Nu? What's New? Vol. 20 No. 39

Underlined words are links to sites with additional information.

“M” for M-i-l-l-i-o-n
Readers may have noticed that recent issues have dropped the word “m-i-l-l-i-o-n” from announcements. The reason is that there is evidence that some spam checking services consider the M-word a sign that the email is spam. We are sorry for the inconvenience.

JewishGen Updates Their Discussion Group Platform

If you subscribe to a JewishGen Discussion Group, you noticed it has a new, more modern, look. The old system had several drawbacks including:
• the system was not secure
• messages had to be sent in Plain Text
• did not support accented characters or languages other than English
• could not display links or images
• was not mobile-friendly
The new platform has:
• a simple, secure, and intuitive interface that is mobile-friendly
• ability to post messages in any language
• ability to have attachments, and display hyperlinks, photos, and images
• ability to include formatted (bold, italic, underlined, accented) characters

One immediate advantage that comes to mind is that the new system may make ViewMate obsolete. It is a cumbersome system that allows JewishGen participants to post photographs and documents online, and request help in translating or identifying information. With the new system, a message can be posted to the Discussion Group with the document attached to the message.

Additional information can be found at https://tinyurl.com/JGMemberGuide.

JRI-Poland to Upgrade Its Website and Data Management System

Jewish Records Indexing - Poland has announced a “Next Generation Project” that will upgrade its website and provide a new data management system.

Components of the new website design will include:
• Timely updates on record acquisitions and availability via the website and email announcements
• New search interface designed with filters and mapping of results to maximize productivity
• Personal researcher work-space tracking favorite and recent searches and towns of interest
• Consolidated “Learning Center” as an invaluable reference as research progresses

The new data management system will include a central master control system to manage data, organize efforts and researcher interests. This will provide:
• Increased efficiency in collecting and uploading data with version tracking for updates
• Advanced tracking of all record sources, extractions, projects and town fundraising goals
• Ability to quickly determine if we have records and sources of interest pertaining to researcher inquiries
• Time saving tools for data managers, area coordinators, team leaders and extractors

This major upgrade will be expensive to implement. Contribute to JRI-Poland at https://jri-poland.org/support.htm.

Wanted: Human Interest Stories for Winter Issue of AVOTAYNU

We now are working on the final stages of getting the Fall issue of AVOTAYNU into print, but we are also looking ahead to the Winter issue which is special in two ways.

For the past 33 years, AVOTAYNU has devoted a portion of each Winter issue to genealogy human interest stories. Stories are typically about how genealogy affected people’s lives, whether it be the researcher or the people they are researching. Deadline for submission this year is December 1, 2019. If you would like to share such a story with AVOTAYNU subscribers, submit it by e-mail to sallyann.sack1@verizon.net. When possible, illustrations should accompany the article.

In 2008, Avotaynu published 72 of these human-interest stories in a book, Every Family Has a Story. A sample story in the book that originally appeared in the Winter 1998 issue of AVOTAYNU can be read at http://www.avotaynu.com/books/Unterschatz.pdf.

New Family Histories In Print. Also in the Winter issue, AVOTAYNU lists Jewish genealogical family histories that have been published in the preceding 12 months. Books published earlier are also eligible for inclusion if they have not been previously reported. Please present information about the book in a specific format: author; title of book; years covered; brief description, including family names researched; libraries in which book has been deposited; price and ordering information. Submit the information by e-mail to sallyann.sack1@verizon.net. The deadline date is also December 1.

You can subscribe to AVOTAYNU at http://www.avotaynu.com/journal.htm.

23andMe Adds “VIP Health + Ancestry Service”

Do you have some money to spare? 23andMe now offers—for $499— a “VIP Health + Ancestry Service.” This service provides two of their regular “Health + Ancestry Service” kits (a $398 value), overnight shipping, and priority lab processing, as well as premium customer support and an exclusive 30-minute, one-on-one ancestry results overview.

Additional information can be found at https://blog.23andme.com/news/ 23andme-adds-a-new-vip-health-ancestry-service/.

MyHeritage DNA Kit for Only $49
MyHeritage is offering their DNA testing kit for only $49; a “Columbus Day Sale.”

Costs for autosomal testing by the major DNA testing services now are:
23andMe. $79. Offer ends October 15.
Ancestry. $99. Regular price.
Family Tree DNA. $79. Regular price.
MyHeritage. $49. Offer ends October 14.

Ancestry Preannounces Planned DNA Health Services
Ancestry has announced they will soon offer a genetic health testing service called AncestryHealth. There was no explanation when the service would be made available or what it will provide. 23andMe has offered such services for a number of years.

The announcement can be found at https://tinyurl.com/AncestryHealthService.

FamilySearch Adds 4M Records This Week

A list of recent additions to FamilySearch, 4M indexed records, can be found at https://tinyurl.com/FamilySearch100719. This site provides direct links to the individual collections. Most of the additions are church records. Notable exceptions are additions to:
• Ukraine, Zaporizhia Poll Tax Census (Revision Lists), 1811–1858
• Mississippi, State Archives, Various Records, 1820–1951
• Missouri, County Marriage, Naturalization, and Court Records, 1800–1991
• New Jersey Naturalization Records, 1796–1991

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.

MyHeritage Additions for Second Half of September

MyHeritage announced that 40.1M new records have been added to their collection in the second half of September. These new records include an update to the existing collection Netherlands Population Registers and two new collections: United States and Canada, Index of Obituaries; and the Denmark, Copenhagen Police Registrations.

A complete description can be found at https://tinyurl.com/MHSept2Additions.

New 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. Omitted from the list below are updated church and Find-a-Grave collections. Announced collections may not be complete for the dates specified and will be added at some later date. There is also no indication of how many records were added to the updated collections.

Updated
Mexico, Various Civil Registration Births, Marriages and Deaths
1891 Census of Canada
1911 Census of Canada
1920 United States Federal Census

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 35th 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.