"From Shtetl to Hester Street"

Jewish Genealogical Society of Sacramento

Monday, September 15, 2008, 7 p.m.

Albert Einstein Center, 1935 Wright Street, Sacramento

How did your relatives make their way to a new life in America?  The September meeting of the Jewish Genealogical Society of Sacramento will focus on how Jewish immigrants traveled from Eastern Europe to America. 

Many immigrants left from the ports of Hamburg, Bremen, Rotterdam and Libau. Hear from our very own Allan Bonderoff about the various routes they took for their journeys before embarking on a new life in this country.  (Postponed from an earlier date.)

See you next Monday evening!

September 28, 2008

Upcoming Meetings  -- Mark Your Calendars!                                   Back to Sunday Schedule

Sunday, October 12, 10 a.m.  -- Unbricking Brick Walls

Sunday, November 9, 10 a.m.  -- Steve Morse on the Ellis Island Database

Sunday, December 14, 10 a.m.   -- Treasures from Our Attics

For the next meeting, October 12, you are the guest speakers -- it’s an opportunity for beginners or genealogy veterans to bring a research question that’s stumped you.   Take advantage of the wisdom of our members and get suggestions on breaking through the brick walls to find that relative listed or dig up a new document.

Notes from September 15, 2008 Meeting

President Mort Rumberg called the meeting to order and made several announcements.  The Sacramento Central Library will be holding two upcoming genealogy seminars this month -- September 21 on Vital Records Online and September 28, Searching for Soldier Ancestors.

JewishGen recently partnered with Ancestry.com, making its databases accessible on the Ancestry Web site.  (Art Yates noted that if you subscribe to Ancestry through the JewishGen Web site, the JewishGen site receives some remuneration.)

The Mormons will be holding a genealogy conference in early October in Chico, “Treasures of Your Past.

The Citrus Heights Rootcellar will celebrate its 30th anniversary October 8. They will meet at the Citrus Heights Community Center (on San Juan near Auburn and Old Auburn Blvd.), from 7 to 9 p.m.  All are welcome to attend.

The dates for the 2009 40th annual Southern California Genealogy Jamboree areFriday through Sunday, June 26-28, 2009.The deadline for the Call for papers has been extended through September 30.  The ethnic focus for the conference will be the British Isles (English, Irish, Scottish and Welsh).  The Jamboree is the largest genealogy event on the West Coast -- the 2008 event drew 1200 speakers, exhibitors and attendees.  For details: SCGSJamboree@..., www.genealogyjamboree.blogspot.com.

And Family History Day at the State Archives is Saturday, October 11 this year, from 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m.  We will have a table, and are seeking volunteers to staff it for an hour or two during the day.  The location is 1020 O Street, with easy light-rail access.

You can staff our table, then take advantage of these options:

1) Tour the State Archives.

2) Research in the Root Cellar Library.

3) Visit The California Museum for History, Women and the Arts.

4) Attend classes in the Archives' Preservation Lab.

5) Learn about resources at the State Archives, State Library, Sacramento Archives and Museum Collection Center (SAMCC), and the Sacramento Family History Center.

6) Meet the genealogical, historical and lineage societies.

7) Choose from 25 classes presented by top genealogy speakers.

Class topics new this year include:

* "Treasures Found in Libraries & Historical Societies" by Glenda Lloyd

* "Once Upon a Time: Genealogical Storytelling" by Cath Trindle

* "Using Military Records" by Sue Roe

* "E-books & Newspapers" by Lynn Brown

* "California Homestead Records" by Melinda Kashuba

* "Cussin' Cousins: An Open Forum for Frustrated Genealogists" by Linda Johnson

* "Using Legacy Software" by Carol Byers

For a full class schedule, event flyer, driving directions, parking and light rail information, visit http://www.sos.ca.gov/archives/archmonth2008b.html

Volunteer at our JGSS table and enjoy the festivities.

Mort noted that we had several members attend the international conference in Chicago last month.  He asked Sue Miller and Art Yates to give us a brief report.

