regarding victims of the Holocaust in Ukraine. I first saw this volume in the Labun Museum and photographed several pages that had family surnames. According to this book, Perl and Chana were shot to death in Labun in 1941.[3]

Notes:
1.  Petition for Naturalization for Isseck Zabarsky, 4 May 1942, Brooklyn, New York, United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York, National Archives and Records Administration, New York City.
2. "New York Passenger Lists, 1820-1957," digital images, Ancestry.com
 (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 8 September 2009), manifest, Berengaria, Cherbourg to New York, arriving 8 October 1935, list 12, line 8, Aizik Zabarski; citing National Archives Microfilm Serial T715, Roll 5717.
3. Книга скорботи України, Хмельницька область (Book of Sorrows, Ukraine, Khmelnitskiy Oblast),volume 2, Kmelnitsky, 2003, pp. 95-96. The Family History Library  lists this book in their catalog - one of the few places in the United States that seems to have this volume.

Top Ten Tips for Searching for the Right NYC Cemetery

It's Spring and our thoughts turn to . . . cemeteries.

After about ten days of strong attachment to my computer, I finished my three backlog cemetery documentation projects (that had been staring at me longingly) and submitted them to JewishGen's Jewish Online Worldwide Burial Registry.[1] Interestingly, while my attention was diverted to my onerous tasks, the Jewish genealogy forums sponsored by JewishGen included discussions about cemetery research.

One question of interest was: How does one find where someone was buried in New York City?

Here's how I would handle it.

1. Check the online death certificate indices at ItalianGen or the German Genealogy Group.

In this case, the researcher had already tried searching the online database for New York City death certificates on ItalianGen to no avail. If one does find a death certificate, head to FamilySearch.org to locate the microfilm and acquire the record. Death certificates list the cemetery where the body was to be interred.

[UPDATE (24 April 2017): Since this post was published, FamilySearch has added their own indices of NYC vital recoreds. They indexed a great number of data items than the German or Italian Genealogy Groups. FamilySearch's death record index often includes the name of the cemetery.]

If one doesn't find a death certificate listed in the index, there are a number of possibilities including:

• the indexers missed the record
• the surname was spelled differently than expected (due to all the usual possibilities)
• the person did not die in one of the boroughs of New York City

2. Check existing cemetery websites that have online grave locator indices. 

Right now, for New York area, the following cemeteries offer this service online:

• Montefiore Cemeteries (includes both Old Montefiore in Queens and New Montefiore on Long Island)

• Mount Ararat

• Mount Carmel (index includes Knollwood Park and Hungarian Union Field)

• Mount Hebron

• Mount Judah

• Mount Lebanon

• Mount Moriah in Fairview, New Jersey

• Mount Zion

• Riverside Cemetery in Saddle Brook, New Jersey (check under Our Services an, then, Genealogy Search) [update, 22 May 2014: it looks like Riverside Cemetery has removed their search function. One may now request up to five look-ups via email.]

One may see a nice summary of the existing inventory of New York area Jewish cemeteries at the Museum of Family History. Check out the Cemetery Project Directory.  

3. Check online grave recording services such as Find A Grave, Internment.net and Billion Graves.

4. Query in the JewishGen Online Worldwide Burial Registry.

5. Check the fee-based service JewishData.com.

JewishData has online images of many tombstones from Jewish cemeteries throughout the United States and elsewhere. It's a little pricey at about $18 for three months. However, one of the perks of membership in the Jewish Genealogical Society of New York is free access to Jewish Data.  

6. Conduct a broad general search within the Birth, Marriage and Death databases on Ancestry.

When I first started working on the Malzmann/Molthman portion of my family I was surprised to see death records for likely family members show up in Georgia and North Carolina. I never would have done specific checks for records in those locations. A general search in Ancestry's vital records databases was the key.  Of course, it helped that I was dealing with a rare surname.

7. Haul out the dead!

OK, so your deceased family member is not in the likely places. Expand your world. Where are their other relatives buried? Develop a list of your family's cemeteries. Riverside Memorial Chapel's website provides a nice listing of contact information for and directions to all Jewish Cemeteries in the New York metropolitan area. 

8. Network!

In my post a few days ago about Myer Myers, I talked about finding death certificates from outside New York City by contacting the known cemetery. Death certificates are issued based on where people died - not where they lived. They could have been visiting somewhere else or, they could have moved elsewhere.

