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Nu?
What's New? Gary Mokotoff, Editor Volume 15, Number 27 | July 13, 2014 Every
government puts value on preserving its history. That is why we have
national archives. Genealogy preserves history; the history of a
family. It cannot be done without access to records, just as historians
cannot preserve a nation's history without access to records. It is a
greater good than the right to privacy. It is a greater good than the
risk of identity theft.
Past issues of Nu? What's New? are
archived at http://www.avotaynu.com/nu.htm
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Poland Instituting New Legislation Covering Vital Records
For the first time in its history, the Polish government is drafting a law to regulate all aspects of Poland’s vital records. The bill, when passed by parliament, would take effect on January 1, 2015. The major items of interest for genealogists are clauses that would still require that birth records be 100 years old before they could be released, while marriage and death records could be made available after 80 years rather than the 100 years currently in force. Another significant change being discussed is a clause that would enable local Civil Registration Offices (USCs) to take up to 10 years between the date that records become 100years old and the time they are transferred to the Polish State Archives. There is another clause under discussion covering death records that would require transfer to the Archives within two years of when the latest records in the books become 80 years old. 
Jewish Records Indexing-Poland has not taken a position on this pending legislation. However, Gesher Galicia,
the Galician Special Interest Group, has written to the Minister
responsible for the bill, welcoming the intention to introduce a law
governing vital records, but suggesting changes. Gesher Galicia
president, Pamela Weisberger, wrote that Clause 28, one of the four
relevant clauses of the bill, states that birth records should be
withheld from public access for 100 years, and both marriage and death
records for 80 years. Gesher Galicia considers that the proposed
80-year limit on marriage records should be lowered to 70 or 75 years,
and imposing a limit of 80 years on death records is excessive.
Weisberger notes that there are no privacy issues here and the proposed
limit goes strongly against the principles of openness and public
interest.Clause 127 deals with the time periods allowed for civil registration offices to make vital records publicly available, once those records are of a certain age. Civil registration offices should be allowed up to 10 years to prepare all birth and marriage records that are between 80 and 100 years old before transferring them to state archives. Only two years would be allowed for death records. Gesher Galicia stated they considered 10 years to be too long a period for records to be further withheld beyond the time they have legally become due for transfer. Weisberger’s comments can be viewed at http://tinyurl.com/GGPolishRecords. News From Ancestry.com BillionGraves Database Dropped. Ancestry.com has removed the BillionGraves database from its collection. It is likely due to the fact that BillionGrave’s competitor, FindAGrave, is now owned by Ancestry. Puerto Rico Vital Records. Ancestry.com has added nearly 5 million Puerto Rican birth, marriage and death records for the years 1836–2001 to its collection. It can be directly accessed at http://search.ancestry.com/search/db.aspx?dbid=9100. New York State Prison Records. Selected New York State prison records, including Clinton (1851–1866, 1926–1939) and Sing Sing (1865–1939), are being added to the Ancestry.com database. These records previously were available only at the New York State Archives. Some years ago, Ron Arons, author of The Jews of Sing Sing helped me get the records from the State Archives of the black sheep of the Mokotoff family, my father’s first cousin: Max Mokotoff. Among Max’s accomplishments was that he was married six times, four times consecutively, twice concurrently. He would embezzle money from the women he married and he spent time in Sing Sing for one of these acts. (An earlier embezzlement got him dishonorably discharged from the Army during World War II.) Arons is the author of a more useful book, WANTED! U.S. Criminal Records, which is a guide to locating records of criminals in the U.S. Information about the two books can be found at his website https://www.ronarons.com. British War Graves Online The Commonwealth War Graves Commission has completed a five-year project to digitize more than 300,000 documents relating to those who died in the two world wars. It also includes information about 67,000 civilians who died “as a result of enemy action” during World War II. Information included is name, rank, service number, date of death, age, regiment/service, service country, grave/memorial reference and cemetery/memorial name. The database can be searched at http://www.cwgc.org/find-war-dead.aspx. MyHeritage WWI Military Records Available at No Charge during July In recognition of the 100th anniversary of the start of World War I, MyHeritage is permitting free access to a number of military records—more than one million in total—from now through the end of July. Most are British records. Details may be found in the MyHeritageBlog at http://blog.myheritage.com/2014/07/search-wwi-military-records-for-free. JewishGen Education Program for the Summer  JewishGen
is offering two online courses during the summer: "Search Strategies
for Internet Genealogy" and “Exploring JewishGen.”
