JewishGen.org Discussion Group FAQs
What is the JewishGen.org Discussion Group?
The JewishGen.org Discussion Group unites thousands of Jewish genealogical researchers worldwide as they research their family history, search for relatives, and share information, ideas, methods, tips, techniques, and resources. The JewishGen.org Discussion Group makes it easy, quick, and fun, to connect with others around the world.
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How is the New JewishGen.org Discussion Group better than the old one?
Our old Discussion List platform was woefully antiquated. Among its many challenges: it was not secure, it required messages to be sent in Plain Text, did not support accented characters or languages other than English, could not display links or images, and had archives that were not mobile-friendly.
This new platform that JewishGen is using is a scalable, and sustainable solution, and allows us to engage with JewishGen members throughout the world. It offers a simple and intuitive interface for both members and moderators, more powerful tools, and more secure archives (which are easily accessible on mobile devices, and which also block out personal email addresses to the public).
I am a JewishGen member, why do I have to create a separate account for the Discussion Group?
As we continue to modernize our platform, we are trying to ensure that everything meets contemporary security standards. In the future, we plan hope to have one single sign-in page.
I like how the current lists work. Will I still be able to send/receive emails of posts (and/or digests)?
Yes. In terms of functionality, the group will operate the same for people who like to participate with email. People can still send a message to an email address (in this case, main@groups.JewishGen.org), and receive a daily digest of postings, or individual emails. In addition, Members can also receive a daily summary of topics, and then choose which topics they would like to read about it. However, in addition to email, there is the additional functionality of being able to read/post messages utilizing our online forum (https://groups.jewishgen.org).
Does this new system require plain-text?
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Can I post images, accented characters, different colors/font sizes, non-latin characters?
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Can I categorize a message? For example, if my message is related to Polish, or Ukraine research, can I indicate as such?
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Can I still search though old messages?
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So just to be sure - this new group will allow us to post from our mobile phones, includes images, accented characters, and non-latin characters, and does not require plain text?
Correct!
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No.
Will the current guidelines change?
Yes. While posts will be moderated to ensure civility, and that there is nothing posted that is inappropriate (or completely unrelated to genealogy), we will be trying to create an online community of people who regulate themselves, much as they do (very successfully) on Jewish Genealogy Portal on Facebook.
What are the new guidelines?
There are just a few simple rules & guidelines to follow, which you can read here:https://groups.jewishgen.org/g/main/guidelines
Thank you in advance for contributing to this amazing online community!
If you have any questions, or suggestions, please email support@JewishGen.org.
Sincerely,
The JewishGen.org Team
Re: Rochester NY Info Sought
#general
Adam Stein <adam@...>
Here are a collection of Rochester genealogy related links I keep:
toggle quoted messageShow quoted text
http://www.csh.rit.edu/~adam/bookmarks/Reference/Genealogy/Rochester___Monroe_County/ [or http://tinyurl.com/244h34w --Mod.] On the 'GenWeb of Monroe County, NY' page are links to the mailing list (MONROE-L). The Message Board is the same as the mailing list, just a different interface (I believe). The thing to note about the mailing list is that the libraries (at least some) of the Rochester library system are subscribed and frequently answer questions. If you can't find what you are looking for using my links, ask your question and I'm sure somebody can give you more specific information (or I guess you can just call the library directly).
On Sun, 2010-07-18 at 18:57 -0500, Peggy Morrow wrote:
When my great-grandmother Rachel Kornfeld Kramer died in Chicago on August 19,
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JewishGen Discussion Group #JewishGen Re: Rochester NY Info Sought
#general
Adam Stein <adam@...>
Here are a collection of Rochester genealogy related links I keep:
toggle quoted messageShow quoted text
http://www.csh.rit.edu/~adam/bookmarks/Reference/Genealogy/Rochester___Monroe_County/ [or http://tinyurl.com/244h34w --Mod.] On the 'GenWeb of Monroe County, NY' page are links to the mailing list (MONROE-L). The Message Board is the same as the mailing list, just a different interface (I believe). The thing to note about the mailing list is that the libraries (at least some) of the Rochester library system are subscribed and frequently answer questions. If you can't find what you are looking for using my links, ask your question and I'm sure somebody can give you more specific information (or I guess you can just call the library directly).
