I've been asked by Petra Laidlaw, who isn't a member of this discussion
group, to pass the word around about an opportunity to raise the profile of
the history of the Jewish community in Islington, north London.

The site of the old North London Synagogue, in Barnsbury, has been
shortlisted for an Islington People's Plaque, which would mark it out as an
important piece of local heritage. Whether it gets a plaque depends on how
many votes it gets, and the competition is stiff.

Voting is now open, and runs to 31 July. Anyone can vote, and it's easy to
do online. Just go to
http://www.islington.gov.uk/islington/history-heritage/heritage_borough/bor_
plaques/Pages/peoplesplaques.aspx and click on the vote online link near the
top of the page. It is set up to allow one vote per person/computer.

Do pass the word on to anyone else who might be up for it. With all the
competition, it'll need to garner a lot of votes. But it's high time this
important corner of Jewish history was rescued >from oblivion.

Louise Messik
England

I've been asked by Petra Laidlaw, who isn't a member of this discussion
group, to pass the word around about an opportunity to raise the profile of
the history of the Jewish community in Islington, north London.

The site of the old North London Synagogue, in Barnsbury, has been
shortlisted for an Islington People's Plaque, which would mark it out as an
important piece of local heritage. Whether it gets a plaque depends on how
many votes it gets, and the competition is stiff.

Voting is now open, and runs to 31 July. Anyone can vote, and it's easy to
do online. Just go to
http://www.islington.gov.uk/islington/history-heritage/heritage_borough/bor_
plaques/Pages/peoplesplaques.aspx and click on the vote online link near the
top of the page. It is set up to allow one vote per person/computer.

Do pass the word on to anyone else who might be up for it. With all the
competition, it'll need to garner a lot of votes. But it's high time this
important corner of Jewish history was rescued >from oblivion.

Louise Messik
England

I need to obtain ketubah documents for some marriages that Ive been strug=

gling to trace. I thought that if I firstly obtained the marriage certifica=
tes it might help in knowing whether they were Jewish weddings and maybe wh=
ich synagogue. What then would be my next step to get the documents...Im in=
Australia....

Ann Lazarsfeld-Jensen

Charles Sturt University
Australia

| ALBURY-WODONGA | BATHURST | CANBERRA | DUBBO | GOULBURN | MELBOURNE | ONT=
ARIO | ORANGE | PORT MACQUARIE | SYDNEY | WAGGA WAGGA |

LEGAL NOTICE
This email (and any attachment) is confidential and is intended for the use=
of the addressee(s) only. If you are not the intended recipient of this em=
ail, you must not copy, distribute, take any action in reliance on it or di=
sclose it to anyone. Any confidentiality is not waived or lost by reason of=
mistaken delivery. Email should be checked for viruses and defects before =
opening. Charles Sturt University (CSU) does not accept liability for virus=
es or any consequence which arise as a result of this email transmission. E=
mail communications with CSU may be subject to automated email filtering, w=
hich could result in the delay or deletion of a legitimate email before it =
is read at CSU. The views expressed in this email are not necessarily those=
of CSU.

Charles Sturt University in Australia http://www.csu.edu.au The Grange Ch=
ancellery, Panorama Avenue, Bathurst NSW Australia 2795 (ABN: 83 878 708 5=
51; CRICOS Provider Numbers: 00005F (NSW), 01947G (VIC), 02960B (ACT)). TEQ=
SA Provider Number: PV12018

Charles Sturt University in Ontario http://www.charlessturt.ca 860 Harring=
ton Court, Burlington Ontario Canada L7N 3N4 Registration: www.peqab.ca

Consider the environment before printing this email.

I need to obtain ketubah documents for some marriages that Ive been strug=

gling to trace. I thought that if I firstly obtained the marriage certifica=
tes it might help in knowing whether they were Jewish weddings and maybe wh=
ich synagogue. What then would be my next step to get the documents...Im in=
Australia....

Ann Lazarsfeld-Jensen

Charles Sturt University
Australia

| ALBURY-WODONGA | BATHURST | CANBERRA | DUBBO | GOULBURN | MELBOURNE | ONT=
ARIO | ORANGE | PORT MACQUARIE | SYDNEY | WAGGA WAGGA |

LEGAL NOTICE
This email (and any attachment) is confidential and is intended for the use=
of the addressee(s) only. If you are not the intended recipient of this em=
ail, you must not copy, distribute, take any action in reliance on it or di=
sclose it to anyone. Any confidentiality is not waived or lost by reason of=
mistaken delivery. Email should be checked for viruses and defects before =
opening. Charles Sturt University (CSU) does not accept liability for virus=
es or any consequence which arise as a result of this email transmission. E=
mail communications with CSU may be subject to automated email filtering, w=
hich could result in the delay or deletion of a legitimate email before it =
is read at CSU. The views expressed in this email are not necessarily those=
of CSU.

