Nu? What's New? Vol. 20 No. 13

Underlined words are links to sites with additional information.

Census Question May Yield Unconvincing Results

In the last issue of Nu? What’s New? I noted the ambiguous question on the 2020 U.S. census which stated, “Enter origins, for example, German, Irish, English, Italian, Lebanese, Egyptian, etc.” I received feedback from some readers which demonstrates that the answers given are not going to make the results a meaningful statistic—at least for Jews:
• I responded to the question with “Polish,” indicating the country of my ancestry.
• Two responders stated they refused to identify with their country of ancestry and instead responded “Jewish.”
• Another stated he was born in the U.S and responded “American” and noted that he had German-born parents who had Polish-born parents.

This census question reminds me of an item I wrote for Nu? What’s New? in the summer of 2018 about a Jewish person’s origins. It stated the following:

Consider the following four statements:
• Americans and Jews live in harmony in the United States
• Canadians and Jews live in harmony in Canada.
• Poles and Jews live in harmony in Poland.
• Lithuanians and Jews live in harmony in Lithuania.

The first two statements seem inappropriate. Jewish-Americans are Americans. Jewish-Canadians are Canadians. Then why aren’t the Jewish citizens of Poland referred to as Poles? Why aren’t the Jewish citizens of Lithuanian identified as Lithuanians?

One of the contributions to anti-Semitism in Eastern Europe is that Jews are referred to as if they are not part of the general population. This is not merely fostered by anti-Semites. Jews refer to themselves as “Jews” rather than citizens of their country.

At the recent IAJGS Conference on Jewish Genealogy, there was much mention of the rapport between today’s “Poles and Jews.” Isn’t it more appropriate to say there is rapport between Polish Christians and Polish Jews?

New Articles on Avotaynu Online

Adam Brown, Managing Director of Avotaynu Online, has placed at the site nine articles that appeared in AVOTAYNU in the past few years. The first two named below should be of great interest to persons of Ashkenazic descent. They are written by Alexander Beider and Harry Ostrer respectively, both recognized experts in their disciplines. The remain eight are of interest to persons with Sephardic heritage.

They are:
• Contested Origins of Eastern European Jewry: Clues from History, Linguistics and Onomastics
• The Genetic Origins of Ashkenazi Jews
• The Jews of Tetuan, Morocco: Genealogy and Iconography
• Working by the Book in Sephardic Research: The Gedalia Family of Nis, Serbia
• Jewish Emigration from Aleppo In the 19th and 20th Centuries
• History and Genealogy of the Jews of Tuscany
• London’s Portuguese Jewish Community
• Genealogy and the Settlement of Jews in Brazil
• The Lost Jews of St. Maarten

Links to the articles can be found at http://avotaynuonline.com/.

To be a regular reader of our quarterly journal, AVOTAYNU, subscribe at https://www.avotaynu.com/journal.htm.

Ancestry Offering Access to Major NARA Collections at No Charge

Because of the pandemic and for the foreseeable future, Ancestry is offering access to nearly 500M records in its collection whose source is files of the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration. They comprise nearly 300 different collections, including ship passenger and crew lists, naturalization and citizenship records, immigration records, and key military collections such as WWI and WWII draft cards. A sampling of the collections includes:
• WWI and WWII U.S. Draft Cards
• New York, Passenger and Crew Lists, 1820–1957
• California, Federal Naturalization Records, 1843–1999
• U.S. Passport Applications, 1795–1925
• U.S. Border Crossings from Canada to U.S., 1895–1960

All are of great value to persons researching their Jewish ancestry. Go to https://www.ancestry.com/search/. You will be required to create a sign-in identity if you have not done so previously. Use the exact link shown above. Other attempts to access Ancestry without already being a member require you take a trial offer.

Ancestry Offering At-Home Children Schooling Programs

For nearly a decade, Ancestry has been offering its AncestryK12® services, a no-cost program for K–12 schools and teachers in classrooms nationwide that includes access to content from the U.S. collection of Ancestry, Fold3.com and Newspapers.com. With school closures in effect across the U.S., Ancestry is offering support to parents by making its AncestryK12 lesson plans available for free for anyone to download while they are educating children at home.