Sue said it was the first international genealogy conference that she and Carl had attended.  “There were so many choices of what to attend, so we split up.” She also represented Mort in attended the presidents’ council meeting, where the society’s directors were elected.  Sue said there were 53 local genealogy societies represented at the conference, and about 780 attendees.

She and Carl purchased an extra syllabus set for our library as well as an audio CD set.  There was also a request for scanned documents being made available in the future, rather than cumbersome binders.

Upcoming international conference locations:

2009 -- Philadelphia

2010 -- Los Angeles

2011 -- Washington, D.C.

2012 -- Paris

2013 -- unknown

2014 -- Israel

Art Yates also attended; this was his ninth conference. “It was just as good as all the others, complete and well-run.”  If he were grading the hotels, however, he said this one, the Mariott on the Miracle Mile in Chicago, left much to be desired.

Art attended a talk by Gary Mokotoff on the International Tracing Service, where Mokotoff recounted his trip earlier this year, taking 20-30 people in to see the records which have been sealed in Germany for years. Each participant was provided with his own interpreter. More records are expected to be made available in the future.

Art also went to talks on British migration, the federal and state census and the annual Hungarian lunch.  He also heard a presentation from a representative of Family Tree Maker, advising people that if they buy the 2008 version at half-price ( a version with many problems), they would get the (improved) 2009 version for free.  Art says in the 2009 version, for any address, it will bring up a map.  It also brings up of all the addresses from the city you’ve entered.

“The highlight for me for me was trying to contact relatives in the Chicago area,” Art said.  He linked up with Debbie, who drove about two hours south from her home to meet him.

Gary Sandler also attended the conference, his first, and gave two presentations -- one on searching the Ellis Island records (he worked with Steve Morse on the software for the gold form), and the second on the use of  citations in keeping your records up to date.

Gary said he took advantage of the open lending library the Chicago and Illinois societies had assembled for the conference.  He also enjoyed the film festival -- films ran continuously from about 8 in the morning to 9 at night.  Gary also joined the Litvak SIG (special interest group) while he was there.

“There were generally seven different things to go to at any one time,” Gary said.

He learned that JewishGen is staffed by only three people -- “everything else is done by donations or volunteers.”
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Bob Wascou brought up our annual donation to the Einstein Center, which doesn’t charge us any rent for the meetings or our library space.  He said he learned they wanted to get a Nintendo Wii-- a motion was made and seconded, and approved, to have Bob pursue the purchase for our donation this year.

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Mark Heckman said he and Bob Wascou had finally completed their work computerizing our library.  They devoted about two years to the effort.  From now on, if you want to check out a book, you do it through the computer we’ll have on hand.

Mark noted that our recent speaker, Schelly Dardashti, has compiled a list of the 10
must-have” Ashkenazi and 10 “must-have” Sephardic books for a genealogy library.  We have all 10 of the Ashkenazi books, including newly revised versions of “Where Once We Walked” and “Russian Surnames.”   We have two on the Sephardic list.

Mark said the library was greatly underutilized, and encouraged members to take a look at what we have.  “We have a lot of good resources that are not online.”

We’ll be posting the list on our Web site. You can keep the book a month, bringing it back at the next meeting (or dropping it off to Gerry Ross at the Einstein Center).

And new books are being added all the time.  Thanks to Marv Freedman for the newest donation, “Canada’s Jews.”

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September Presentation

Member AllanBonderoff provided the September program, a talk entitled “From Shtetl to Hester Street.”

Allan described some typical emigration patterns from Eastern Europe, bringing it down to a personal level and describing one person’s journey in 1908.

“You hear that the Imperial Army of the Czar wants you, so you decide it’s time to leave,” Allan said.  “Between 1881 and 1914, 24 million Russian and Jewish people left Russia.”

How do you get your ticket? The best way is to have a relative in America buy the ticket.

Allan said Jews had to pay an exit fee to get out of the country. So one-third will convert, one-third will die, and one-third will leave the country.

Bribes to Russian civil servants were typical.

“This will be the most difficult journey of your life -- until your first New York subway ride.”

Allan said there were smugglers, and people usually left under cover of night.  The travelers would walk, or sometimes take small railroad cars. Once en route, you most likely would surrender your ticket to the guide.

