Nu? What's New? The E-zine of Jewish Genealogy From Avotaynu Gary Mokotoff, Editor Volume 21, Number 19 | May 10, 2020 Every government puts value on preserving its history. That is why we have national archives. Genealogy preserves history; the history of a family. It cannot be done without access to records, just as historians cannot preserve a nation's history without access to records. It is a greater good than the right to privacy. It is a greater good than the risk of identity theft. Past issues of Nu? What's New? are archived at http://www.avotaynu.com/nu.htm

Underlined words are links to sites with additional information. Happy Mother’s Day!! Arolsen Archives Adds 100,000 Names to Its “Every Name Counts” Index It has been only two weeks since Arolsen Archives announced their plan to index the millions of records in their collection. The Archives has announced that since then, volunteers have indexed 100,000 names. The first group are records from Buchenwald, Dachau and Sachsenhausen concentration camps. Start indexing at http://aroa.to/everyname. Information about the crowdsourcing platform is at http://aroa.to/joinin. Search the current database of 26M documents at https://collections.arolsen-archives.org/en/search/. New U.S. TV Series: The Genetic Detective Starting May 19, ABC’s new primetime series The Genetic Detective will show how genetic super sleuth CeCe Moore tracks down criminals using state-of-the-art DNA technology. It will air from 10–11pm ET. The announcement states that Moore has solved more than 100 cold cases using crime scene DNA, state-of-the-art technology and Moore’s genealogy tracking skills. The complete announcement can be found at https://people.com/crime/ cece-moore-genetic-detective-abc-series/. New 23andMe BRCA Study Published Many people who carry a BRCA genetic variant associated with an increased risk for breast, ovarian, prostate, and certain other cancers do not have a strong family history of cancer, according to a new study from 23andMe. This means that these individuals would likely not qualify for clinical genetic testing unless they developed cancer themselves, representing a missed opportunity for cancer prevention. It is well known that Jews are susceptible to this gene. A recent study reported that more than 80 percent of people with a BRCA variant did not know they have one. But the 23andMe study found that a significant number of individuals with one of three BRCA risk variants common among Ashkenazi Jews have no known first-degree family history of a BRCA-related cancer or no known Jewish ancestry. The complete article can be found at https://tinyurl.com/BRCA23andMe. Jewish Genealogical Societies Switch to Online Meetings A number of Jewish Genealogical Societies have switched to online meetings during the pandemic. The Jewish Genealogical Society of Montreal found that an advantage of these meetings is that former members in Boston, Connecticut, Minneapolis, California, Toronto and Israel also joined the meeting. I am a member of the New York JGS but have not attended a meeting since I moved to Connecticut seven years ago. I plan to attend next Sunday’s meeting which will be given online. Columnist Lauds MyHeritage It appears that genealogical columnists are falling in love with MyHeritage. Family History Daily has produced an article titled “The Powerful Genealogy Hints Tool You’ve Probably Never Used.” It takes you step-by-step through the MyHeritage Discoveries engine which it describes “does a brilliant job of connecting researchers with new records in a way that will actually help you grow your tree – it even helped a member of our team overcome a brick wall that had persisted for more than a decade. The complete article can be found at https://tinyurl.com/FHDMH. I fell in love with MyHeritage several years ago. The assistance they provide is amazing. I have been doing my family history research for 42 years. My family tree database contains nearly 5,000 people. Every week I am swamped with new information provided by MyHeritage for persons on the tree. By “swamped,” I mean I likely devote 2–3 hours a week chasing down suggested information they provide about possible matches to my tree. Their Smart Matching provides data about people on other family trees that match mine. RecordMatching gleans data from new historical records they acquire. NewspaperMatching analyzes name gleaned from newspapers articles that may relate to persons on your tree. There are a number of other ways MyHeritage can locate information about persons on your family tree. The majority of the information I acquired from living persons was found in the first 20 years of my research. I have lost contact with these families since then. SmartMatches is reuniting me with these families as their descendants get the genealogy bug and build their own family trees. The only downside is some of the data provided from other users’ family trees. People copy information from my family tree to theirs. Days later I receive a report from MyHeritage that they found a SmartMatch between my tree and the one that copied information from my tree. Findmypast Adds World War II Collection of More Than 15M Records Findmypast has added a World War II collection that includes service records, draft registrations, enlistment records, prisoners of war records, casualty lists, cemetery indexes, rolls of honor and much more. It covers British, United States and Canadian armed forces. Today’s release follows the publication of the Findmypast’s Photo Archive. Published online for the first time in association with Reach PLC’s MirrorPix Archive, this archive consists of more than 10,000 images captured by press photographers for nine publications between 1939 and 1945. The complete announcement is at https://tinyurl.com/FMPWWII. MyHeritage Adds 287M Records in April MyHeritage added 287M records in April. Four new collections were added:    • U.S. Social Security applications and claims collection    • Index of U.S. court cases    • Family tree index from the Netherlands    • Iceland census collection. The U.S. Social Security applications and claims collection appears to be different from the well-known Social Security Death index because it includes records created by the Social Security Administration when individuals applied for a Social Security Number or when a claim was made for disability, retirement or death benefits. The announcement can be found at https://blog.myheritage.com/2020/05/historical-record- collections-added-in-april-2020/. FamilySearch Adds More Than 6M Records This Week A list of recent additions to FamilySearch, more than 6M million index records, can be found at https://tinyurl.com/FamilySearch050420. This site provides direct links to the individual collections. They include records from American Samoa, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, DR Congo, England, Guatemala, Peru, South Africa, United States and Venezuela. More than two-thirds are indexes relating to Guatemala, but there are other groups of general interest such as nearly 1M indexes to United States, GenealogyBank Historical Newspaper Obituaries, 1815–2011 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 Include German Concentration Camp Records 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. New Collections German Concentration Camp Records, 1946–1958 Germany, Military Killed in Action, 1939–1948 Carinthia, Austria, Catholic Church Registers, 1614–1938 Oregon, State Births, 1842–1917 Oregon, State Marriages, 1906–1966 Updated Collections Europe, Registration of Foreigners and German Persecutees, 1939–1947 Every Family Has a Story 72 articles that have appeared in our journal, AVOTAYNU, each story focusing 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 stories will make you laugh, others will make you cry. Some will shock you, others will make you feel warm inside. Addtional informaton, including an annottated Table of Contents plus a sample story, can be found at  https://www.avotaynu.com/books/EveryFamily.htm.

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