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

Underlined words are links to sites with additional information.

ConferenceKeeper Claims It Is Most Complete List of Genealogy Events

ConferenceKeeper.org states its mission is to “curate details of genealogy events and freely share the information on a single, organized website and across various social media channels, including Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram.” Their goal is to help individuals increase their knowledge, skills, and enjoyment of genealogical research by sharing details of genealogy events of all kinds.

Their current list of events can be found at https://conferencekeeper.org/conferences/.

Spaniards Who Died in Nazi Concentration Camps
Bill Gladstone, who is Book Review editor for AVOTAYNU, notes there is a website that identifies Spaniards who died in concentration camps during World War II. There is a search engine. The website is in English. It is located at https://reescan.mjusticia.gob.es/reescan/Aviso.action#.

Lecture on Jewish Polish Genealogy Planned
The second part (post-1939) of the webinar “Mishpokhe: Jewish Polish Genealogy” will be broadcast on Wednesday, May 27 at 12pm EDT. The speaker is Kamila Burchart, who is a student at the Faculty of Polish Studies at the Jagiellonian University and Collegium Invisibile in Krakow. Collegium Invisible is an academic society founded in 1995 in Warsaw that affiliates outstanding Polish students in the humanities and science with distinguished scholars in accordance with the idea of a liberal education.

Register to attend the webinar at https://tinyurl.com/PolishJewishSeminar. If you missed the first part, view it at you can view it at https://tinyurl.com/PolishJewishSeminar2.

Gesher Galicia Offers Webinars to Its Members

Members of the Gesher Galicia Special Interest Group can avail themselves of two new lectures that are part of the organization’s educational program series:
• Historical Maps of Galicia Part 1: Borders Explained. This program examines the borders of Galicia during peacetime and wartime, from the Napoleonic period through the two world wars, making it easier to follow territorial shifts.
• Historical Maps of Galicia Part 2: Cities, Towns, and Neighborhoods. Discover how historical maps illustrate the Jewish presence in the main cities of Galicia. Old maps bring into focus separate and shared spaces in the multiethnic urban environment of the 19th century.

Members should log in at https://www.geshergalicia.org/ and then link to https://www.geshergalicia.org/members/video-presentations/ to listen to the presentations. Persons who are not members of Gesher Galicia can join at https://www.geshergalicia.org/membership/.

Free Access to Fold 3 Through May 25

Fold3 is allowing free access to its collection of 550M records through Monday, May 25. Searching their collection for the rare name “Mokotoff,” produced 78 results from World War I draft registrations, World War II “Old Men’s” draft registration, naturalization documents, Certificates of Arrival, various U.S. census and Social Security Death Index.

Search the collection at https://www.fold3.com/.

MyHeritage Offers Free Access to Military Records; Adds Greek Records

In honor of Memorial Day in the U.S., MyHeritage is offering access to its entire military collection at no charge through May 26. There are about 57 million records in the collection. Search at https://tinyurl.com/MHMilitaryRecords.

Greek Records. MyHeritage has added to its collection three Greek record groups: Greece, Electoral Rolls (1863–1924); Corfu Vital Records (1841–1932); and Sparta Marriages (1835–1935); comprising 1.8 million historical records. This release constitutes the first substantial set of Greek record collections available on MyHeritage. All three collections have been indexed and are searchable in English as well as in Greek.

Arolsen Archives Reports Indexing 250,000 Records in Four Weeks

Arolsen Archives reports that since it started its Every Name Counts program to index its collection of millions of records, volunteers have completed 250,000 names in the first four weeks. If you have idle time, especially during this period of the pandemic, join the indexing project at https://www.zooniverse.org/projects/cseidenstuecker/every-name-counts.

FamilySearch Adds Nearly 8M Records This Week

A list of recent additions to FamilySearch, nearly 8M index records and images, can be found at https://tinyurl.com/FamilySearch051820. This site provides direct links to the individual collections. Those identified with a dagger (†) are church records. They include records from American Samoa, Argentina, Austria, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Dominican Republic, England, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Niue, Peru, Puerto Rico, South Africa, Sweden, United States and Venezuela.

Major additions are United States, New York Land Records, 1630–1975, 3.8M records; United States, GenealogyBank Historical Newspaper Obituaries, 1815–2011, 1.8M records; and 1M index records for Oregon Death Index, 1971–2008.

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.

FindMyPast Adds U.S. Military Records

“Commemorating and celebrating the lives of American military heroes,” FindMyPast has updated three groups of U.S. records to their collection.
• United States, National Veterans Cemetery Index
• Georgia World War II Draft Registration Cards 1940–1942
• Louisiana Draft Cards

Links to the individual databases can be found at https://www.findmypast.co.uk/blog/new/us-ww2-records.

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.

New Collections
Hawaii Voter Records, 1864–1910
Hawaii, Birth Certificates and Indexes, 1841–1944
Hawaii, Births, Marriages, and Death Cards, 1850–1950
Hawaii, Death Certificates and Indexes, 1841–1942
Hawaii, Divorce Records, 1848–1892
Hawaii, Marriage Certificates and Indexes, 1841–1944
New Hampshire, Civil War Service and Pension Records, 1861–1866
North Carolina, County Records, 1833–1970
North Carolina, Discharge and Statement of Service Records, 1940–1948
South Carolina, Confederate Home Records, 1909–1958
Wyoming, Military Service and Veterans Records, 1914–1946

Updated Collections
FindAGrave Index for various countries
American Protective League Correspondence, 1917–1919
Hawaii, Passport Records, 1849–1900
Maine, Marriage Records, 1713–1922
U.S. Navy Muster Rolls, 1949–1971
U.S. Veterans' Gravesites, ca.1775–2019
U.S. WWII Draft Cards Young Men, 1940–1947
U.S., World War II Draft Registration Cards, 1942
Web: Ireland, Census, 1911

The Unbroken Chain - Third Edition (First five volumes)

Author Neil Rosenstein has devoted the past 27 years to updating and improving his landmark work The Unbroken Chain and now is in the process of publishing its Third Edition. The new edition is a major improvement to the previous edition both in number of persons and quality of the work.

The volumes identify more than 42,000 people with a full name index. There are 300 illustrations, thousands of footnotes and up to 22 generations.

Addtional informaton, including the a complete list of names can be found at http://www.avotaynu.com/books/UnbrokenChain-1.html. Check to see if your family is included.