On Sun, 2010-07-18 at 18:57 -0500, Peggy Morrow wrote:
When my great-grandmother Rachel Kornfeld Kramer died in Chicago on August 19,
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LA Times Article: French Jews Want Their Old Names Back
#general
Jan Meisels Allen
An article in the July 18, 2010 Los Angeles Times related how many of post
holocaust-era Jews and Tunisian Jews that immigrated to France changed their surnames to sound more French and today their descendants want to change their names back to their original sur names to reflect family origins. French Civil Code states family names can't be reverted once changed to French sounding names. To read more about this see: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-france-jews-20100718,0,307074.story [or http://tinyurl.com/2wfj79e --Mod.] Jan Meisels Allen IAJGS Director-at-large and Chairperson, Public Records Access Monitoring Committee
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JewishGen Discussion Group #JewishGen LA Times Article: French Jews Want Their Old Names Back
#general
Jan Meisels Allen
An article in the July 18, 2010 Los Angeles Times related how many of post
holocaust-era Jews and Tunisian Jews that immigrated to France changed their surnames to sound more French and today their descendants want to change their names back to their original sur names to reflect family origins. French Civil Code states family names can't be reverted once changed to French sounding names. To read more about this see: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-france-jews-20100718,0,307074.story [or http://tinyurl.com/2wfj79e --Mod.] Jan Meisels Allen IAJGS Director-at-large and Chairperson, Public Records Access Monitoring Committee
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Lithuanian Translation help-Viewmate
#latvia
ms nodrog
Dear Latvian Genners,
I am hoping that there is someone who can read and translate some small Lithuanian items. These are small snipets >from my Aunt's 1949 Internal Passports. I have been able to translate a lot of the print and script using a Lithuanian -> English on-line translator but the script is a little more difficult to do. I have posted the following items to Viewmate: Family Situation: http://www.jewishgen.org/viewmate/viewmateview.asp?key=16037 Passport Information: http://www.jewishgen.org/viewmate/viewmateview.asp?key=16038 Nationality: http://www.jewishgen.org/viewmate/viewmateview.asp?key=16039 Nationality: http://www.jewishgen.org/viewmate/viewmateview.asp?key=16040 A response on Viewmate or directly to msnodrog@yahoo.com Your help will be greatly appreciated. Thank yo in advance, Hope L. M. Gordon
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Wife of Kalman Klonimus SHAPIRA
#rabbinic
Debbie Lifshitz
Does anyone know where the wife of the Piaseczna Rov was buried? As
far as I know, she passed away in 1938 before the war. Many thanks for your help, Tzom Kal -- umetzapim li'yshu'a! Debbie Lifschitz Jerusalem
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Latvia SIG #Latvia Lithuanian Translation help-Viewmate
#latvia
ms nodrog
Dear Latvian Genners,
I am hoping that there is someone who can read and translate some small Lithuanian items. These are small snipets >from my Aunt's 1949 Internal Passports. I have been able to translate a lot of the print and script using a Lithuanian -> English on-line translator but the script is a little more difficult to do. I have posted the following items to Viewmate: Family Situation: http://www.jewishgen.org/viewmate/viewmateview.asp?key=16037 Passport Information: http://www.jewishgen.org/viewmate/viewmateview.asp?key=16038 Nationality: http://www.jewishgen.org/viewmate/viewmateview.asp?key=16039 Nationality: http://www.jewishgen.org/viewmate/viewmateview.asp?key=16040 A response on Viewmate or directly to msnodrog@yahoo.com Your help will be greatly appreciated. Thank yo in advance, Hope L. M. Gordon
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Rabbinic Genealogy SIG #Rabbinic Wife of Kalman Klonimus SHAPIRA
#rabbinic
Debbie Lifshitz
Does anyone know where the wife of the Piaseczna Rov was buried? As
far as I know, she passed away in 1938 before the war. Many thanks for your help, Tzom Kal -- umetzapim li'yshu'a! Debbie Lifschitz Jerusalem
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Digitized Latvian Newspapers
#latvia
Marion Werle <werle@...>
To take Bruce's posting farther (I have used this website before), once you
