Yes, I am interested. By coincidence I just wrote to Yuri last week to do some research on my grandfather who was from Pinsk. However, I have just discovered that my grandmother Chana Goldie Shifrin may have been from Borisov. I also just learned that Barysaw is the name for same town. Yuri has done research for me in the past and he was able to dig up facts about my Breslin relatives from Tolochin, Belarus. I would really like to know if my grandmother Chana Golde Shifrin was from Borisov. I have seen the name Shifrin in the records of cemetery burials for Borisov and the 1879 Cheder school listing for Borisov. I am anxious to find out more information on Chana and would be happy to share the cost of further research. Diana Gleave dgleave1948@...

On Sat, Mar 20, 2021 at 07:11 AM, Elizabeth Jackson wrote:

4th cousin to remote, but a match none the less!

...
so this is my proof

This isn't proof.  Because the DNA testing companies see any DNA that is present in two individuals and is very rare in the overall population as evidence of a relationship -- even if the DNA is actually fairly common in Jews -- it's common for DNA testing to indicate that two Ashkenazi Jews are distant cousins when they aren't really any more related than any other two Ashkenazi Jews.  A "4th cousin" relationship is basically a 0.2% (1/500th) match, which can be nothing more than a coincidence.
 
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Stephen Weinstein
Camarillo, California, USA
stephenweinstein@...

My grandfather had 3 siblings, 2 with their father's surname and 2 with their mother's. Oddly, it was every other child, not the first two and the last two, and there were two girls and two boys, and the name didn't match genders either. None of us have ever been able to figure this out, and I'd love some guidance.

I replied to this the other day and for some reason , it never took . 

FYI the word for " bee" in Yiddish is " der bin"  . A beekeeper is a " Biner " .  "bril-YAHNT"  is one way of saying diamond in Yiddish  ( cognate of brilliant in English ) and could be the origin of the name Berland . You would have to dig into family lore to find out why they changed it to Berland . Sometimes,  people thought that families they married into had more prestigious names or sometimes there was a rift in the family or a second or third marriage . 

It is probable that as Mr. Jacobson says , it is a variant of " Benjamin , or given that it is another word with an "in" ending as is common in Russian surnames ( still could be from Benjamin,)  or could have a Hebrew derivation of some kind , or possibly could have a complicated derivation from a biblical reference to bees ( highly unlikely ) . I include the last possibility only because of Rose's recollection that it had something to do with bees.  It is more likely that the name was pronounced something like " Binin " and people thought it sounded like "Binen - bees " and came up with a " folk etymology " which is what Rose remembered . Of course , you can't overlook the possibility that Abe tinkered with the name to make it sound more Hebrew (??? ) 

I caution you against assuming that the surname has anything to do with a profession that someone had in the late 19th and early 20th centuries . First  of all , most Eastern European Jews did not take surnames until the beginning of the 19th century and and only some of them were related to professions . The fact the someone was a " painter" in the US and and a "tradesman" in Romny would not be connected to the surname their grandfathers would have taken on about a hundred years earlier . 

In sum , it is highly unlikely that the name has any connection to the profession of beekeeper and slightly less unlikely that it could have a remote biblical connection to bees just because "binen" means bees in Yiddish . 

Hope this helps . 
 
--
Henry H. Carrey

First try the Yad Vashem online database as names are always being added .

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Diane Jacobs, Somerset, New Jersey

I know that my direct ancestor Joel Hirsch Koppel was born in Hamburg in 1803. I also believe that his parents were Hirsch bar Koppel and Martha Koppel nee Abraham. Looking at the unindexed portion on LDS Films I found five pages of either birth records or indices in Yiddish (!) which I believe are from 1803 and I have copied to Viewmate at https://www.jewishgen.org/viewmate/viewmateview.asp?key=VM92729 through https://www.jewishgen.org/viewmate/viewmateview.asp?key=VM92733

for a total of 5 pages, including VM92730, VM92731 and VM92732. I'm looking for somebody who can read Yiddish to look through the five pages and find for me the line and page where the birth is located and translate it to English.

Thank you in advance.

Tom Koppel

Looking for advice how to find information on my Great-Aunt Elon (Ilona), Great-Uncle (Ernest) and their 9-year old son Egorn (Egon).  Their last name was Horovitz.  We believe they lived in or near Budapest, Hungary and were never seen or heard from again after early 1944.  My Grandmother visited with cousins in the 1970’s in Romania who told her about the family being taken away by the Nazis.  They were warned to go across the border to Romania to be safe.  Ernest, a doctor was taken away first.  My mother visited Yad Vashem some years ago and couldn’t find their names.  Where do I begin?

Andrea Gilles Briggs,
Beverly Hills, MI, U.S.A.

I don't pretend I'm an expert but I've been focusing on this sort of research during the past year and have found some strategies that have helped me.  Many of these fall into the category of general good practices for all genealogical research but I think there is a case to be made for doubling down with "reverse genealogy" where you are often looking at an over-abundance of confusing and contradictory records.  