Charles Sturt University in Australia http://www.csu.edu.au The Grange Ch=
ancellery, Panorama Avenue, Bathurst NSW Australia 2795 (ABN: 83 878 708 5=
51; CRICOS Provider Numbers: 00005F (NSW), 01947G (VIC), 02960B (ACT)). TEQ=
SA Provider Number: PV12018

Charles Sturt University in Ontario http://www.charlessturt.ca 860 Harring=
ton Court, Burlington Ontario Canada L7N 3N4 Registration: www.peqab.ca

Consider the environment before printing this email.

I have learned about to the existence of three online books that will
be of interest to rabbinic scholars and Galician researchers.

They are called "Matzevat Kodesh" (Matzeva of Holiness) and can be
reviewed, or downloaded, for free >from Hebrew Books.org at:

http://hebrewbooks.org/7021

The books cover information found on tombstones of "important
rabbis" of Lviv/Lemberg and those of some of their wives. The date
of 1868 appears on the first page, although I do not know the full
date range involved.

Gesher Galicia is looking volunteers who are native Hebrew speakers
or fluent in Hebrew who might be interested in creating an index of
names and dates in English so people could know who is covered in
this book. This information could be entered into a searchable
database, which would facilitate researchers getting full translations
of the pages related to their ancestry.

If you are interested in helping with this project (hopefully several
people could divide up the work) please contact me privately. If you
have insights to share about this book that would interest
researchers, please reply to the discussion group.

Pamela Weisberger
Gesher Galicia
pweisberger@gmail.com
www.geshergalicia.org

In Viewmate, I have posted a page (Viewmate #34341) >from a Vienna
emigration questionnaire, completed by Binenc Schneider, father of my
second cousin. If someone has the time, I would appreciate a word for
word translation.

thank you,

Michael Diamant
Hawaii

MODERATOR NOTE: The image is at
http://www.jewishgen.org/ViewMate/viewmateview.asp?key=34341
When making ViewMate requests, please provide a direct link.

I have learned about to the existence of three online books that will
be of interest to rabbinic scholars and Galician researchers.

They are called "Matzevat Kodesh" (Matzeva of Holiness) and can be
reviewed, or downloaded, for free >from Hebrew Books.org at:

http://hebrewbooks.org/7021

The books cover information found on tombstones of "important
rabbis" of Lviv/Lemberg and those of some of their wives. The date
of 1868 appears on the first page, although I do not know the full
date range involved.

Gesher Galicia is looking volunteers who are native Hebrew speakers
or fluent in Hebrew who might be interested in creating an index of
names and dates in English so people could know who is covered in
this book. This information could be entered into a searchable
database, which would facilitate researchers getting full translations
of the pages related to their ancestry.

If you are interested in helping with this project (hopefully several
people could divide up the work) please contact me privately. If you
have insights to share about this book that would interest
researchers, please reply to the discussion group.

Pamela Weisberger
Gesher Galicia
pweisberger@gmail.com
www.geshergalicia.org

In Viewmate, I have posted a page (Viewmate #34341) >from a Vienna
emigration questionnaire, completed by Binenc Schneider, father of my
second cousin. If someone has the time, I would appreciate a word for
word translation.

thank you,

Michael Diamant
Hawaii

MODERATOR NOTE: The image is at
http://www.jewishgen.org/ViewMate/viewmateview.asp?key=34341
When making ViewMate requests, please provide a direct link.

In Viewmate, I have posted a page (Viewmate #34341) >from a Vienna
emigration questionnaire, completed by Binenc Schneider, father of my
second cousin.If someone has the time, I would appreciate a word for
word translation.

thank you,

Michael Diamant
Hawaii

In Viewmate, I have posted a page (Viewmate #34341) >from a Vienna
emigration questionnaire, completed by Binenc Schneider, father of my
second cousin.If someone has the time, I would appreciate a word for
word translation.

thank you,

Michael Diamant
Hawaii

Gesher Galicia announces the addition of a new cadastral map to the
Gesher Galicia Cadastral Map Room:

"Debica Town Cadastral Map 1849"

A complete full-color lithographed cadastral map of the town of Debica
(Dembica, Dembitz, Debica), >from 1849. Land parcels and houses are all
clearly numbered; redline manuscript revisions show changes >from the
1849 edition intended for a later update. The map includes both
masonry and wooden buildings, a market square, two synagogues and a
large church complex, plus a Jewish and a Catholic cemetery. This map
depicts the town before its boom period in the latter half of the 19th
century, when it became a crossroads on Imperial rail lines connecting
Lwow, Krakow, and Sandomierz. Images for this map were provided to
Gesher Galicia by the Archiwum Panstwowe w Przemyslu.