display the article, there are tabs across the top (Download PDF, Print, etc.). If you select "Text View", you can copy and paste it into Google translator and get an approximation of what the article is about. Marion Werle North Hills, CA From: Bruce Dumes <brucedumes@dumes.net> Date: Thu, 15 Jul 2010 17:02:48 -0700 Sorry if this is old news, but it is new news to me. The national digital library of Latvia has searchable digitized versions of a number of historical Latvian newspapers online. Most are in Latvian, 1 or 2 are in Russian. http://www.periodicals.lv The search tool works pretty well, and wisely ignores grammatical endings, so a search may be successful even if you haven't used the exact spelling of the word. Of course, whenever you are searching text which has a digital image as the source, you can expect plenty of errors. But it's a start!
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Latvia SIG #Latvia Digitized Latvian Newspapers
#latvia
Marion Werle <werle@...>
To take Bruce's posting farther (I have used this website before), once you
display the article, there are tabs across the top (Download PDF, Print, etc.). If you select "Text View", you can copy and paste it into Google translator and get an approximation of what the article is about. Marion Werle North Hills, CA From: Bruce Dumes <brucedumes@dumes.net> Date: Thu, 15 Jul 2010 17:02:48 -0700 Sorry if this is old news, but it is new news to me. The national digital library of Latvia has searchable digitized versions of a number of historical Latvian newspapers online. Most are in Latvian, 1 or 2 are in Russian. http://www.periodicals.lv The search tool works pretty well, and wisely ignores grammatical endings, so a search may be successful even if you haven't used the exact spelling of the word. Of course, whenever you are searching text which has a digital image as the source, you can expect plenty of errors. But it's a start!
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Family Finder - The Big Picture?
#dna
Martin Davis (com)
I received below a helpful clarification >from Max Blankfeld at FTDNA which I
am sure others would wish to see. Martin Martin Davis - London (UK) --- From: Max - Family Tree DNA [mailto:max@familytreedna.com] Martin, this is what I sent to Steven Bloom, who had similar questions. You are welcome to post it to the list: Here are the main problems that Jews have in trying to identify common ancestors - as you certainly know? a) lack of a common surname prior to late 1700?s early 1800?s b) inbreeding population c) many unrelated lines adopting same surnames d) many related lines adopting different surnames e) many surnames being adapted to the land where descendants moved in To put it in simple terms it makes the work for us, Jews, a little more complicated as we cannot trace people as easily as the others would be able to. Our trees in general are much shorter. It's harder for us to focus on a certain path/line. To do that we need more people to be tested, and combine more with Y, mtDNA and X to help identify lines given the combined results from all tests.So, in terms of a Family Finder result, a 3rd cousin match, given the inbreeding, may show a total value of centimorgans composed >from the combination of different lines due to that inbreeding, and thus, what the algorithm guesses to be a 3rd cousin, may in fact be a more distant cousin. Example: I had a case of a person that matched with my nephew (my brother?s son) as a 2nd cousin, and with me as a 4th cousin. If we were talking about matching with just one line, he should be 3rd, and I 4th. But because he may be adding blocks of DNA >from his maternal line (unrelated to me) to the relationship with that person, those blocks, adding up to the my main block with him, elevates by one generation his matching to that person. I hope this was not too confusing. Therefore, the names that don't make sense to you are there as a match because of inbreeding, which makes them look more closely related than they really are, and therefore unknown to us. Another example >from my own matches related to change of names: I have one match predicted as 4th cousin with the last name Rubio - typical Hispanic name (I also had the first and middle Hispanic names). My first reaction was, what is this name doing there?? Well, I checked his record and there's a note there: his ancestral name was Rubizewsky? well, I checked JewishGen and I saw 2 records >from a very small town in Belarus with the name Pinsk. And guess where my mother is from? Yes, you guessed it right: Pinsk! So, this is a most probable case of inbreeding, combined with a change, generations later, to a Hispanic name. In short, while you should not dismiss those "make no sense matches", you should certainly weight in all the factors I mentioned above. As we gather more Jewish samples we will be able to adjust the algorithm to reflect all those factors. In the meantime, I can tell you that we've already had several success stories coming out of the Family Finder test. E-mail me anytime! Max Blankfeld Vice-President, Operations and Marketing http://www.FamilyTreeDNA.com
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DNA Research #DNA Family Finder - The Big Picture?
