Dear fellow Sub-Carpathia SIG Researchers,

The 34th IASGS Jewish Genealogy Conference was held in
Salt Lake City, Utah, 27 July - 1 August 2014. We wish to
express our appreciation to IAJGS and JGS of Utah for an
exceptional conference.

I wish to thank all IAJGS conference attendees who stopped
by our table at the Share Fair this year. We were busy all
afternoon answering questions by visitors who stopped by
the desk interested in locating their ancestral villages and
towns in Sub-Carpathia, and inquiring about my 2014 trip
to Sub-Carpathia. The oversized map of Sub-Carpathia
Ukraine was popular and helpful, especially for me, as I
didn't need a magnifying glass to read it. If there is interest
in owning a copy of the large map, I will see how much
it would cost to get it reproduced. It measures approximately
41" x 58.5".

The Sub-Carpathia SIG meeting started at 3:15 p.m., on
Monday, 28 July. Due to time conflicts with other meetings/
presentations, the number of attendees was smaller than
last year, but several were attending our meeting for the
first time.

I. INTRODUCTIONS: The meeting began with introductions where
each person stated their name, where they were from, their
ancestral town(s) and village(s) and the surnames they were
researching. A few people asked for my help in locating their
towns on the map.

II. WHY A SUB-CARPATHIA SIG

Ukraine SIG addresses only those towns and districts of Ukraine
that were once part of the pre-revolution Russian Empire.
Sub-Carpathia is not within its scope despite being located in
Ukraine today.

Sub-Carpathia was once part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire,
Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic.
It is included in Hungary SIG, however, Sub-Carpathia Ukraine is
not part of Hungary today.

The genealogy, and JewishGen, standard requires genealogists to
use current names of their ancestral villages and towns---today in
Ukraine---which further isolates us and causes confusion.

For researchers with roots in Sub-Carpathia Ukraine, who wish to
obtain specific information on their region, the Sub-Carpathia SIG
was created to fill the gaps left by Hungary SIG and Ukraine SIG.

III. KEHILALINKS: A heartfelt thanks to JewishGen, at the
IAJGS conference in Salt Lake City, for recognizing my work in
creating KehilaLink web sites for Sub-Carpathia villages and towns.
As I am a volunteer, their recognition was greatly appreciated.
We now have over 190 Sub-Carpathia KehilaLink web sites as
well as the Sub-Carpathia SIG portal hosted on JewishGen
( http://www.jewishgen.org/Sub-Carpathia/
Click: "KehilaLinks" at the portal web site.)

from my 2014 trip, I expect to start working on 30 more KehilaLink

web sites. If I have not already visited your village or town, as
per my trip reports, contact me off-list with the name and I will
make every effort to visit it in 2015.

At the meeting, I discussed my personal interest in creating a web
site for every village or town that had a Jewish presence in
Sub-Carpathia Ukraine. I have been addressing those villages and
towns with a cemetery containing tombstones. I always contact
everyone listed in JewishGen's Family Finder section to inform them
that I am creating a web site for their shtetl and ask them to
participate in its development by contributing content---to enrich
the web site and make it interesting for current and future
researchers.

KehilaLink web sites deal mainly with the pre-war Hungarian/
Czechoslovak periods and suggested items are included in the e-mail
sent to researchers.

As far as present-day Ukraine is concerned, there are also suggestions.
The complete list of content desired and those Sub-Carpathia KehilaLink
web sites that are completed or in-progress may be found on JewishGen's
Sub-Carpathia SIG web site. (Click: "KehilaLinks" at the portal web site.)
If you see your shtetl's KehilaLink web site "in-progress," or if you have
content for any of the web sites listed for Sub-Carpathia Ukraine, please
contact me off-list.

IV. ARCHIVAL RECORDS: Any news will be published to the Sub-Carpathia
SIG mail list and on the Sub-Carpathia SIG portal web site.

V. TRIP REPORTS: I was in Sub-Carpatha, in May-July 2014, and recently
published my trip report. All of my trip reports, 2011-2014, can be found
at the JewishGen Sub-Carpathia SIG portal web site. (Click "Travel
Planning" in the left-hand column, then "Trip Reports.")