The company notes that family history projects for K12 students allow them to build powerful inquiry skills while learning from home. The sources and documents found on Ancestry gives students across the nation the opportunity to make connections to their ancestors, historical places, and events throughout time. Their research journey will provide powerful insights into their own family and bring their curriculum to life in relevant and exciting ways.

Additional information, including a list of 20 lesson plans can be found a https://tinyurl.com/AncestryAtHome. The AncestryK12 site is at http://ancestryk12.com.

A Good Way to Pass the Time at Home: Colorize Your Photos
Many companies are coming forward with suggestions on how to handle home confinement during the current crisis. MyHeritage is offering their photo colorizing system at no charge through April 23. Let’s hope they find no reason to extend the offer.

Additional information is at https://tinyurl.com/MHColorizingFree.

More News from MyHeritage

Free access to U.S. censuses. In recognition of the 2020 U.S. census, MyHeritage is providing free access to its entire collection of U.S. censuses through April 5. The collection includes the full set of records from 1790 to 1940, which consists of more than 700 million records. Search the records at https://tinyurl.com/MHAllUSCensuses.

MyHeritage fighting pandemic. MyHeritage announced it will be working with the Chinese genomics giant BGI to build an emergency testing facility that will allow Israel to perform an additional 10,000 coronavirus tests per day. The lab, slated to begin service on April 9, may double its testing output to about 20,000 tests daily. The announcement can be found at https://tinyurl.com/MHVirus2.

Free Webinars from Legacy Family Tree

Legacy Family Tree Webinar recently held a 24-hour marathon that they state was a huge success. Recordings of the classes are now available at http://www.FamilyTreeWebinars.com/24. Normally, they are free for the first week, but they have extended this time limit for all marathon classes to be free for two full weeks (through April 6).

Persons who are paid members of Legacy Family Tree Webinars can choose from 1,200+ classes with 4,900+ pages of instructor handouts (including all 85 pages from the marathon). Cost is $49.95 a year.

Information is available at https://tinyurl.com/LFTFreeWebinars.

RootsTech Is Making Available Selected Lectures from Past Conferences

RootsTech is making available selected lectures from past conferences 2015–2020 at no charge. They can be accessed at https://www.rootstech.org/video-archive. One of the lectures in 2017 was “Jewish Genealogy: Where to Look and What's Available,” presented by Lara Diamond. Other lectures are of general interest including such topics as methodology and what’s new in family history research.

Practicing Safe Computing #53 – “Avoiding COVID-19 Scams”

Hal Bookbinder has written his 53rd essay on “Practicing Safe Computing,” this one focusing on avoiding COVID-19 scams. Among the items he notes is that emails are being sent under the guise of coming from the Center for Disease Control or the World Health Organization. He also notes that Amazon recently barred the sale of more than 1M products that falsely claim to cure or provide protection against COVID-19.

The complete article can be found at https://www.jgscv.org/pdf/Practicing%20Safe%20 Computing%20Articles.pdf.

Passover Practices Modified to Accommodate the Pandemic
Marilyn Robinson, author of the blog, Jewish Gem's Genealogy: Mining for Your Elusive Ancestors, has posted a humorous set of rules for conducting the Passover Seder this year. Example: The ceremonial hand washing, however, will be emphasized. Everybody will wash their hands every five minutes.

They can be read at http://yourjewishgem.blogspot.com/2020/03/passover-2020-new-rules.html.

FamilySearch Adds More Than 3M Records This Week

A list of recent additions to FamilySearch, more than 3M index records and images, can be found at https://tinyurl.com/FamilySearch032320. This site provides direct links to the individual collections. They include records from American Samoa, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, England, Peru, South Africa, Sweden and the United States.

Most of the new items are the addition of 2,373,848 index records from FindAGrave. Most significant to persons researching their Jewish ancestry is an additional 379,863 records for Baltimore Passenger Lists Index, 1897–1952.

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://www.ancestry.com/cs/recent-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.