#dna
Martin Davis (com)
I received below a helpful clarification >from Max Blankfeld at FTDNA which I
am sure others would wish to see. Martin Martin Davis - London (UK) --- From: Max - Family Tree DNA [mailto:max@familytreedna.com] Martin, this is what I sent to Steven Bloom, who had similar questions. You are welcome to post it to the list: Here are the main problems that Jews have in trying to identify common ancestors - as you certainly know? a) lack of a common surname prior to late 1700?s early 1800?s b) inbreeding population c) many unrelated lines adopting same surnames d) many related lines adopting different surnames e) many surnames being adapted to the land where descendants moved in To put it in simple terms it makes the work for us, Jews, a little more complicated as we cannot trace people as easily as the others would be able to. Our trees in general are much shorter. It's harder for us to focus on a certain path/line. To do that we need more people to be tested, and combine more with Y, mtDNA and X to help identify lines given the combined results from all tests.So, in terms of a Family Finder result, a 3rd cousin match, given the inbreeding, may show a total value of centimorgans composed >from the combination of different lines due to that inbreeding, and thus, what the algorithm guesses to be a 3rd cousin, may in fact be a more distant cousin. Example: I had a case of a person that matched with my nephew (my brother?s son) as a 2nd cousin, and with me as a 4th cousin. If we were talking about matching with just one line, he should be 3rd, and I 4th. But because he may be adding blocks of DNA >from his maternal line (unrelated to me) to the relationship with that person, those blocks, adding up to the my main block with him, elevates by one generation his matching to that person. I hope this was not too confusing. Therefore, the names that don't make sense to you are there as a match because of inbreeding, which makes them look more closely related than they really are, and therefore unknown to us. Another example >from my own matches related to change of names: I have one match predicted as 4th cousin with the last name Rubio - typical Hispanic name (I also had the first and middle Hispanic names). My first reaction was, what is this name doing there?? Well, I checked his record and there's a note there: his ancestral name was Rubizewsky? well, I checked JewishGen and I saw 2 records >from a very small town in Belarus with the name Pinsk. And guess where my mother is from? Yes, you guessed it right: Pinsk! So, this is a most probable case of inbreeding, combined with a change, generations later, to a Hispanic name. In short, while you should not dismiss those "make no sense matches", you should certainly weight in all the factors I mentioned above. As we gather more Jewish samples we will be able to adjust the algorithm to reflect all those factors. In the meantime, I can tell you that we've already had several success stories coming out of the Family Finder test. E-mail me anytime! Max Blankfeld Vice-President, Operations and Marketing http://www.FamilyTreeDNA.com
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Palenesky
#general
Cassio Tolpolar <tolpolar@...>
When researching for passengers of the ship Konig Friedrich August that left
Hamburg in 1912 to the final destination of Buenos Aires, I found a possible relative who was born in the town of "Palenesky", supposedly in Russia/former Soviet Union. I did an initial google search and nothing came out. I tried different spellings, but nothing too relevant came out either. Has anybody heard of this place, or a place with a similar name? Any suggestions? Thank you, Cassio Tolpolar www.moldovaimpressions.blogspot.com
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JewishGen Discussion Group #JewishGen Palenesky
#general
Cassio Tolpolar <tolpolar@...>
When researching for passengers of the ship Konig Friedrich August that left