If we accept that they might have died outside the City, where might they have been? People move later in life for a variety of reasons. Some move to get out of urban areas. Some move to be near their children. At least three of my immigrant relatives (my great grandparents' generation) retired to small farms outside the City: Myer to Sullivan County, New York; Benjamin Molthman to Renssalaer County, New York; and my great grandparents, Sarah and Isidore Morris, to Monmouth County, New Jersey. The couple I located in North Carolina and Georgia had moved to follow one of their children.

Search out the children and siblings of the deceased. Where did they live? Could the person you are seeking have died while living near a relative who'd moved away from home? Use census records, if available, or city directories to trace a network of other relatives.

9. Look for probate records.

A death certificate could be found within the file. Or, one might find other hints about payments for funeral arrangements from the estate. Cases are filed by county (for New York City, by borough). Family Search has digitized many of the borough probate file index cards. To see the actual case files, one may have to visit in person or be prepared to pay someone to copy possibly voluminous files.

10. Check the Social Security Death Index.

If the person died since about 1960, see if they are located in the Social Security Death Index (available at FamilySearch.og). Look for the location of the last payment made. This could be a hint for where the person died and where one might locate a death certificate.

11. (a bonus tip) Check old newspapers.

The New York Times might be a long-shot, but there may also be smaller circulation papers that noted the death. One's first stop should be Old Fulton New York Historical Newspapers for good access to old New York City papers.

If after all this one still has not succeeded in finding one's relative, at least one has completed a reasonably exhaustive (or exhausting!) search. If any readers have any other suggested resources or techniques, I'd love to hear about them.

Notes:
1. I submitted spreadsheets and photos to JOWBR for three burial plots:

• First Lubiner Progessive Benevolent Association (FLPBA) plots in Montefiore Cemetery, Queens, NY (including corrections to Hebrew name transliterations and typos and additional graves stones and photos acquired during my last trip to NY last summer).

• FLPBA plot at Beth Moses Cemetery, Pinelawn, NY. I documented this plot during the summer of 2011. This one was definitely backlog and it feels good to get this completed and submitted.

• United Old Konstantin Benevolent Society, Inc. plot in Montefiore Cemetery. I only have one relative (that I know of) in this plot (Abraham Sotskess, husband of Rebecca Myers Sotskess, my great great aunt), but I had a few moments and thought I'd record the whole shebang.

They will likely be online by early summer 2013.

Ukraine SIG: Getting Personal

The Ukraine SIG and its website leave something to be desired. But, that's the point. The website is an exciting work in progress and continued progress depends on volunteers who want more.

About 20 months ago, JewishGen Ukraine Special Interest Group decided to remake itself. While some other SIGs were actively scouring eastern European archives and Family History Library films for records, the Ukraine SIG had been quiet. Enter Ron Doctor who became Coordinator of the Ukraine SIG. 

Based on Ron's experience with finding and acquiring records for Kremenets (see the Indexed Concordance of Personal Names and Town Names) and surrounding villages in Ukraine, he and the Ukraine SIG's Board saw opportunity that had been missed during previous years. Previously, the SIG had been gubernia (province) oriented. The group decided to focus on town-based research and to reconstruct the SIG to support the way Ukraine SIG members researched their roots. Board member positions were now to be geared toward project initiation and management. The SIG was restructured so that its primary focus would be increasing access to records: identifying record sets, indexing, acquiring, transliterating and translating, as needed.

In August of 2011, Ukraine SIG announced an ambitious program to revitalize the group.   

Our objective is to connect you to information that will further your Jewish family history research in Ukraine. We are active in seeking out records, translating them,  processing them and making them available to you. ["Introduction to Ukraine SIG"]

During a presentation at the 2011 International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies Conference, Ron Doctor set a two-year goal of revitalizing  the Ukraine SIG. Later that August he posted messages on the JewishGen Ukraine SIG Discussion Group outlining the SIG's vision. [1] The vision included:

• developing a new research plan identifying projects that could be accomplished in the long and short-term;
• emphasizing volunteer support for projects;
• identifying existing, new or reconsidered sources for records;
• extracting data from existing kehilalinks webpages, Yizkor books and other JewishGen datasets to be added to the All-Ukraine database; and
• improving communication with Ukraine SIG researchers.

