Nu? What's New? Vol. 20 No. 14

Underlined words are links to sites with additional information.

News About 39th IAJGS International Conference on Jewish Genealogy

Acceptance/rejection letters have been sent out to people who submitted proposals for lectures at the 39th IAJGS International Conference on Jewish Genealogy that will take place in Cleveland, Ohio, July 28–August 2. Anticipate the actual program will be posted to the conference website, http://iajgs2019.org, in the near future.

Among features of the conference are:
• More than 170 programs, lectures, panel discussions and workshops focusing on genealogy methodology, available archival resources and the history of all Jewish communities
• Presentations aimed at all Jewish genealogists—from first-timers to conference veterans
• A Vendor Exhibit Hall and Resource Room with genealogy experts, mentors, and archivists for a one-stop research experience at the conference hotel
• Networking via Special Interest Groups (SIG) and Birds of a Feather (BOF) meetings and luncheons
• In-depth DNA workshops
• A special program for Jewish educators on the opening day of the conference

Register on or before April 30 and receive a discount on registration fees. Hotel reservations for the Hilton Cleveland Downtown can be made at http://hotel.iajgs2019.org. Make hotel reservations early. Often, at previous conferences, the principal hotel becomes fully booked and an alternate nearby hotel must be used for the overflow.

About IAJGS. The International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies (IAJGS) is an umbrella organization of more than 85 Jewish genealogical organizations worldwide offering the world of Jewish ancestry where you live. The IAJGS coordinates and organizes activities such as the annual IAJGS International Conference on Jewish Genealogy and provides a unified voice as the spokesperson on behalf of its members. The IAJGS’s vision is of a worldwide network of Jewish genealogical research organizations and partners working together as one coherent, effective and respected community – enabling people to succeed in researching Jewish ancestry and heritage.

Genealogy Indexer Adds 75 Ukrainian Telephone Directories (1970–1994)

Genealogy Indexer has added 75 Ukrainian telephone directories (1970–1994) to its vast collection of directories that are available at its site with an every-word search engine. The directories cover many towns and districts throughout what is today’s Ukraine, corresponding to territory formerly in the historical regions of Galicia, Bukovina, Carpathian Ruthenia, and seven guberniyas of the Russian Empire: Chernigov, Kharkov, Kherson, Kiev, Podolia, Poltava, and Volhynia.

These directories were collected by genealogist Miriam Weiner over her decades-long pioneering career in Jewish genealogy, donated by Weiner to the Library of Congress in 2016, scanned by the Library of Congress for preservation and presentation on their website, and, finally, OCRed by Genealogy Indexer.

The site is located at http://genealogyindexer.org/. To limit a search to only the Ukrainian directories, append {weiner} to the search term.

Genealogy Indexer now includes, fully indexed:
• 1,852,000 pages of 3,240 historical directories
• 149,000 pages of 336 yizkor books
• 32,000 pages of military lists
• 45,000 pages of community and personal histories
• 24,000 pages of school sources

In addition to these directories, Weiner donated to the Library of Congress directories from Belarus, Lithuania, and Moldova post-WWII, and more from Ukraine and Russia pre-WWII. Genealogy Indexer plans to add these directories in the future.

Croatian Directories Added. The website now includes Croatian directories that were digitized by the Library of Congress.

Nadia Lipes’ Ukrainian Database Now Has 823,000 Entries

Professional genealogist Sarah Nadia Lipes continues to add to her online database of names extracted from records located in Ukrainian archives. To date there are 822,958 entries including vital records from Kiev, Odessa, Belaya Tserkov, Tulchin, Vinnitsa and other locations. As a professional genealogist, for a fee she will locate and copy any record of interest.

Search the database at http://www.lipesdatabase.com. Use the sounds-like option. This option does not appear to use one of the standard soundex formulas. I searched for the surname Tartacki (Polish spelling) and got no results. Knowing the “c” in the surname is pronounced “ts,” I then searched for Tartatski and it yielded many results from the Odessa region. The Cyrillic to Latin alphabet scheme being used is shown at http://lipesdatabase.com/how-to-use-the-database/.

List of 4,000 Names of Jewish Women Liberated from Bergen Belsen

Among the latest release of databases by the Israel Genealogy Research Association, there is a file of more than 4,000 names of Jewish women liberated from Bergen Belsen concentration camp. The complete list of additions is at https://www.slideshare.net/igra3/new-igra-releases-march-2019.

Since its founding just eight years ago, IGRA has built a database of more than 1.3 million records—many Israel-based sources. It can be searched in English or Hebrew at https://genealogy.org.il/AID/.

Links to Polish State Archives Records Exist at JRI-Poland Site
The last issue of Nu? What’s New? noted that FamilySearch was giving a webinar on how to access Polish archival records using the website http://szukajwarchiwach.pl. Stanley Diamond, executive director of Jewish Records Indexing – Poland, notes that JRI-Poland may already include links to Polish archives records being sought. When using JRI-Poland, the first column of the displayed results is identified as “Click to view.” If, for a particular entry, that column has a link titled “View image,” clicking on the image will display the document from the Polish State Archives website.

UK Family History Show Will Be in Three Locations This Year
The UK Family History Show is a one-day conference held this year in three locations: London (August 24), South West (July 6) and York (June 22). Unfortunately, all three dates are on Saturdays, the Jewish Sabbath. Information about the programs can be found at https://thefamilyhistoryshow.com/.

Historical Caribbean Newspapers Online

If you have ancestors/relatives from the Caribbean island countries, The Ancestor Hunt provides links to more than 250 historical newspapers published in the last two hundred years. They are all free to search. Some are indexed, some are not. Links to the individual newspapers are located at http://www.theancestorhunt.com/blog/historical-free-caribbean-newspapers-online.

FamilySearch Adds More than 800K Records This Week

A list of recent additions to FamilySearch, more than 800K indexed records, can be found at http://tinyurl.com/FamilySearch040119. This site provides direct links to the individual collections. They include records from the U.S. states of Connecticut, Georgia, Iowa, Louisiana, Michigan, North Carolina, Ohio, Border Crossings from Canada to the United States, and from Billion Graves Index.

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.

Updated Collections at Ancestry.com

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

Cheshire, England, Parish Registers, 1538–1909
France Historical Postcards, 1893–1963
Idaho, County Marriage Records, 1864–1967
Mexico Historical Postcards, 1893–1963
Minnesota, Birth Index, 1935–2000
Norfolk, England, Transcripts of Church of England Baptism, Marriage and Burial Registers, 1600–1935
USHMM: Poland, Jewish Holocaust Survivors Registered in Warsaw, 1945–1946