Hamburg in 1912 to the final destination of Buenos Aires, I found a possible relative who was born in the town of "Palenesky", supposedly in Russia/former Soviet Union. I did an initial google search and nothing came out. I tried different spellings, but nothing too relevant came out either. Has anybody heard of this place, or a place with a similar name? Any suggestions? Thank you, Cassio Tolpolar www.moldovaimpressions.blogspot.com
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More Kudos
#ukraine
Bronkesh
As a first time conference attendee, I was overwhelmed by the extent of the programming and the knowledge of the those in attendance. I knew I was a novice, but the conference reinforced how much there is to learn. Thank you to all who were involved in the programming, hospitality and organization. I look forward to many future conferences! My mother, a Holocaust survivor, attended with me and thoroughly enjoyed herself. She was kept busy translating >from Polish, Russian and Yiddish for people. If you scan and send me what you need translated (as long as it isn't a long or complicated document), she will be happy to do more translations.
Sheryl Bronkesh Scottsdale, AZ sbronkesh@gmail.com Check out my family's Website www.beforeamerica.com
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Ukraine SIG #Ukraine More Kudos
#ukraine
Bronkesh
As a first time conference attendee, I was overwhelmed by the extent of the programming and the knowledge of the those in attendance. I knew I was a novice, but the conference reinforced how much there is to learn. Thank you to all who were involved in the programming, hospitality and organization. I look forward to many future conferences! My mother, a Holocaust survivor, attended with me and thoroughly enjoyed herself. She was kept busy translating >from Polish, Russian and Yiddish for people. If you scan and send me what you need translated (as long as it isn't a long or complicated document), she will be happy to do more translations.
Sheryl Bronkesh Scottsdale, AZ sbronkesh@gmail.com Check out my family's Website www.beforeamerica.com
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Records from AGAD archives (Fond 300)
#ukraine
Israel P
I have begun preparing a list of records that I plan to order >from the
AGAD archives. That order should be ready to go out end of next week. If you wish to join this order please contact me, after making sure that the records you want appear in JRI-Poland in the AGAD archives, fond 300. Israel Pickholtz Jerusalem
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Ukraine SIG #Ukraine Records from AGAD archives (Fond 300)
#ukraine
Israel P
I have begun preparing a list of records that I plan to order >from the
AGAD archives. That order should be ready to go out end of next week. If you wish to join this order please contact me, after making sure that the records you want appear in JRI-Poland in the AGAD archives, fond 300. Israel Pickholtz Jerusalem
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Re: Concentration Camp Victim Research- Beginner Questions for Experienced Researchers
#general
Gershon Markowitz <gershontikunim@...>
There are records with these names at http://www.yadvashem.org/ Go to the
toggle quoted messageShow quoted text
database of victims names, advanced search. Enter the town name and family name. Gershon Markowitz Larry Ward wrote:
In the course of genealogy research on my own (non-Jewish) and my wife's(Jewish) Where does one find documentation >from camps that can be researched? Any advice,
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JewishGen Discussion Group #JewishGen RE: Concentration Camp Victim Research- Beginner Questions for Experienced Researchers
#general
Gershon Markowitz <gershontikunim@...>
There are records with these names at http://www.yadvashem.org/ Go to the
toggle quoted messageShow quoted text
database of victims names, advanced search. Enter the town name and family name. Gershon Markowitz Larry Ward wrote:
In the course of genealogy research on my own (non-Jewish) and my wife's(Jewish) Where does one find documentation >from camps that can be researched? Any advice,
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