Nu? What's New? Vol. 21 No. 2

Underlined words are links to sites with additional information.

A Book Worth Reading: Every Family Has a Story

The news media and the internet are full of advice as to how to spend your days in isolation until the “all clear” signal is given. One obvious suggestion is read books. May I suggest a remarkable book Avotaynu published some years ago titled Every Family Has a Story.

It consists of 72 amazing articles that appeared in our journal, AVOTAYNU, that focus on the human side of genealogy—how genealogists have been personally affected by their research and how the research of genealogists has affected others.

Some of these stories are quite remarkable. The lead article in the book was the very first human interest story we ever published in AVOTAYNU: “Freya Joins the Kahn Klan.” It relates how a woman, who was adopted shortly after birth, decided to locate her birth family when, in her mid-40s, she became interested in genealogy. She discovered she was one of seven children—the only one adopted out. None of her birth siblings knew of her existence. How she found the family and the consequences would make a Hollywood movie.

The second story in the book is the one that created the most feedback from AVOTAYNU readers: “Evelyne Regains Her Identity.” It relates how I helped a child survivor of the Holocaust find family. Evelyne had spent her entire life without family and with little exposure to her Jewish heritage. How I found her American cousins and helped her regain her Jewish identity is described in the article.

Every Family Has a Story is divided into eight sections. The first section, titled “Potpourri” contains a mixture of articles chosen as the best of the best human interest articles selected for the book.
• In addition to the above-mentioned articles, there is one by Batya Unterschatz, “The Diary of Miriam Hanania.” It relates how she helped locate a woman who wrote a pre-Holocaust diary as a teenager. The story has a shocking ending.
• The most unusual name-change story we have ever published is described in “A Priest in the Family.”
• Valery Bazarov of HIAS and Marian Smith of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services relate a very unusual immigrant story in “Children Under 16 Unaccompanied by Parent: The Family Zuser.” When a Jewish woman with four children got off the boat at Ellis Island, the authorities got suspicious that two of the children were not hers—they were black.
• Finally, the Potpourri section ends with the real origin of the legend of Sean Ferguson, the hapless Jewish immigrant whose name was changed at Ellis Island.

You will not only find the stories enjoyable to read, but other members of your family will enjoy them too.

Purchase the 304-page book at https://www.avotaynu.com/books/EveryFamily.htm. The site includes a Table of Contents as well as a sample story.

Update on August Conference

The 40th IAJGS International Conference on Jewish Genealogy is planned for August 9–14 in San Diego, California. The following message has been posted to the conference website at https://s4.goeshow.com/iajgs/annual/2020/index.cfm.

Coronavirus Update (24 April 2020): The IAJGS Board and the Conference organizers have been continuously monitoring information about the coronavirus. The health and safety of all our members and constituents are our paramount, indeed our only, concern. We are currently assessing all of our options and are looking into the possibility of some sort of virtual conference. We also want to assure everyone that in the event the in-person conference cannot be held, all registration fees will be refunded. We will post additional updates as they become available.

Reclaim The Records Wins Summary Judgment to Access to Missouri Records

Reclaim The Records has won its case against the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services to gain access to a copy of the state’s birth and death indexes. RTR’s initial request was made in 2016.

The judge concluded it was so obvious that RTR was entitled to the index that she issued a summary judgement in favor of RTR. The judge also awarded that the Missouri department pay RTR’s legal costs. She ordered fines assessed against the department for four separate “knowing and purposeful” violations of the Sunshine law.

Additional information can be found at https://www.reclaimtherecords.org/records-request/7/.

Help Yad Vashem Merge Duplicate Entries in Shoah Victims Names Database

Yad Vashem’s Shoah Victims Names Database has identified nearly 4M of the 6M Jews murdered in the Holocaust. Information comes from many sources; therefore, there can be more than one entry for a specific victim.

Yad Vashem would like to cluster together in a “personal file” information related to one individual. The genealogical community can help with this project by following this procedure.

Search for a specific individual in the Central Database of Shoah Victims Names on Yad Vashem’s website at https://yvng.yadvashem.org/. Find records that you think are related to one person, and fill out a suggestion to bind them in one “personal file.” Detailed instructions on how to suggest a new “personal file” can be found at https://www.yadvashem.org/yv/pdf-drupal/en/archive/ clusters.pdf. Once the match is verified by Yad Vashem, future searching for the person will yield only one result, but a number in an orange circle will appear after the surname to show there is more than one record for the person. Clicking on the surname causes all records for the person to be displayed.

Gesher Galicia Plans Webinars

Gesher Galicia, the Galicia Special Interest Group, is planning a series of webinars. The first presentation is by the organization’s president, Steven S. Turner and is entitled, “Traveling Through the Heart of Galicia: A Galitzianer's Journey.”