First, keep good records.  This should go without saying, but it's a point hard to overstate.  In the case of reserve genealogy, you will be challenged with tracing individuals and families through name and location changes. Collecting details – even down apparent trivial facts – from each record or document you encounter will help you untangle identities as you move forward.   Record even seemingly unimportant information – a street address, occupation, workplace, names of witnesses, officiants, even physical characteristics mentioned.  And record your data in a spreadsheet or database format that will allow you to search and sort the information you collect.  If you have a family with a lot of members and you really take a fine-grained approach to data collection, the list is going to get long and harder to manage.  The ability to sort can be an especially powerful strategy, associating people with dates and locations.  This is also a tried-and-true method for tackling brick walls and you should just start by assuming that you will hit a brick wall at some point: so why not build the spreadsheet right from the beginning?

Next, look at everything.  You'll be surprised where something useful – sometimes revelatory – shows up.  Sometimes it's one easily-overlooked item that turns out to be your family's  Rosetta Stone.  Obituaries, for all their faults, can be a great source for tracing extended family forward (i.e. lists of surviving members).  Newspapers in general can be goldmine, esp. the turn-of-century society pages.  City directories can provide insights, often in pieces which can be assembled to reveal a bigger picture.  Common addresses can help identify family members, while occupations can distinguish those with common names from each other.  A list of such details culled from year-by-year directory entries can help sift through other records you come across, separating your family from others, or finding your family even when they change names, locations or occupations.

Last, it's a hard rule of Jewish genealogy that spelling doesn't count.  With reverse Jewish genealogy, names don't count.  In some cases you need to work hard to link people with different names and in others distinguish among different people with the same name.  Often the most reliable way of establishing who a person is, or isn’t, is through the correlating facts that trailed them along the way.  But only by collecting and recording the related facts will you have the tools to trace and distinguish between those from your family.

Getting down off my soapbox… I hope this is helpful.

--

Lee David Jaffe

Surnames / Towns:  Jaffe / Suchowola, Poland ; Stein (Sztejnsapir) / Bialystok and Rajgrod, Poland ; Joroff (Jaroff, Zarov) / Chernigov, Ukraine ; Schwartz (Schwarzman?, Schwarzstein?) / ? ;  Rappoport / ? ; Braun / Wizajny, Suwalki, Poland,  Ludwinowski / Wizajny, Suwalki, Poland

My father's great grandfather, Abraham Sonnenschein (b. ~1832 - d. ~1860) lived in Balassagyarmat
Abraham's wife was Henrietta Felsenburg, daughter of Marianna (Miriam) Lerner (~1784 - 1831) and
Moses Felsenburg (1772-1849).
Knowing that most Jews in a community knew each other, Ferencz Weisz most likely my father's family!

Aviyah Farkas 
Los Angeles

As I am trying to identify the young men in the 1st photo, I noticed how the first young man is dressed; it looks like a part of a uniform. I asked at one of the forums and someone sent me their photo of a man in a similar outfit. That man - in the 2nd photo - was from Slutzk and possibly belonged to a Zionist movement there.
Does anyone know whether this uniform was typical for a certain school, or a movement. For Slutzk or any other places as well? And what is written on the newspaper in the right photo?



Elena Boldyreva,
Toronto, ON, Canada,
Searching for Rogovins/Ragovins/Rogowins

I've posted two Lists of Registered Jews in Russian for which I would greatly appreciate a translation. I am only interested in the Moverman families that appear on the page.
They are on ViewMate at the following addresses ...
https://www.jewishgen.org/viewmate/viewmateview.asp?key=VM91641
https://www.jewishgen.org/viewmate/viewmateview.asp?key=VM91642
Please respond via the form provided on the ViewMate image page.
Thank you very much.

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Paul Moverman
Milford, NH USA

I don’t know the reason why, but my father-in-law spelled his surname Sorkenn while one brother spelled it Sorken and another Sorkin. They came from near Riga, Latvia.
Susan Kurtin Sorkenn

Its probably a mis-writing. As far as I know, the Polish name for Sophie is Zofia.
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Maryellen Tobiasiewicz
m_tobiasiewicz@...
family from: Bielsko-Biala powiat Poland
Gorlice powiat Poland
Lviv Oblast Ukraine

I am definitely interested in a pool for my ancestors from Barysow. My mother's  Minkov family left from this town, and I've hit a brick wall in obtaining information . Thank you very much for suggesting this! 
Sheila Nicole
Akron, OH

Ron Peeters asked how to display details of a list of Danzig records, which comes from our finding aid at https://www.jewishgen.org/danzig/findingaidpsa1497.php. At the top of that page, highlighted in yellow, are instructions for how to view scans of those records. Full transcriptions are not yet available and anyone who would like to volunteer to help with transcription/proofreading should please email me (the records are mostly written in Kurrent-style script).

Logan Kleinwaks
JewishGen Research Director for Danzig/Gdańsk
lkleinwaks@...

Hi Todd,
In our family research I find that when an ancestor  refers to "Neust[d}t" the reference means "new town".  In our case the town is Shirvinit, in Lithuania which was referred to by these alternating names. 
Here is a list of some places around Europe with Neustadt in the name follwed by another place name.

Neustadt - Wikipedia

Sincerely,
Jeanne (Lurie)

They must have changed their policy because

--
Diane Jacobs, Somerset, New Jersey