To-date, I have visited 648 villages and towns and photographed the
tombstones of 226 cemeteries. Next year I should be able to complete
visiting all of the villages and towns of Sub-Carpathia.

VI. PROJECTS

a. COMPLETED PROJECTS

I completed photographing the Uzhhorod (Ungvar) Jewish cemetery
this year, the largest in Sub-Carpathia today.

Tombstone transcriptions are progressing at a fast pace due to the
efforts of a dedicated group of volunteers: Motti ADLER, Leya
ARONSON, Tomer BRUNER, Moshe DAVIS, Lara DIAMOND, Max
EHRENREICH, Lipa FRIEDMAN, Mitch HOLLANDER, Madeline ISENBERG,
Gilberto JUGEND, David Ari KLEIN, Lazar KOLMAN, Debbi KORMAN,
Rose LANDOWNE, Gershon MARKOWITZ, Rabbi Joel MEISELS, Shani
NAFTALI, Zvika OREN, Mordechai PELTA, Chaya PIKOVSKY, Joel
SALOMON, Lynn SAUL, Ari TESSLER, Gil WOLF, Zahava Yaffa WOLSTEIN,
Amos Israel ZEZMER and Avraham David ZOLDAN.

As of this writing, tombstones in 63 of the 226 cemeteries have
been completely transcribed and 29 are in-progress.

More transcriptions were completed while I was overseas, but I
have yet to get to them. If you are able to help transcribe
tombstones, please contact me off-list.

A print-ready "Chevra Kadisha" book of the Berehove
(Beregszasz) cemetery has been completed.

Sub-Carpathia's 650 towns and villages have had their names
updated and transferred to JewishGen so that its gazetteer
could be more complete. Warren Blatt stated that it is
currently in test mode, soon to go "live" on JewishGen.

Warren Blatt also confirmed what I had stated about JOWBR
in the meeting, contrary to what the JewishGen VP in attendance
stated. JOWBR is unable to access a specific record online (image
and transcription) to make needed corrections a la Find A Grave.
The complete cemetery must be downloaded, the spreadsheet
corrected, then re-uploaded along with the complete cemetery
tombstone images and transcriptions back into JOWBR. This is an
extremely laborious process and, understandably, is only done
once or perhaps twice a year. If you have updates, contact Nolan
Altman. I was told that in order to provide the capability to update
specific records only in the database, JewishGen would need about
$50 thousand to get the software to do so.

Providing guidance for travel to/>from Sub-Carpathia.

b. PROJECTS IN-PROGRESS:

Transcription of the Velikiy Bereznyy mohel book

Translation of the Vynogradiv yizkor book

Transcription of tombstones >from my 2011 thru 2014 trips

Support for Sub-Carpathia Museum of Jewish History in Berehove

Transcription of a List of Names of deportees >from Sub-Carpathia

New KehilaLink web sites

VII. OPEN DISCUSSION: The open discussion period was very
productive and enjoyed by all. Concerning the long-term continuity
of the Sub-Carpathia SIG, I will be sending out messages on this topic
in the future. If you have any ideas, contact me off-list.

VIII. NEXT YEAR: The 35th IAJGS Jewish Genealogy Conference
will take place 6-10 July 2015 in Jerusalem, Israel, hosted by IAJGS,
IGRA and IGS. Several people indicated that they would be attending
while others said it was too early to decide.
"Next Year In Jerusalem"

IX. LIST GROUP: Information of interest to all Sub-Carpathia
researchers will be sent out to the Sub-Carpathia SIG mail list.
If you know of someone not subscribed to our SIG mail list, please
refer them to the Sub-Carpathia SIG web site. (Click "Research
Group" in the left-hand column.)

As of this writing, we have 375 Sub-Carpathia researchers signed up
to the mail list.

Completed surveys were collected; any questions will be responded
to privately.

The meeting ended at approximately 4:35 p.m.

Please contact me off-list for any follow-up questions.

Best regards to all,
Marshall Katz
JewishGen Sub-Carpathia SIG coordinator