Ariel Parkansky the SIG's webmaster redesigned the Ukraine SIG webpage with this vision in mind. It has a complex but user-friendly structure. The site serves as a gateway to known information of genealogical interest regarding specific Ukraine SIG communities. Actual datasets are either located on JewishGen or on outside websites. The intent is to encourage content placement on kehilalink sites and other existing databases on JewishGen. Records will be indexed and surnames included on JewishGen's All-Ukraine database.

You may enter Ukraine SIG via JewishGen. Click on the Research tab and then on Special Interest Groups.

JewishGen Home Page

Scroll down the SIG page and click on Ukraine SIG. Alternatively, one may reach the same page by entering its URL: http://www.jewishgen.org/ukraine .

JewishGen Ukraine SIG Home Page

The Ukraine SIG home page provides several options for starting your journey. The first thing to note is the geographic area covered by Ukraine SIG. It does not look much like today's Ukraine (or yesterday's for that matter).

Map of Ukraine, The World Fact Book, Digital image, Central Intelligence Agency (http://ww.cia.gov : accessed 30 December 2009).

The last couple of hundred years have brought many changes in political boundaries in Eastern Europe. This affects where we may find archived records today.  JewishGen divided the Eastern European map into areas related to the political and administrative boundaries from about 1792 (when the Polish Commonwealth was disassembled by Prussia, Russia and Austria) through about the end of the first World War. They combined this with a nod to current political boundaries. For example, Gesher Galicia covers the province of Galicia (now part of southern Poland and western Ukraine) that was once under the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The Bessarabia SIG is mostly today's Moldova, but also takes a small chunk out of today's Ukraine. 

JewishGen's Ukraine SIG includes Russian Empire gubernias now in Ukraine: Podolia, Volhynia, Kiev, Poltava, Chernigov, Kharkov, Kherson, Taurida and Ekaterinoslav. (If you need help determining which JewishGen SIG includes your community, please read my previous post on JewishGen SIGS.) The map on the Ukraine SIG home page shows the locations of these Russian Empire gubernias.

Getting Started

The best place to begin ones exploration of the Ukraine SIG website is with the tabs across the top. The Get Started tab is a must. The drop down menu includes the opportunity to learn about the SIG and its mission (Get started with UKR-SIG), the website (Get started with this website) and the pages of the site most critical to successful use of its services (Most visited). 

Note the section on the home page called What's New. Here one will find the most recent information regarding new databases and general news about the SIG.

Leaving Home

The Ukraine SIG site includes several avenues of access to information of interest. For example, one may select the tab on the home page for Towns & Districts or one may start at the gubernia level (e.g., select Volhynia gubernia on the map on the home page).

The next page will show the districts (uyezds) within the selected gubernia and larger communities. One may either select the desired district by clicking on the map, or selecting its name from the list under Districts. Or, if one wishes to go immediately to one of the towns listed, one may select that. In this case, I've selected Novograd-Volynskiy District.

Note also the letters T, K, P and/or D located to the right of some of the town names. This gives one an indication of the information currently available for the town. T indicates the community has someone who has volunteered to be the Town Leader - the point of contact for data acquisition. K indicates that there is already a kehilalinks webpage for the town (or that one is in progress). P means there are projects in progress for the town and D, that there are documents available.

Also note the sections Articles and Related Links on the gubernia page. These are links to more general information about the province and may include information that had been on the previous gubernia-oriented Ukraine SIG webpage. 

Selecting a district (in this case, Novograd-Volynskiy) will take one to the district page. Hovering ones mouse over the town name will identify the town's location on the map.

Clicking on the town name will take one to the town page where one may see who, if anyone, is leading the effort to collect and display town information. In this case, there is a town leader, but no kehilalinks page on JewishGen for Novograd Volynskiy.  

Some of the geographical and political/administrative information is similar to what one will find on the Community Page on JewishGen. The Ukraine SIG town page provides additional information on ongoing projects, known datasets and collections, and other informational links.

Clicking on the information symbol next to items under Document and Dataset Collections provides a short summary of what's provided. 

Clicking on the magnifying glass links one to catalog information about the collection.  

If one clicks on the book symbol one will be taken to online images or datasets. The goal is to link to images or indexed data sets on JewishGen or other websites. In this case, the image for Novograd Volynskiy is one of a few select pages that had been on the old Ukraine SIG webpage. It is not so much a collection, but a small group of records likely collected for one or just a few families.

