Nu? What's New? Vol. 14 No. 26

Avotaynu Offices Temporarily Closed
Avotaynu offices are temporarily closed because we have moved from Bergenfield, New Jersey, to New Haven, Connecticut. We hope to have Internet access and phone service installed early this week. Orders can still be placed through our website, http://avotaynu.com, and hopefully will be processed by the end of the week.

U.S. Version of Who Do You Think You Are? Announces This Year's Celebrities

The U.S. Version of Who Do You Think You Are? will appear on TLC this year starting July 23 at 9 pm. Celebrities to appear are: Christina Applegate, Kelly Clarkson, Cindy Crawford, Zooey Deschanel, Chelsea Handler, Chris O'Donnell, Jim Parsons and Trisha Yearwood. Details may be found at TLC's website at http://www.tlc.com/tv-shows/who-do-you-think-
you-are/videos/who-do-you-think-you-are.htm.

The program traces the family history of the individual celebrity.
Its concept originated in the UK and has spread to numerous countries.

Historical Jewish Press Site Adds More Searchable Newspapers
Rose Feldman of Israel reports that the Historical Jewish Press website of the National Library of Israel and Tel-Aviv University at http://jpress.org.il/view-english.asp has added four newspapers recently to their online images. The site includes a full word search engine. The new publications are Der Moment (Warsaw), ha-‘Am (Moscow), Palestine Bulletin (Eretz Yisrael) and Information Juive (Algiers/Paris).

The website now contains digitized images of 37 Jewish newspapers mostly published in Israel and Eretz Israel. Other countries include Algeria, Austria, Egypt, France, Hungary, Morocco, Poland, Prussia and czarist Russia. A list of newspapers and years covered is located at http://www.jpress.org.il/cross-section/allpub-en.asp. The actual search engine I found hard to locate. It is at http://tinyurl.com/HJPSearch.

Hebrew-language newspapers must be searched using the Hebrew alphabet. If your keyboard does not support Hebrew, use the Stephen P. Morse site at http://stevemorse.org/hebrew/eng2heb.html to convert the characters.

Ancestry.ca Providing Temporary Access to Some Collections at No Charge
In celebration of Canada Day (July 1), Ancestry.ca's most popular collections can be accessed at no charge between now and July 2. These include immigration, census, military and vital records. The site is at http://tinyurl.com/AncestryCAFree.

FamilySearch Additions for the Week

Recent additions to FamilySearch, both indexes and browseable images, can be found at https://www.familysearch.org/node/2242. This site provides direct links to the individual collections. They include records from Austria, England, Ivory Coast, Mexico, Peru, Portugal and the U.S. states of Missouri, New Hampshire, Ohio, Tennessee and Wisconsin.

Note that at the website announced collections may not be complete for the dates specified and will be added at some later date. Also note that counts shown in the announcement are the number added, not the total number available in the collection.

FamilyTreeDNA Discounts Many of Its Products
Described as a “Sizzling Summer Event,” FamilyTreeDNA has discounted many of its products through July 27. They are:
Family Finder was $289, now $99
mtDNA Full Sequence was $289, now $189
Y-DNA37 was $169, now $129
Y-DNA67 was $268, now $208
Y-DNA111 was $359, now $308
Family Finder + Y-DNA37 was $368, now $228
Family Finder + Y-DNA67 was $467, now $307
Family Finder + mtDNAFullSequence was $398, now $288
Comprehensive Genome (Y-DNA67, FMS & FF) was $666, now $496

Their site is at http://www.familytreedna.com/.

Shoah Victims’ Names Database

Just a reminder that the notice about the Shoah Victims’ Names Database below may have created a blind spot for you. We family historians may be the only source of the names of family members who were murdered in the Holocaust. Have you contributed their names to the Shoah Victims Names Database? If not, make the commitment to spend the hour(s) necessary to assure they are permanently memorialize by submitting a Page of Testimony for each family member who is not already included.

Search the database at http://db.yadvashem.org/names/search.html?language=en to determine if the name already appears. If you have lost track of the names you have submitted, use the Advanced Search option and in the “Submitter” section key in your name. The resulting search will list the names of all victims you have provided.

Picture at right is of Mara Coblic, daughter of Yitzhak and Bracha Coblic, was born in 1936 in Chisinau, Romania (today Moldova). Mara and her family were incarcerated in the Chisinau ghetto, where she and her mother perished. The Page of Testimony in her memory and the photograph were submitted to Yad Vashem by Malka Gipsman, Mara's cousin.

To submit a Page of Testimony, go to http://db.yadvashem.org/names/search.html?language=en. Click the words “Submit Pages of Testimony (online).”

Join the ranks of Yad Vashem’s worldwide network of volunteers working in one-on-one outreach efforts with Holocaust survivors and members of their generation to recover the names of Shoah victims before they are lost forever. For ideas and resources on how to launch a names recovery campaign in your area, visit Yad Vashem’s Community Outreach Guide for updated program information on the project in Israel and in Russian speaking Jewish communities around the world.

Yad Vashem has provided a 10-minute Pages of Testimony tutorial video at the site to learn how to help survivors and others from their generation to fill out Pages of Testimony. To volunteer for the project or for more information contact names.outreach@yadvashem.org.il