Nu? What's New? Vol. 18 No. 32

Underlined words are links to sites with additional information.

Database of People Murdered at Treblinka Being Created

The Memory of Treblinka Foundation has established an online list of Jews murdered at Treblinka, and is asking the public to add names to the database. Currently it only has about 3,200 names. Wikipedia estimates that between 700,000 and 900,000 Jews were killed in Treblinka’s gas chambers in addition to 2,000 Romani people. Search results can include first name, last name, maiden name, age, city, mother's name, father's name, profession and photo.

Information about the project can be found at http://pamiectreblinki.pl/en/the-names-of-the-victims/. Information about the questionnaire can be found at http://tinyurl.com/TreblinkaQuestionaire.

The Yad Vashem Central Database of Shoah Victims' Names currently identifies nearly 106,000 Jews murdered at Treblinka. It is located at http://yvng.yadvashem.org/. After filling out the questionnaire for the Foundation, confirm the Yad Vashem site has a Page of Testimony for the victim. If not, fill out the Yad Vashem document which is accessible at the URL shown above. This will help make the Yad Vashem database the most complete list of Jews murdered in the Holocaust.

The Treblinka Foundation is part of or associated with the Jewish Historical Institute in Warsaw.

Jewish Gem's Genealogy: Mining for Your Elusive Ancestors
For the past four years, Marilyn Robinson of Florida has had a blog at http://yourjewishgem.blogspot.com (Jewish Gem's Genealogy: Mining for Your Elusive Ancestors), where she lists entries that appear in obscure record collections that have names of people, primarily Jews in Eastern Europe. An example is “1918–1922: Jews in the Red Army & the Civil War.” Many of the lists are in Russian, and Robinson translated the names on the lists in her postings.

She estimates the blog now contains the names of more than 10–20,000 people. There is a search engine that permits locating previous postings to the blog. Be sure to search for town names as well as surnames, because some of the postings merely point to websites rather than provide the list of names. Example: “2001-Warsaw: A List of Names from the Jewish Community.”

Ancestry UK Collection at No Charge Through August 28

The UK website of Ancestry is making its UK and Irish collections available at no charge through August 28 BST. Registration is required, but no credit card information is requested. To search the records, go to http://www.ancestry.co.uk/cs/free-access.

I found a peculiarity in the free offer web page. It is necessary to provide both a given name and surname; it will not permit surname-only searches. Try this as a work around. First register. Then go to the Ancestry UK home page at http://www.ancestry.co.uk. Click on one of the collection record groups shown to the right (example: Birth, Marriage & Death, including Parish). Do a surname-only search. If the results do not allow access to the actual records, note the given name(s), go to the free offer website and search for the given name(s) and surname. This work around did not work for me possibly because I am a paid Ancestry international subscriber. When I went to do a surname-only search, the system switched from my false registration to my legitimate one.

MyHeritage Adds New Feature: DNA Match Review

If you have taken a MyHeritage DNA test or uploaded your DNA data to MyHeritage, then you will have received a list of your DNA Matches. The list shows people whose DNA matches yours, the percentage of DNA you share, and your possible relationship. DNA results can imply several possible relationships between you and a DNA Match, such as 3rd – 4th cousin.

MyHeritage has just released a new feature—the DNA Match Review page—that offers a plethora of detailed information about each of your DNA Matches. Your DNA Match details are now consolidated into one place with different sections that will help you discover how the match may be related to you. This can open the door to new connections and discoveries to advance your family history research.

Each section of the page pulls relevant data about your DNA match by combining information from DNA and family trees. For example, you will see shared Smart Matches, Ancestral surnames, Shared DNA Matches, Pedigree Charts and Shared ethnicities.

Additional information about this feature can be found at http://tinyurl.com/MHDNAMatchReview.

MyHeritage Acquires Legacy Family Tree
MyHeritage has acquired Millennia Corporation, makers of Legacy Family Tree genealogy desktop software and the genealogy webinar platform, Legacy Family Tree Webinars. This is MyHeritage’s ninth acquisition to date. A MyHeritage spokesperson stated, “We consider Legacy’s products to be highly complementary to our wide range of features and services. The acquisition will introduce MyHeritage users to Legacy’s valuable genealogical webinars and will also provide Legacy’s hundreds of thousands of users with improved resources and access to new services.” Additional information is at http://tinyurl.com/MHLegacy.

FamilySearch Adds More Than 20 Million Records to Their Collection

A list of recent additions to FamilySearch, more than 20M indexed records and images, can be found at http://tinyurl.com/FamilySearch082317. This site provides direct links to the individual collections. Major additions are:
• Netherlands, Archival Indexes, Miscellaneous Records (Additions): 8,751,272
• England, Staffordshire, Church Records, 1538–1944 (New): 4,852,180
• Denmark Census 1925 (New): 3,627,893
• Kansas State Census, 1875 (Additions): 618,774
• Billion Graves Index(Additions): 311,318

Other records are from Belgium, Chile, Denmark, Liberia, South Africa, Sweden and the U.S. states of Kansas, Louisiana and Ohio.

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, which can be greater.

New at Ancestry.com

Ancestry has added/updated the following record groups at their site. Note that they do not indicate how many entries have been added. Announced collections may not be complete for the dates specified and will be added at some later date.

Updated Collections:
1930 United States Federal Census
Caldwell County, Missouri, Marriages, 1845–1872
1870 United States Federal Census

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

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