This is disappointing. On a few other town pages, such as Odessa, one will be more fortunate. There are links to more comprehensive community-oriented online collections. There are directories and other databases already online. However, do not dispair. On the Novograd Volynskiy page look under Projects and click on the magnifying glass next to the CAHJP project.[2]

Under Tasks, note that the SIG has identified and translated 49 catalog cards of records held at the Central Archives for the History of the Jewish People in Jerusalem. The next step is setting priorities for record acquisition and translation. For those of us with interest in this community and this district, it's time to get involved.

Get Specific

The walk through the new Ukraine SIG website, as described above, starts at the larger geographical and administrative subdivisions and moves to the smaller ones until reaching the community level. But, of course, one need not go through all this clicking if one knows ones objective at the start.

On the Ukraine SIG home page there are two search boxes.

One may enter a town name, district, province or any other search term of interest in the UKR-SIG Site box and see all references on the Ukraine SIG site for that search parameter. In this case I entered "Novograd" and the result provided 145 hits.

Or, one may enter a community name in the Town Search box and find the direct link to the the Town Page. Again, I entered "Novograd" and got two results since there are, apparently, two communities within the Ukraine SIG site with phonetically similar names: Novograd and Novogrod.

Clicking on the magnifying glass icon will take one to the Novograd/od of ones choice. 

In addition, if one wants to see projects or documents and collections available on the Ukraine SIG website, one need only go to the Research tab on the Home page. Click on either Master Index of Projects or Master Index of Documents. From there one may enter search parameters or, if one would like to see all projects or all documents/collections, leave the search parameters set to "all" and click search. Results will be listed in a table. Click on any column heading to sort the list. 

Make Yourself Useful

I confess, I'm a genealogy wonk. I love the InfoFiles section of JewishGen and my favorite place on the Ukraine SIG website (since acquisition of datasets of interest to me are still pending) is under the Research tab on the Ukraine SIG home page. On the drop down menu, click on InfoSheets.

There are esoteric but useful topics for Russian translators such as "Abbreviations used in Russian Documents" and "Terminology for Russian Administrative Divisions." In addition, there are articles on how Ukraine SIG standardizes town names and distinguishes between collections and projects.

Most useful to those of us whose skills are not up to translating are instructions for creating fund-raising projects and detailed tutorials of how to index additional data from passenger manifests, Yizkor books and kehilalinks webpages.

 

Dressed for Success

I spoke with Ron Doctor a few weeks ago as background for my planned walk through the new Ukraine SIG website. [3] I wanted to know, 18 months into a two-year plan, where the SIG is on its road to revitalization. He felt that the revitalization part of the job is done. There is a new culture in Ukraine SIG. There is excitement and many volunteers (more than 300), many of whom are assigned and actively working on projects. The website has been redesigned and is being frequently improved to meet the needs of researchers. About 150 projects are in various states of completion. The Ukraine SIG Discussion Group has been revitalized, as well. Subscribers have risen from 2,400 to 3,013.  

Right now there are two main challenges: 1) recruiting volunteers who are willing to take responsibility as project managers and handle the backlog of data sets that are nearly ready for submission to JewishGen, and 2) finding people who can handle information in Cyrillic and Hebrew alphabets and translation. Not enough of the projects are completed and ready to go online.

The SIG has instituted a skills survey to build a bank of skilled and willing volunteers and to encourage contributions of skills, records and funding. In the Ukraine SIG, volunteer interest guides project priorities. The concept being that researchers are more likely to contribute on projects they view as likely to provide direct benefit to their research. 

Keeping it personal: a recipe for success.

Notes: 
1. Doctor, Ron, "Revitalizing JewishGen Ukraine SIG Part 2 of 3," JewishGen Ukraine SIG Discussion Group, message posted 27 August 2011, JewishGen (http://www.jewishgen.org : accessed 9 March 2013).
2. For explanation of how Ukraine SIG defines Collections and Projects, see "Document Collections vs. Projects" in the InfoSheets sections. 
3. I started researching this post with no formal affiliation with Ukraine SIG except that of interested researcher and owner of a kehilalinks site within the SIGs geographical boundaries. At the end of our interview, Ron (ever the persuasive recruiter) asked me to head up the volunteer recruiting and management effort for the SIG. Darn it! I am now Volunteers Director of Ukraine SIG.