“Search Strategies for Genealogy” will be held July
18–August 1. The class is a series of 10 lessons. Included
are search basics, search tips and tricks and advanced search
parameters. “Exploring JewishGen” will be held August
8–22. The course is a series of exercises that will take the
student on a guided tour of the paths and byways that make up
JewishGen's massive website. Tuition cost for either course is $18. The classes are free to Value Added members of JewishGen who have donated $100 to the General Fund during the last 12 months. Additional information and registration for the two courses can be found at http://www.jewishgen.org/education. To donate to the JewishGen General Fund, go to http://www.jewishgen.org/JewishGen-erosity. FindMyPast Adds New England Naturalizations Records 1791–1906 FindMyPast has added more than 635,000 indexes images of applications for naturalization filed at various courts throughout the six states of New England: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. Every record includes both a transcript as well as the original naturalization card of an individual who applied for naturalization. While the information for each person may vary, it usually includes name, address, certificate number, title and location of court, country of birth, birth date, date and place of arrival in U.S., date of naturalization and names/addresses of witnesses. Additional information as well as the ability to search the records, is at http://search.findmypast.com/search-world-Records/new-england-naturalizations-1791-1906. Database of German Jews in 1933 Almost Complete Peter Landé reports that the project to extract information about 50,000 German Jews that appear in the German Town collection of the International Tracing Service (ITS) is nearly completed. In the 1960s, the ITS created an unofficial census of Jews who were living in Germany in 1933 by writing to all West German communities asking them to list all Jews (as defined by the Nuernberg Laws) resident in the community in 1933 and, to the extent known, what happened to them, e.g. deported, emigrated, moved, etc. Several hundred replies were received, alphabetically ranging from Aachen to Zweibruecken (Berlin was not included). Lande lead a volunteer effort to extract the information and it is now available at http://stevemorse.org/germanjews/germanjews.html. Museum of the History of Polish Jews Creates “Museum on Wheels” The Museum of the History of Polish Jews n Warsaw has created a travelling exhibit called “Museum on Wheels” that is visiting 21 Polish towns this year. The exhibit depicts the history, culture and legacy of Polish Jews. In each of the towns visited, the exhibition will be accompanied by numerous activities—workshops, discussions and film screenings. Admission to the exhibition, as well as participation in workshops will be free of charge. A list of towns that will be visited and additional information can be found at http://tinyurl.com/MuseumOnWheels. Who Do You Think You Are? Receives Primetime Emmy Nomination The U.S. version of Who Do You Think You Are has received its second Emmy nomination for Outstanding Structured Reality Program for the 66th Primetime Emmy Awards. The series takes some of the persons with the most well-known names in America on a journey into their personal family histories, mining their pasts to reveal unknown details about themselves and their families. A new season of the series premieres July 23 at 9pm Eastern Time on the TLC channel. The Emmys award ceremony takes place on Monday, August 25 at 8pm ET. A list of all Emmy nominations can be found at http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2014/07/10/emmy-nominations-2014_n_5573665.html. Egg on My Face: U.S. Census Records Access In the last edition of Nu? What’s New?, I stated that the records of U.S. censuses are available at no charge at FamilySearch. Susan Urban notified me this is not true. Only the 1940 census records exists at the FamilySearch site. Searching for earlier census records produces the message: “This image is viewable: • At ancestry.com. By clicking here you will be leaving FamilySearch.org. (fees and other terms may apply) • When using the site at a family history center. • To signed-in members of supporting organizations” Best guess is that the absence of these records was part of the agreement between Ancestry.com and FamilySearch to share databases. Researchers have the following choices for accessing pre-1940 census records from their home: • Ancestry.com. Fee-for-service site, indexes as well as images. Index not as accurate as FamilySearch. • FamilySearch. Free access, very accurate index, extract only of record. Extract includes information about all members of household showing name, role, gender, age, and birthplace added for individuals is marital status, race, relationship to head of household, parent’s birthplace. There is a link to the extraction of the records of other household members. • FindMyPast. Fee for service. Both the extract and the actual record requires a paid subscription. • Mocavo. Free access to extract of record showing name, age, birthplace, head of household’s name, relationship to head of household, parent’s birthplace, and names of parents/spouse (deduced from household records). There is a link to the extraction of the records of other household members. • MyHeritage. Fee-for-service site. Inaccessible without a 7-day free trial. Index as well as images.
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