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.
Is it Secure?
Yes. JewishGen is using a state of the art platform with the most contemporary security standards. JewishGen will never share member information with third parties.
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?
No.
Can I post images, accented characters, different colors/font sizes, non-latin characters?
Yes.
Can I categorize a message? For example, if my message is related to Polish, or Ukraine research, can I indicate as such?
Yes! Our new platform allows members to use “Hashtags.” Messages can then be sorted, and searched, based upon how they are categorized. Another advantage is that members can “mute” any conversations they are not interested in, by simply indicating they are not interested in a particular “hashtag.”
Will all posts be archived?
Yes.
Can I still search though old messages?
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What if I have questions or need assistance using the new Group?
Send your questions to: support@JewishGen.org
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Follow this link: https://groups.jewishgen.org/g/main
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!
Will there be any ads or annoying pop-ups?
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
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Re: Reclaim The Records publishes Yonkers, New York birth and death records from late 19th and early 20th centuries
#announcements
#usa
Esther Brill
Mazal Tov = that’s wonderful. Thanks for all of your perseverance
Esther Levine Brill Looking for Jablonsky – Jankel,(Elchanan David), Mortchaj , Chaja ; from Szcuczyn and Golberg -Estera, Szelma , Itzko Branna from Grajewo
Sent from Mail for Windows 10
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Re: Sapanta
#romania
Peninah Zilberman
An idea
You can ask to be a member of fb
SIGHET GENERATIONS, and find other people with Spenta roots
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Re: Sapanta
#romania
Peninah Zilberman
Hi,
What are you looking for?
There is the Jewish cemetery in Spenta
Location 20 km. from the major city Sighet.
I stay in Sighet spring to fall
Except of this year due to COVID-19
Regards
Peninah Zilberman
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Some of the microfilmed Hungarian birth records I'm looking at have what appears to be an additional name (?) column(s) in Hebrew. Are these indeed names. And if they are, are they religious names (if so, whose? the children's or the parents?) It would be wonderful if they are, so helpful for research. Or are they a Hebrew equivalent of the Hungarian name given by the parents? Or wait, are these in Yiddish, not Hebrew--so they're Yiddish names? See attachment for a sample of what I'm talking about.
Erika Gottfried Teaneck, New Jersey
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Re: "His name was changed at Ellis Island"
#names
Art Hoffman <arthh@...>
According to family lore, when my father age 13 and/or uncle Morris age 15 first attended public school, their teacher could not pronounce their last name (Goichmann). The G sounded like "huh" and the ch was guttural sounding. The teacher said she would henceforth call them Hoffman. When they came home that day and told my grandfather. He said OK we are now Hoffman.
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Reclaim The Records publishes Yonkers, New York birth and death records from late 19th and early 20th centuries
#announcements
#usa
Asparagirl
HELLO, YONKERS! Reclaim The Records has won our Freedom of Information fight for the birth and death records from Yonkers, New York! They're now online, and free!
After literally years of negotiating and haggling (although luckily stopping short of yet another lawsuit), we are pleased to announce this first-ever publication of tens of thousands of late nineteenth and early twentieth century births and deaths for Yonkers. We've photographed the alphabetical indices, and for most years we were able to photograph the full birth and death registers, too! And none of these record books had ever been available to the public to use or browse before, not even on microfilm at a library. And the people listed in these records were generally not in the statewide birth and death indices that we previously acquired and published for New York. These photos are all new, and they're gorgeous. Here's a sample:  Click here to read our latest newsletter with all the details, and with direct links to all the now-online record books, which span from roughly 1875 to 1916, with a few gaps. Thanks go to our attorney Dave Rankin for handling all the legal paperwork that finally got the Yonkers City Clerk's Office to stop messing around and give the public our rightful access to these important historical records. And a special shout-out to our intrepid RTR board member Jonathan Webb Deiss for going on a road trip last October to laboriously photograph these books for us. And if you're happy to see these kinds of free (and copyright-free) historical records go online, we hope you'll consider making a donation to support our work -- so that we can do more of it, and reclaim more records for more towns and cities and states. We're a 501c3 non-profit organization, so donations may be tax-deductible in the United States. Enjoy the new records! And we have a lot more coming soon. - Brooke Schreier Ganz
Mill Valley, California
President and Founder, Reclaim The Records
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Chaim Menachem Pollak family, Belsky and Schonburg families of Brooklyn
#usa
Neil Rosenstein
Trying to make contact with the family of Eliot (Eli) Pollak who died
in 2010 and was a member of Congregation Etz Chaim in Midwood, NY. His children - Gloria married Simon (Sy) Belsy who died in 2020, Hedy Schonburg and Michael Pollak. They descend from the Furtcher-Horowitz rabbinical ancestry.
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Re: "His name was changed at Ellis Island"
#names
Feldman, Daniel
It is a fallacy that names were changed at Ellis Island. Immigration personnel used the names on the passenger manifest. They were forbidden to change any name as that might be contributing to fraudulent purposes. Immigrants changed their names after the fact . In New York State for instance, one could change their name merely by adopting the new one. It was legal as long as there was no attempt to commit fraud.
Daniel Feldman
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"His name was changed at Ellis Island"
#names
YaleZuss@...
I'd like to ask people to reserve judgment until I have received the document I requested from NARA. If it is what I expect it to be, it should resolve any serious questions about the "no-involuntary-name-change" meme. People need to understand that the process was nowhere near as pristine as advocates for the meme assume, and once one realizes how messy it was, all kinds of possibilities arise.