You must be a member of Gesher Galicia in good standing to view the webinar. Their membership site is at https://www.geshergalicia.org/membership/.

To access the webinar, first log into the site at https://www.geshergalicia.org/. Then link to the webinar at http://www.geshergalicia.org/video/2April2020STurner.mp4.

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JOWBR Now Has 3.71M Records From 133 Countries

Nolan Altman, JewishGen Director for Special Projects, has announced that with the latest update, the JewishGen Online Worldwide Burial Registry (JOWBR) now has 3.71 million records and 700,000 photos from approximately 8,670 cemeteries / cemetery sections representing 133 countries.

The collection can be accessed at http://www.jewishgen.org/databases/Cemetery/. If you are a new JOWBR user, there is a tutorial about the database at http://www.jewishgen.org/databases/ Cemetery/Screencasts/.

UK National Archives Making Digital Records Free of Charge

The UK National Archives is making digital records available on their website free of charge for as long as their Kew site is closed to visitors. Registered users will be able to order and download up to 10 items at a time, to a maximum of 50 items over 30 days. The limits are there to manage the demand for content and ensure the availability of their digital services for everyone.

The announcement can be found at https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/about/news/ digital-downloads/.

Access to MyHeritage Yearbook Collection at No Charge Through May 23.

MyHeritage has announced that their U.S. yearbook collection of 290 million names can be accessed at no charge through May 23. The dates range from 1890 to 1979. The company also announced that you can view the yearbooks in color using their In Color feature.

The announcement can be found at https://blog.myheritage.com/2020/04/u-s-yearbook-records- now-free-and-in-color/.

Your Neanderthal Ancestry

One of the analyses 23andMe has for its customers is their Neanderthal history. The company has identified 217 genetic variants that can be traced to the Neanderthals, ancient humans who interbred with modern humans before going extinct 40,000 years ago.

My personal report states I acquired two traits from my Neanderthal ancestors: (1) more itchy mosquito bites and (2) less likely to have a fear of heights. Good pest control has meant I have not had a mosquito bite in years. I do recall them being very annoying. At that time, I did not bother to ask other people around me if they were being affected by mosquito bites. As to less fear of heights, I do believe a have less fear, but have not compared to people other than my wife. She is petrified of heights. Perhaps it indicates she is a pure-blooded homo sapien.

Read the 23anMe article at https://blog.23andme.com/ancestry-reports/new-neanderthal-report/.

FamilySearch Adds 5.5M Records This Week

A list of recent additions to FamilySearch, about 5.5M index records, can be found at https://tinyurl.com/FamilySearch042020. This site provides direct links to the individual collections. They include records from American Samoa, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Germany, Great Britain, Honduras, Nova Scotia, Paraguay, Peru, South Africa, Sri Lanka, United States and Uruguay.

Two major updates are United States, GenealogyBank Historical Newspaper Obituaries, 1815–2011, 1,997,916 records; and South Africa, Transvaal, Probate Records from the Master of the Supreme Court, 1869–1958, 1,128,563 records.

Of particular interest to Jewish genealogists is an additional 142,707 index records to Maryland, Baltimore Passenger Lists Index, 1897–1952 and an additional 262,878 records to Massachusetts, Index to Passenger Lists of Vessels Arriving at Boston, 1921–1949.

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.

Correction to Rheinland Emigration List Article
The last issue of Nu? What’s New? included an article about the availability of Rheinland emigration lists. It stated the range of years was 1814–1939. The correct range is 1814–1900. Also, it was not obvious how to link to the search engine. Go to the announcement at https://tinyurl.com/RhinelandEmigration. The link is at the bottom of the page.

Make sure the members of your family who were murdered in the Holocaust are not forgotten. Submit a Page of Testimony in thier memory to The Shoah Victims' Name Recovefr Project. Go to http://yvng.yadvashem.org/index.html?language=en. Click the words "Submit Pages of Testimony Online" or “Download Page of Testimony Forms.”

Pages of Testimony are special forms created by Yad Vashem to restore the personal identities and to record the brief life stories of the six million Jews murdered by the Nazis and their accomplices. These one-page forms, containing the names, biographical details and, when available, photographs, of each individual victim are essentially symbolic "tombstones". Since its inception Yad Vashem has worked tirelessly to fulfill our moral imperative to remember every single victim as a human being, and not merely a number. To date there are some two million seven hundred thousand names recorded on Pages of Testimony, written in more than twenty languages, stored for perpetuity in the circular repository around the outer edge of the Hall of Names. Many shelves remain empty bearing witness to the millions of individuals who have yet to be memorialized.