Direct link: http://maps.geshergalicia.org/cadastral/debica-dembica-1849/

Today, Debica is a town in southeastern Poland with 46,693, the
capital of Debica County and since 1999 it has been situated in the
Podkarpackie Voivodeship; it had previously been in the Tarnow
Voivodeship. The town is part of the Kolbuszowa Region Research Group
(KRRG,) and there is a wealth of descriptive information on the town
here:

http://kehilalinks.jewishgen.org/kolbuszowa/debica/debica.html

Especially intersting, in light of what this map shows and the
historical background provided in the descriptive text, is the English
translation >from the Polish Geographical Dictionary (Slownik
Geograficzny Krolestwa Polskiego - Warsaw 1881) written 32 years
later, provided by William F. Hoffman:

http://kehilalinks.jewishgen.org/kolbuszowa/debica/debica10.html

Thanks to Gesher Galicia's Map Room coordinator, Jay Osborn, for
getting this new map online and to the Polish State Archives in
Przemsyl for their cooperation.

To view the entire map room collection go to:
http://maps.geshergalicia.org and to read and FAQ on the history of
cadastral maps in the Austro-Hungarian Empire go to:

http://maps.geshergalicia.org/references/index.html

Read about our Cadastral Map & Landowner Records Project:

http://www.geshergalicia.org/projects/cadastral-map-and-landowner-records/

Even if you are not a Debica researcher, I urge you to take a tour of
this charming, pastel-colored 1849 incarnation of a shtetl by clicking
the map link above and zooming in to (virtually) stroll around its
streets and neighborhoods.

Pamela Weisberger
President, Gesher Galicia
pweisberger@gmail.com
http://www.geshergalicia.org

JewishGen is proud to announce its 2014 pre-Conference update to the JOWBR
(JewishGen's Online Worldwide Burial Registry) database. The JOWBR database
can be accessed at http://www.jewishgen.org/databases/Cemetery/ If you're a
new JOWBR user, we recommend that you take a look at the first two
explanatory screencasts at
http://www.jewishgen.org/databases/Cemetery/Screencasts/

This update adds approximately 124,000 new records and 25,000 new photos.
The database is adding and/or updating 190 cemeteries. This update brings
JOWBR's holdings to 2.27 million records >from almost 4,400 cemeteries /
cemetery sections representing 85 countries!

Once again, donors for this update include a mix of individuals, Jewish
genealogical societies, historical societies and museums. We appreciate all
our donors' submissions and the transliteration work done by a faithful
group of JewishGen volunteers.

I want to particularly thank Eric Feinstein who has been helping me to find
and gain permission to add many of the German towns in addition to records

from under-represented countries. In addition, without our volunteer

transliterators, led by Gilberto Jugend, we would not be able to add the
information >from some very difficult to read photos.

Significant additions to the database include collections >from Cleveland,
Ohio and surrounding areas, Leeds, England, various German towns, Bialystok,
Poland, Chernigov, Ukraine, Shanghai, China, and an annual update >from the
US Veterans Administration. Please check our online cemetery inventory at
http://www.jewishgen.org/databases/Cemetery/tree/CemList.htm for a complete
listing.

We appreciate all the work our donors have done and encourage you to make
additional submissions. Whether you work on a cemetery / cemetery section
individually or consider a group project for your local Society, temple or
other group, it's your submissions that help grow the JOWBR database and
make it possible for researchers and family members to find answers they
otherwise might not. Please also consider other organizations you may be
affiliated with that may already have done cemetery indexing that would
consider having their records included in the JOWBR database.

Nolan Altman
NAltman@JewishGen.org
June, 2014

JewishGen is proud to announce its 2014 pre-Conference Update for the
Memorial Plaque Project (MPP) database. The MPP database can be accessed at
http://www.jewishgen.org/databases/Memorial/ The MPP database includes the
data >from plaques and Yizkor lists >from synagogue and other organizations.
Many of these sources include patronymic information.

This year, we added more than 30,000 records >from the US, Israel and Canada.
These records come >from 35 different synagogues and other institutions. A
big thank you to the work being done by the JGS of Greater Boston, The
Jewish Historical Society of South Carolina, the JGS of Montreal, and a
number of synagogues and individual donors.

