A few weeks ago, I sent a message to the Lodz Area Research
Group and the BialyGen listservs as well as Jewishgen about
Jewish roots in Paterson, NJ. Many people >from Lodz and
Bialystok moved to Paterson, NJ when they left Eastern
Europe. I received many responses >from people whose families
came >from these two areas. However, I also received
responses >from people whose families moved >from Belarus to
Paterson. Hence, I am sending the same post to this group.

Paterson, NJ, was a textile city, also known as the Silk
City. Often people moved there to find work in one of the
many textile factories in this industrial city. Mark
Halpern, the coordinator of the Bialystok ShtetLink lived in
Paterson as a young boy, and I, the coordinator of the Lodz
Area Research Group ShtetLink lived there until I was 12
years old, when we moved next door to Fair Lawn, NJ. Mark
and I often half-joked (and
half-seriously) talked about the future generations who will
look for their roots in the archives in Paterson, NJ.

Since the IAJGS conference is being held in Philadelphia
next summer, we decided to put out feelers about how many
researchers would be interested in attending a Birds of a
Feather meeting at the Conference for the Paterson, NJ area,
which also includes Passaic, Kearny, and other nearby towns.
We have been in touch with the President of the Jewish
Historical Society of North Jersey as well as a few other
people actively involved in similar organizations involving
the history of Jewish Paterson. We decided that if there is
an interest, we would invite those people to attend. So far,
the responses to the earlier posts have been very positive.

As conference program Chairman, Mark is very busy now. We
agreed that responses to this inquiry would come to me.

All you have to do, is reply to me personally letting me
know:

1. your interest in a Paterson, NJ group
2. where your family came >from before moving to the Paterson
area
3. names of your family >from Paterson or nearby towns
4. any memorabilia you may have >from Paterson.
5. plans (even tentative) to attend the conference

Depending upon the responses, we will organize a Paterson
and area Birds-of-a-Feather meeting at the conference. If
this takes off, we will consider creating a Paterson
ShtetLink website on JewishGen.

Regards,
Roni

[Mrs. Roni Seibel Liebowitz]
New York
Family Genealogy Website http://x.liebowitzes.com/genealogy

PRZYBYLSKI (later BILSKY) and PIASKOWSKI ---Belchatow, Lodz,in Poland;
some to Argentina SEIBEL, SZAEFER, KLOSS Klimontow, Nadbrzezie, Konary,
Grebow, Krakow, Baronow, Sandomierski, Rozwadow, Tarnobrzeg, Zukow in Poland;
Lviv in Ukraine (Galicia); Sao Paulo, Brazil URBACH, RUKALSKI,
ROZICKA, MANDELBAUM/MANDELBOIM --- Wegrow, Czerwonka,Warsaw, Minsk Mazowiecki,
Radom in Poland; Harare, Southern, Rhodesia (Zimbabwe) RUJELSMAN --- Argentina