A collection especially of interest to researchers with Jewish ancestry should be United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA) Records, 1943–1947 (USHMM). After being unsuccessful in locating information about my relatives, I searched for any person born in 1920. It yielded 15 results. Searching for any person born in 1910 yielded only 10 results. Clearly this collection is either very minor or the Ancestry collection gotten from the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum is grossly incomplete.

New Collections
New York, Episcopal Diocese of Central New York Church Records, 1800–1970
South Carolina Probate Records, Files and Loose Papers, 1732–1964
South Carolina, Chesterfield County, Original Marriage licenses, 1911–1951

Updated Collections
United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA) Records, 1943–1947 (USHMM)
Baja California and Baja California Sur, Mexico, Catholic Church Records, 1750–1984
Hidalgo, Mexico, Catholic Church Records, 1546–1971
Oaxaca, Mexico, Catholic Church Records, 1559–1988
South Carolina, Death Records, 1821–1968

40th IAJGS International Conference on Jewish Genealogy

The following announcement came today from the International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies (IAJGS).

The 40th IAJGS International Conference on Jewish Genealogy will take place in San Diego, California, Aug. 9–14, 2020, at the Sheraton San Diego Hotel and Marina. More than 900 participants are expected from across the U.S. and around the world.

The conference will feature more than 110 speakers presenting approximately 250 presentations on just about every aspect of Jewish genealogy. Given the location, this conference will place special emphasis on the Latino Jewish experience, Jews in the military, Crypto-Jews and the Inquisition, as well as the other intriguing topics ranging from DNA testing and projects to the “how to” sessions that attendees have come to love.

This special 40th anniversary conference will feature Prof. Glenn Dynner of Sarah Lawrence College as scholar-in-residence. Prof. Dynner is a distinguished scholar of Haskalah (The Enlightenment) and Hasidism. His research centers on little-known, non-government issued documents which provide surprising insights into the everyday lives of Eastern European Jews, explains their occupational choices, social and political movements, and migratory patterns, even between towns. His best-known books are Men of Silk” and Yankel's Tavern. He is currently a Guggenheim Fellow studying Hasidism in the Interwar Period.

Arthur Kurzweil, who is the founding father of our movement in many ways, will be the banquet keynote speaker. Arthur served as co-chair of the first “seminar” on Jewish genealogy and authored the inspirational classic, From Generation to Generation, regarded by many as “The Bible” of Jewish genealogy.

The speaker roster includes some of the biggest names in genealogy, including Kitty Munson Cooper and Janine Cloud (FamilyTreeDNA.com); Crista Cowan (Ancestry.com); W. Todd Knowles (Family Search); Daniel Horowitz (My Heritage); Schelly Talalay Dardashti (MyHeritage and Tracing the Tribe) and Randy Schoenberg (Geni.com and Jewish Genealogy Portal).

Programs, geared from first-timers to conference veterans, include lectures, lunches, computer labs, a small film festival, two game nights and networking through Special Interest Groups (SIGs) and Birds of a Feather (BOFs). An Exhibitor Hall and Resource Room will include genealogy experts, mentors and archivists for a one-stop research experience at the conference site.

Details of the conference, including registration and hotel reservations, are posted on the conference website, http://www.iajgs2020.org.

Conference Chair is Robinn Magid, a retired management consultant from Berkeley, California, who has over 25 years of experience in Jewish genealogy research. She was also the chair of the 2018 conference in Warsaw, Poland. Robinn is a frequent speaker at the IAJGS conferences and various American Jewish Genealogical Societies.

The Conference is hosted by IAJGS, an umbrella organization of more than 85 Jewish genealogical organizations worldwide. The IAJGS coordinates and organizes activities such as its annual International Conference on Jewish Genealogy and provides a unified voice as the spokesperson on behalf of its members. Ken Bravo of South Euclid, Ohio, is IAJGS president.

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. Find the IAJGS at: http://www.iajgs.org and like us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/iajgsjewishgenealogy.

Attend the 40th IAJGS International Conference on Jewish Genealogy

Visit the website at http://iajgs2020.org