We believe that the MPP is a good example of how users of JewishGen's
databases can "give back". If you are a member of a synagogue or other
organization with memorial plaques or Yizkor lists, please consider helping
us to grow this database. You can find more information on submitting data
at http://www.jewishgen.org/databases/Memorial/Submit.htm If you have
additional questions, please contact me directly.

For a complete listing of the institutions currently in the database, please
see http://www.jewishgen.org/databases/Memorial/tree/MemList.htm

Nolan Altman
NAltman@JewishGen.org
June, 2014

Dear SIG,

Many of you may remember our recent discussion of the
popular venue for Jewish marriages in Prague (ca. 1890-1935) known as
the Hotel Bristol.

For anyone interested, I have put together a
short compilation of our collective inputs on the institution and have
illustrated it with photographs of the buildings that once housed Hotel
Bristol. The file also includes a photo of the Bristol's "Marriage
Halls" >from a postcard dating to 1908. Presumably it shows the rooms in
which many of your Prague-based relatives and ancestors were wed.

Anyone interested should drop me a short email at pinardpr@yahoo.com, and I will be happy to forward you this brief, illustrated Word file on Hotel Bristol.

Shalom >from Prague,

Rick Pinard

Gesher Galicia announces the addition of a new cadastral map to the
Gesher Galicia Cadastral Map Room:

"Debica Town Cadastral Map 1849"

A complete full-color lithographed cadastral map of the town of Debica
(Dembica, Dembitz, Debica), >from 1849. Land parcels and houses are all
clearly numbered; redline manuscript revisions show changes >from the
1849 edition intended for a later update. The map includes both
masonry and wooden buildings, a market square, two synagogues and a
large church complex, plus a Jewish and a Catholic cemetery. This map
depicts the town before its boom period in the latter half of the 19th
century, when it became a crossroads on Imperial rail lines connecting
Lwow, Krakow, and Sandomierz. Images for this map were provided to
Gesher Galicia by the Archiwum Panstwowe w Przemyslu.

Direct link: http://maps.geshergalicia.org/cadastral/debica-dembica-1849/

Today, Debica is a town in southeastern Poland with 46,693, the
capital of Debica County and since 1999 it has been situated in the
Podkarpackie Voivodeship; it had previously been in the Tarnow
Voivodeship. The town is part of the Kolbuszowa Region Research Group
(KRRG,) and there is a wealth of descriptive information on the town
here:

http://kehilalinks.jewishgen.org/kolbuszowa/debica/debica.html

Especially intersting, in light of what this map shows and the
historical background provided in the descriptive text, is the English
translation >from the Polish Geographical Dictionary (Slownik
Geograficzny Krolestwa Polskiego - Warsaw 1881) written 32 years
later, provided by William F. Hoffman:

http://kehilalinks.jewishgen.org/kolbuszowa/debica/debica10.html

Thanks to Gesher Galicia's Map Room coordinator, Jay Osborn, for
getting this new map online and to the Polish State Archives in
Przemsyl for their cooperation.

To view the entire map room collection go to:
http://maps.geshergalicia.org and to read and FAQ on the history of
cadastral maps in the Austro-Hungarian Empire go to:

http://maps.geshergalicia.org/references/index.html

Read about our Cadastral Map & Landowner Records Project:

http://www.geshergalicia.org/projects/cadastral-map-and-landowner-records/

Even if you are not a Debica researcher, I urge you to take a tour of
this charming, pastel-colored 1849 incarnation of a shtetl by clicking
the map link above and zooming in to (virtually) stroll around its
streets and neighborhoods.

Pamela Weisberger
President, Gesher Galicia
pweisberger@gmail.com
http://www.geshergalicia.org

JewishGen is proud to announce its 2014 pre-Conference update to the JOWBR
(JewishGen's Online Worldwide Burial Registry) database. The JOWBR database
can be accessed at http://www.jewishgen.org/databases/Cemetery/ If you're a
new JOWBR user, we recommend that you take a look at the first two
explanatory screencasts at
http://www.jewishgen.org/databases/Cemetery/Screencasts/

This update adds approximately 124,000 new records and 25,000 new photos.
The database is adding and/or updating 190 cemeteries. This update brings
JOWBR's holdings to 2.27 million records >from almost 4,400 cemeteries /
cemetery sections representing 85 countries!

Once again, donors for this update include a mix of individuals, Jewish
genealogical societies, historical societies and museums. We appreciate all
our donors' submissions and the transliteration work done by a faithful
group of JewishGen volunteers.

