Nu? What's New? Vol. 20 No. 5

Underlined words are links to sites with additional information.

Now Possible to Reserve Hotel Room for Cleveland Conference

The 38th IAJGS International Conference on Jewish Genealogy will be held from July 28 – August 2 at the Hilton Cleveland Downtown Hotel in Cleveland, Ohio. It is now possible to reserve a hotel room at the conference site: http://www.iajgs2019.org/hotel_reserve.cfm.

Special rates are available for conference attendees. Rooms with one king bed or two queen beds are $184 per night plus taxes. All rooms reserved under the conference rate will have complementary internet access. The hotel has an underground garage and offers either self-parking or valet service. The per-day garage costs are $28 and $36, respectively. Attendees with disabilities who require accommodation with regard to their hotel rooms should communicate their needs directly to the hotel at the time they reserve their room.

The special rate covers arrivals as early as Wednesday, July 24 and departures as late as Sunday, August 4.

New IAJGS Member Society:
Miami Valley (Ohio) Jewish Genealogical and Historical Society

The International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies has announced a new member: Miami Valley (Ohio) Jewish Genealogical and Historical Society. The Miami Valley Jewish Genealogical and Historical Society is associated with the Jewish Federation of Dayton (Ohio) and plans to meet at the Federation’s location, 525 Versailles Drive in Dayton, as well as other sites in the Dayton area. For additional information about the group, contact Marshall Weiss at MWeiss@jfgd.net.

If you are interested in forming a Jewish genealogical society in your area, write to membership@iajgs.org. A complete list of societies is at http://www.iajgs.org/blog/ membership/member-societies/.

MyHeritage Offers DNA Testing For Only $59

MyHeritage is getting a jump start on the latest round of DNA testing discounts by offering its DNA test for only $59. The company calls it “a special Valentine’s Day treat.”

Current prices for autosomal DNA testing from the major services are:
• 23andMe. $99
• Ancestry. $99
• MyHeritage. $59
• Family Tree DNA. $79

Geni World Family Tree Now Has 129 Million Profiles

It is the goal of the World Family Tree located on Geni.com, to link all persons, living or dead, into a single tree. Its website, https://www.geni.com/worldfamilytree/learn-more, shows it now has linked more than 129 million people.

Geni notes, “The World Family Tree is better because it is like having millions of people solving the same jigsaw puzzle together instead of each of us solving a separate, tiny puzzle. Traditionally, people have embarked on individual studies of their family history in the hope of preserving it for future generations. However, this isolated approach results in the same research being repeated over and over again. By combining all research into a single, collaborative tree, users can focus on verifying existing information and pursue new leads rather than wasting time repeating what others have already found.”

If you are not yet convinced to place your family tree on Geni, read E. Randol Schoenberg’s blog about why all family trees should be on Geni. It can be found at http://schoenblog.com/?p=712. Schoenberg is one of nearly 200 Geni curators who have the responsibility of helping people with their tree, solving problems, untangling messes, answering questions and teaching them how to use Geni.

Geni Adds Pedigree View to Its Site
In addition to pictorially displaying a family tree, Geni has added a pedigree view to its site. The original graphic display shows entire families, including collateral relatives, with an individual displayed at the bottom of the tree and all previous generations displayed in levels upwards. The pedigree chart only shows ancestors of an individual, with the person at the left center of the chart and preceding generations to the right of the individual.

An example of each view can be seen at https://www.geni.com/blog/html-tree-new- pedigree-view-3102627.html as well as greater detail about the announcement.

Travel Guide to Jewish Lithuania Available

Jewish Heritage Europe notes there is a 50-page travel guide to Jewish Lithuania published by the state tourism authority. It is available for free in print form at tourism offices but also downloadable as a PDF. To download it, go to https://www.lithuania.travel/en/publications and scroll down the page to locate the guide.

There are ten pages devoted to Vilnius and five for Kaunas. All told, 29 towns are represented.

Reclaim the Records Lauded As an “Intellectual Freedom Fighter”

The Office for Intellectual Freedom of the American Library Association is planning a five-part series on what they call “Intellectual Freedom Fighters,” in the hope to draw attention to organizations who are either extraordinary or unique in their efforts to preserve and protect intellectual freedom. The first named organization is Reclaim the Records (RTR).

In singling out RTR, the Office for Intellectual freedom states, “Nothing gets under the skin of government bureaucracy or large-scale genealogy corporations quite like Reclaim the Records, a group of genealogists-turned-activists who file Freedom of Information and Open Data requests to make government records published….The devotion of these activists leaps off the screen and gets you riled up about documents you never thought you’d be angry about: Why hasn’t Florida shared its probate records? And how DARE New York State keep its 1800–1956 death index from us?”

The complete recognition statement can be found at https://tinyurl.com/AmLibAssnRTR.

FamilySearch Adds More Than 800K Records This Week

A list of recent additions to FamilySearch, more than 800,000 indexed records, can be found at https://tinyurl.com/FamilySearch012819. This site provides direct links to the individual collections. Those identified with a dagger (†) are Christian-only records. They include records from Austria(†), Brazil, Cape Verde(†), England, France, Italy (Mantova, Terni, and Vicenza), Netherlands, South Africa, and the United States (Maine and Missouri).

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 Collections at Ancestry.com

Ancestry has added/updated the following record groups at their site. The list with links to individual collections can be found at https://tinyurl.com/AncestryAddiitonsForWeek. Announced collections may not be complete for the dates specified and will be added at some later date.

New Collections
Maine, War of 1812 Veterans
Minden, Germany, Births, Marriages, and Deaths, 1809–1873 (in German)
Barnim, Germany, Births, 1874–1906 (in German)

Updated Collections
Barnim, Germany, Marriages, 1874–1936 (in German)
Ukraine, Jewish Community of Kolomyia, 1939–1945 (USHMM) (in German)
Nuremberg, Germany, Marriages, 1876–1925 (in German)
Nuremberg, Germany, Births, 1876–1905 (in German)
Nuremberg, Germany, Deaths, 1876–1983 (in German)
UK, WWI Pension Ledgers and Index Cards, 1914–1923
Nienburg, Germany, Deaths, 1874–1974 (in German)
Nienburg, Germany, Births, 1874–1905 (in German)

Forces War Records (UK) Now Has 5 Million WW2 Records
Available to Search Online
Forces War Records now has 5 million UK World War 2 records available to search online. They include civilian deaths. Information provided at no cost are name, service number, rank, record year and unit. The collection can be searched at https://www.forces-war-records.co.uk/ forces-war-records-5-million-ww2-records.

Do You Subcribe to AVOTAYNU?

Each year AVOTAYNU publishes more than 300 pages of useful, interesting information about Jewish family history research that can help you in your research. Now in its 33rd year, an index to the first 24 volumes is available to all the major articles.

Published quarterly, our contributing editors from 15 countries throughout the world regularly gather important information that appears in our issues. Our publishers, Gary Mokotoff and Sallyann Amdur Sack, are on a first name basis with officials at institutions containing genealogical data throughout the world. Some institutions are U.S. National Archives, U.S. Library of Congress, U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, Leo Baeck Institute, Yad Vashem and Central Archives for the History of the Jewish People.

Subscribe now at http://www.avotaynu.com/journal.htm.