Nu? What's New? Vol. 22 No. 13

Underlined words are links to sites with additional information.

Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum Project Uncovering Details About Inmates

Archivists at the Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum in association with their counterparts at Arolsen Archives have been analyzing the remnant of the camp’s documentation and have uncovered the previously unknown identities of an estimated 4,000 camp inmates as well as information about 26,000 others. Ninety percent of the camp’s files were destroyed by its guards.

Currently, the identities of about 300,000 inmates out of the 400,000 estimated to have been held at the camp are known. The Arolsen Archives contain millions of documents about individuals persecuted by the Nazis, including the archives of the SS, Gestapo and records from the concentration camps.

A total of 120,000 documents relating to Auschwitz inmates have been digitized as part of the project. Among the discoveries were many records of Hungarian Jews who were transported to Auschwitz after May 1944 and whose names do not appear in any other archive.

The complete announcement cab be found at https://tinyurl.com/ddc8rfvw. It appears that a picture of me has been chosen to be a file photograph for the Arolsen Archives news department. In 2007, Sallyann Amdur Sack-Pikus took the first group ever to visit Arolsen Archives after their governing body lifted restrictions on direct public access to their records. The photo appears in this Times of Israel article as well as other news articles in the past.

MyHeritage Plans 24-Hour Genealogy Webinar Marathon

MyHeritage has teamed up for a second year with Legacy Family Tree Webinars to host a 24-hour genealogy webinar marathon. It will occur on April 8–9 starting at 5pm Eastern Time. The event is at no charge and open to all.

There are a total of 26 lectures. One specifically targets the Jewish audience: Finding Jewish Records in the MyHeritage Search Engine.

The announcement can be found at https://tinyurl.com/zhv8sy34. Because some lectures may be in the middle of the night in your time zone, all the lectures will be available for free viewing on the Legacy Family Tree Webinars website for a week after the event.

Additional details, including how to register can be found at https://tinyurl.com/zhv8sy34.

Romania Research Division of JewishGen Gives Progress Update

Michael Moritz, incoming Research Director for the Romania Research Division of JewishGen has posted a progress report of the group. It identifies nine items, some of which are:
• New Romanian Vital Records Collection
• New and Upcoming Data Uploads
• Next Projects
• New Website
• Romanian Archives to Digitize All Historical Vital Records
• Iasi Archives Places Entire List of Births Online (1865–1913)

The complete report can be found at https://tinyurl.com/35ec6x6z.

MyHeritage Updates Collection of Sweden Household Examination Books, 1820–1947

MyHeritage has updated their Sweden Household Examination Books by adding 19.35M historical records from the years 1820–1839. The collection now contains 144.5M records spanning the years 1820–1947. The Household Examination Books are the primary source for researching the lives of individuals and families throughout the parishes of Sweden, from the late 1600s until modern times. Because the books were updated every year, families can be traced year to year, and often from location to location throughout the country.

The announcement can be found at https://tinyurl.com/5armkfed.

FamilySearch Adds Nearly 6M Records This Week

A list of recent additions to FamilySearch, nearly 6M index records, can be found at https://tinyurl.com/m4ky4ptv. This site provides direct links to the individual collections. They include records from Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Congo, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, England, Finland, France, Germany, Guatemala, Mexico, Nicaragua, Peru, Philippines, Puerto Rico, Samoa, South Africa, Sweden, United Kingdom, United States, Uruguay, Venezuela and Zambia.

Included are:
• Louisiana, Orleans and St. Tammany Parish, Voter Registration Records, 1867-1905, 1,240,406 records
• South Africa, Civil Marriage Records, 1840-1973, 1,831,189 records

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 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.

Updated Collections
Find a Grave indexes for Australia, Brail, Germany, Italy, Mexico, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden

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.

Additional information, including an annotated Table of Contents plus a sample story, can be found at https://www.avotaynu.com/books/EveryFamily.htm.