I want to particularly thank Eric Feinstein who has been helping me to find
and gain permission to add many of the German towns in addition to records

from under-represented countries. In addition, without our volunteer

transliterators, led by Gilberto Jugend, we would not be able to add the
information >from some very difficult to read photos.

Significant additions to the database include collections >from Cleveland,
Ohio and surrounding areas, Leeds, England, various German towns, Bialystok,
Poland, Chernigov, Ukraine, Shanghai, China, and an annual update >from the
US Veterans Administration. Please check our online cemetery inventory at
http://www.jewishgen.org/databases/Cemetery/tree/CemList.htm for a complete
listing.

We appreciate all the work our donors have done and encourage you to make
additional submissions. Whether you work on a cemetery / cemetery section
individually or consider a group project for your local Society, temple or
other group, it's your submissions that help grow the JOWBR database and
make it possible for researchers and family members to find answers they
otherwise might not. Please also consider other organizations you may be
affiliated with that may already have done cemetery indexing that would
consider having their records included in the JOWBR database.

Nolan Altman
NAltman@JewishGen.org
June, 2014

JewishGen is proud to announce its 2014 pre-Conference Update for the
Memorial Plaque Project (MPP) database. The MPP database can be accessed at
http://www.jewishgen.org/databases/Memorial/ The MPP database includes the
data >from plaques and Yizkor lists >from synagogue and other organizations.
Many of these sources include patronymic information.

This year, we added more than 30,000 records >from the US, Israel and Canada.
These records come >from 35 different synagogues and other institutions. A
big thank you to the work being done by the JGS of Greater Boston, The
Jewish Historical Society of South Carolina, the JGS of Montreal, and a
number of synagogues and individual donors.

We believe that the MPP is a good example of how users of JewishGen's
databases can "give back". If you are a member of a synagogue or other
organization with memorial plaques or Yizkor lists, please consider helping
us to grow this database. You can find more information on submitting data
at http://www.jewishgen.org/databases/Memorial/Submit.htm If you have
additional questions, please contact me directly.

For a complete listing of the institutions currently in the database, please
see http://www.jewishgen.org/databases/Memorial/tree/MemList.htm

Nolan Altman
NAltman@JewishGen.org
June, 2014

Dear SIG,

Many of you may remember our recent discussion of the
popular venue for Jewish marriages in Prague (ca. 1890-1935) known as
the Hotel Bristol.

For anyone interested, I have put together a
short compilation of our collective inputs on the institution and have
illustrated it with photographs of the buildings that once housed Hotel
Bristol. The file also includes a photo of the Bristol's "Marriage
Halls" >from a postcard dating to 1908. Presumably it shows the rooms in
which many of your Prague-based relatives and ancestors were wed.

Anyone interested should drop me a short email at pinardpr@yahoo.com, and I will be happy to forward you this brief, illustrated Word file on Hotel Bristol.

Shalom >from Prague,

Rick Pinard

Dear Friends -

A few years ago, I posed this question to several
organisations , but received no definitive answer. With
perhaps some new eyes at the SIG, a new answer may be
forthcoming.

My great-grandfather, Moritz Nowak (1835-1916), was listed
in a Vienna business directory of 1895 as a
Schaetzungs-Commissaer, but I have not been able to
establish what this involved. I contacted the German embassy
to Australia, the Goethe Institute and several others. It
has been variously interpreted as a Valuer, or Commissoner
of Valuations, or even a Pawnbroker.

I wonder if perhaps he held some manner of official
appointment as a property valuer?

Moritz was a businessman, a pharmacist originally, a
manufacturer of liquors, property owner and active in local
government activities in Vienna until about 1892.

Responses welcomed!

Robert Fraser
Perth, Western Australia

Dear Friends -

A few years ago, I posed this question to several
organisations , but received no definitive answer. With
perhaps some new eyes at the SIG, a new answer may be
forthcoming.

My great-grandfather, Moritz Nowak (1835-1916), was listed
in a Vienna business directory of 1895 as a
Schaetzungs-Commissaer, but I have not been able to
establish what this involved. I contacted the German embassy
to Australia, the Goethe Institute and several others. It
has been variously interpreted as a Valuer, or Commissoner
of Valuations, or even a Pawnbroker.

I wonder if perhaps he held some manner of official
appointment as a property valuer?

Moritz was a businessman, a pharmacist originally, a
manufacturer of liquors, property owner and active in local
government activities in Vienna until about 1892.

Responses welcomed!

Robert Fraser
Perth, Western Australia