Before 1806, southern Germany consisted of hundreds of independent territories of varying sizes. Some were owned and ruled by noble and princely families, others by bishops (and called bishoprics). The largest realms with a Jewish population were the Electoral Palatinate […]
Archives for October 2008
Jewish Labor Committee’s Holocaust-Era Archives
Unknown to most genealogists, Jewish Labor Committee documents in the Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives in New York University’s Tamimet Library represent a remarkable cache of genealogically rich Holocaust-era records. Estelle Guzik devotes two lines to the collection in her […]
From Our Mailbox, Fall 2008
Comments on Rosenstein Article Neil Rosenstein’s article, “JRI-Poland Database and Rabbinic Data Merging,” discusses a topic that has interested me considerably. When JRI-Poland made available on its database indexes for records of three of the Gerer Rebbes, I ordered copies […]
Book Review: The Life and Times of Congregation Kesher Israel, by Harry D. Boonin
The Life and Times of Congregation Kesher Israel, by Harry D. Boonin. 192 pages. $29.95. Self-published, 2008. Society Hill, a picturesque area of colonial Philadelphia, was home to this old synagogue, around which grew a lively community of Eastern European […]
Book Review: The Jews in South Africa: An Illustrated History, by Richard Mendelsohn and Milton Shain
The Jews in South Africa: An Illustrated History, by Richard Mendelsohn and Milton Shain. Jonathan Ball: Johannesburg and Cape Town, 2008; telephone (+27) 11 601 8088. $31.95 Order here: http://www.jonathanball.co.za/index.php?option=com_virtuemart&view=productdetails&virtuemart_product_id=1097&virtuemart_category_id=1 This is the first comprehensive history of South African Jewry […]
Book Review: My Future Is In America: Autobiographies of Eastern European Jewish Immigrants. Edited and translated by Jocelyn Cohen and Daniel Soyer
My Future Is In America: Autobiographies of Eastern European Jewish Immigrants. Edited and translated by Jocelyn Cohen and Daniel Soyer. Softcover, 330 pages. Published by New York University Press in conjunction with YIVO Institute for Jewish Research. $25.00 In 1942, […]
Book Review: Google Your Family Tree, by Daniel M. Lynch
Google Your Family Tree, by Daniel M. Lynch. Softcover, xii + 340 pp. FamilyLink.com, Inc. $34.95. Available through Avotaynu, <www.avotaynu.com/books/ Google Your-Family-Tree.htm> I rarely get excited about new things. The last time that happened was when a man named Stephen […]
The 1897 All-Empire Russian Census
The 1897 All-Empire Russian Census was the first and only census conducted in the Russian Empire prior to World War II. Its major interest and value both for personal genealogy and for the history of Jewish communities is that the […]
Avotaynu Ask the Experts: Fall 2008
My maternal grandparents, Isaac Kolnik and Sarah Karp, emigrated to New York City around the beginning of the 20th century. They do not appear in the U.S. census for 1900, and I have not been able to locate their arrival […]
JGS Newsletter Summary: Fall 2008
by Diane Goldman To read an article or news release excerpted in U.S. Update, order the issue of the publication in which it appeared from the appropriate JGS. A list of Jewish Genealogical Societies can be found at <iajgs.org/members/members.html>. A […]
Avotaynu Contributing Editors: Fall 2008
AUSTRALIA (Sharpe) Jewish Genealogy Downunder Vol. 10, Nos. 2 & 3, May-August 2008. Australia’s first national Jewish genealogical conference was held in Canberra, October 26–29 (see <www.ajgs.org.au/conf08/>). <> The Australia Jewish Historical Society website documents Australians’ graves the world […]
Death In Venice: Seeking the Katzenellenbogen Tombstones [AB-033]
This article was first published on Chaim Freedman’s blog at http://chfreedman.blogspot.com/—Ed. Having recently discovered my descent from the Katzenellenbogen family, I decided to trace the graves of members of the early generations while I was in Italy in May […]
Jewish Genealogical Search Engines, Databases and Social Interaction Networks
This paper is based upon a talk given at the IAJGS Conference in Chicago, August 2008.—Ed. Many genealogists have discovered the value of the Internet to search for information about Jewish ancestors, descendants who migrated to other lands […]
Australia Holds First National Conference
The Australian Jewish Genealogical Society (AJGS) convened Australia’s first National Conference on Jewish Genealogy in the nation’s capital city, Canberra, in October 2008. Organized by the local Jewish genealogical societies of Melbourne and Sydney with the active support of the […]
Jewish Surnames Adopted in Various Regions of the Russian Empire
This article is adapted from a lecture delivered at the IAJG Conference in Chicago, August 18, 2008—Ed. Generally speaking, it is relatively easy to distinguish Sephardic surnames from Ashkenazic surnames. For example, if one sees two lists, the […]
Philadelphia: Site of 29th International IAJGS Conference on Jewish Genealogy
It has been 28 years since the Philadelphia Phillies won baseball’s World Series, and it has been 20 years since the IAJGS International Conference on Jewish Genealogy visited Philadelphia. In summer 2009, however, the 29th conference will come to Philadelphia. […]
Gleanings from a Week in Israel
On the surface, Jerusalem seemed relatively calm the first week in December. It was unseasonably warm; flowers were blooming, and the rebuilding of the famous Hurva Synagogue in the Old City (destroyed by the Jordanians during the War […]
Newspaper and Magazine Websites Valuable For Genealogical Research
Newspapers from the 19th and early 20th centuries are rich sources of genealogical data, but gaining access to them can be difficult and time-consuming. This article discusses two new websites that offer full-text, key-word access to these newspapers: […]
A Website List of Latvian Jewry Prior to World War II
This article is adapted from a lecture delivered at the IAJGS Conference in Chicago, August 2008—Ed. The purpose of the Latvian Holocaust Jewish Names Project is to recover the names and the identities of Latvian Jews who perished during World […]
Paul Armony z”l (1932—2008)
Paul Armony, president of Asociación de Genealogía Judía de Argentina (Association of Jewish Genealogy of Argentina), died in Buenos Aires on October 24, 2008, after a battle with acute leukemia. Armony was born in Montevideo, Uruguay, in 1932. His father, […]