Incidentally, in reply to David Rosen, in my conversations with the USCIS Historians' Office, they reported that what happened in the case of Mary Johnson/Frank Woodhull was a change in listing rather than a change in name. The evidence I have establishes that she continued to live as Frank Woodhull.
Yale Zussman
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I'm grateful that JewishGen-created indexes to microfilmed Hungarian birth (and other vital) records contain so much data. But I understand that with limited resources only part of the data in the original records could be indexed. My question is, what (kinds of) information is contained in the un-indexed portion of the records? What are the categories of information, what are the names of headings for the columns with unindexed data?
-- Erika Gottfried Teaneck, New Jersey
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Re: "His name was changed at Ellis Island"
#names
Bob Roudman
Most if not all names were changed by the immigrant after arrival in the
US. Clerks were very careful not to change or modify names. Since the manifest was used as proof of legal arrival immigration and Nat would sometimes go back to the manifest to verify identities. Many times the declaration would mention the name change made by the immigrant. It is largely myth that the clerks changed the names at either Ellis Island or Castle Garden.
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Souza Mendes Foundation live stream of interesting discussions
#events
Yvonne Stern
Souza Mendes Foundation is live streaming two interesting events on the next week-ends: On June 28 the event is on the extraordinary life of concert pianist and Holocaust survivor Alice Herz Sommer and wll begin with the Oscar winning documentary about her life "The Lady in Number 6 — Music Saved My Life ". More details at: http://sousamendesfoundation.org/event/virtual-event-the-power-of-music/ On July 5th the event will discuss the story of celebrated Polish violinist Bronislaw Huberman (1882-1947) as shown in the documentary "Orchestra of Exiles" that tells his struggle to save the lives of almost 1,000 European Jewish musicians and their families, while forming the Palestine Symphony Orchestra, Its inaugural concert took place in Tel Aviv on December 26, 1936, conducted by Arturo Toscanini. This orchestra became the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, one of the best in the world. More details at : http://sousamendesfoundation.org/event/virtual-film-and-discussion-orchestra-of-exiles/
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Re: "His name was changed at Ellis Island"
#names
Sally Bruckheimer <sallybruc@...>
"However, family lore is that they had to
buy papers to travel from Lithuania to the United States, and could not get their own so bought them from someone named Goldberg" The thing is, there was no reason that they had to call themselves anything in particular in the US. Until driver's licenses and Social Security, they could be Rachmil Szmelkowicz one day, Hymie Goldberg the next, and Tom Jones the day after. Sally Bruckheimer Princeton, NJ
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Family GOLDBERG or BENJAMIN in New York
#usa
Seeking siblings Arthur, Ruth & Ada BENJAMIN in New York.
All 3 were born between 1905-1915 approx.
However, the siblings may have gone under their mother's maiden name.
Thus they’d have been Arthur, Ruth & Ada GOLDBERG (aka DOFF).
Their parents were called:
Annie/Eva DORF/DOFF/GOLDBERG (she was short and stout!) and
Abraham BENJAMIN (a slim man with a moustache)
There was a link to a lawyer in the Empire State Building
and the White House in Washington DC.
I am attaching photos of unknown family members.
I can email these privately, if they cannot be included in the posting.
Please only respond if you think these people are on your tree.
Thank you.
Daniel Gleek in London
daniel@...
   
-- Daniel GLEEK in London daniel@... Searching for: GLEEK/GLICK (Beisagola, Lithuania), ISOWITSKY/KUPCHIK (Dotchener, Poltava & Vorontzowka), GLIKMAN/GLUCKMAN, WEITZENSANG & LIDRAL/LEDDA (Warsaw,Poland), MARCUS (Varniai, Lithuania) etc.
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These birth two records for the same person, registered in the same town, each give a different birthplace. How did this happen and why? I can see that they’re from two different microfilmed volumes; what's the significance of that?
Teaneck, New Jersey
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Registration towns in Hungary
#hungary
The two records below are clearly the same marriage for the same two people, but registered in two different towns. Is this because the bride and groom were residents in different towns and hence from two different registration towns?
And was registration in their different regional registration towns required by law or regulation?
-
Erika Gottfried Teaneck, New Jersey
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Re: Seeking information on a village named Horodok, Vilna
#lithuania
kerrygreenhut@...
Is this the same as "David-Horodok"? My mother in law's family came from there, but I don't know much about it. They have a large, active organization in the Detroit, Michigan area.
Look on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/descendantsofdavidhorodok
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Re: Seeking information on a village named Horodok, Vilna
#lithuania
Shimona Kushner
Made a terrible mistake. This grandfather that was in Gorodok came from a village in the region called Kopach/Kopache, not Trellisy. Got confused between my grandfathers. Sorry. All the other information is accurate.
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Re: more information needed Re: Hessen Jews prior 1700
#germany
- HELLO CORINA.WHRE WE CAN SEE THE FAMILIES FROM HESSEN
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Raffi Jesin
My grandmother, Rosa Weisberg nee Brucha Horowicz grew up in Radom. She always spoke about how on friday nights her father would read to her from a youth newspaper or magazine about the spanish inquisition. She thought the paper was in yiddish and called the tribune.
There was a youth paper called the Tribune, but it was in polish and I could not find anything in it on the spanish inquisition, so perhaps she got the name wrong. It would really mean a lot if I were able to track down the actual paper her father used to read to her, but I have been hitting dead ends. so if anyone has any information that would be great. thank you
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