“Germany and Austria were the best countries for Jews at the time, Russia was the last,” he said. 

In 1894, there was a German law that said if you’re going to New York, you could only sail on a German ship.  British ships were a lot cheaper, and many took a route from Germany to Britain to the U.S.

Allan said his grandmother and son were detained in a cell for a few months while writing relatives for money.

He said the Jewish community in England was not helpful -- “they didn’t want these country bumpkins here.”  He said there had been Jews in England going back to Roman times, including many Sephardic Jews.  There were many Ashkenazic settlements on the eastside of London, Allan said, from the fur trader days.

Allan said it usually took 2-3 days on the train, the about 3 days on the North Sea before the voyage to New York, which was about a week.  Once in New York, the first and second-class customers went through customs on the ship; a barge took the rest to Ellis Island.  (Those arriving before 1890 were processed at Castle Garden. They then might have boarded emigrant trains to the west.)

At Ellis Island, they wanted to be sure the arrivals were in top physical condition. The shipping companies had doctors that gave thorough physicals before sailings, otherwise they would have to take the passengers back home.

So the staircase at Ellis Island was a major test -- they had the immigrants walk up.  For those who huffed and puffed, some were allowed to stay, some were sent back.

When the immigrants were cleared at Ellis Island, they arrived at the Port of New York and then had to find transportation from the Battery to Hester Street. There was no subway to the Lower East Side until the 1920s.

New York was considered more anti-semitic than states such as Maryland, so some Jews took ships that arrived in Baltimore.

Allan noted that there was also a route from Odessa to Galveston, Texas, an important port for the cotton trade.  For those coming in from Siberia, they might disembark at Angel Island, near San Francisco.

________________

See you October 12 -- bring those brick walls!

Excerpts from Gary Mokotoff’s Sept. 14 and 28 Avotaynu E-Zines:

Morse Implements Phonetic Algorithm for Ellis Island Database

(Note -- Steve Morse will be talking to us about the Gold Form at our November meeting.)

Stephen P. Morse has given the Beider-Morse Phonetic Matching System (BMPM) its first practical application: the Gold Form of the Ellis Island Database located at Morse’s One-Step site http://stevemorse.org/. It does not replace the Daitch-Mokotoff Soundex (DM) option for searching surnames but is an alternative.

People who have used the DM Soundex option on JewishGen or the Ellis Island databases know that a major disadvantage is the number of false positives -- results that seemingly could not be variants of the surname sought. BMPM seeks to address that problem. But BMPM has its faults too -- it can generate false negatives; valid surnames may not appear in the results. This especially occurs in Anglicized (American) names based on the European names sounding alike to the American spelling but not phonetically equivalent. For example surnames that contain the European name “Silber-” invariably were Anglicized to “Silver-” even though they are not phonetically identical.

The proper strategy in using the two alternatives is to use the phonetic BMPM first. It uses far more sophisticated techniques than the DM approach and tends to produce more exact results. If you don't find the results you're seeking, then use the soundex variant.

BMPM was developed by Morse and Alexander Beider, author of numerous books published by Avotaynu about Jewish names. Gary Sandler (note -- a JGSS member) also assisted in the project by helping build the phonetic tables. The project had its genesis in the “Recreation of the Destroyed Communities of the Holocaust ” project of the International Institute of Jewish Genealogy.


NARA Has Online Immigration Indexes
Many years ago books were published that were indexes to passenger arrivals during portions of the 19th century from Germany, Ireland, Italy and Russia. The U.S. National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) now has these indexes on the Internet. They are:
    Germans to America 1850–1897
    Irish (Famine) 1846–1851
    Italians to America 1855–1900
    Russians to America 1834–1897

The databases are located at http://aad.archives.gov/aad/series-list.jsp?cat=GP44. The design of the site is a bit awkward. Data about each immigrant includes name, age and destination. Instead of including name of ship and arrival date, a Manifest Identification Number is provided. You must then go back to the page identified above and click the link to Manifest Header Data File to retrieve that information. My solution was to open up two pages (tabs) of my browser both pointing to the above URL. I used one to retrieve the data about the passenger and the second to retrieve the ship’s data.

The definition of “German,” “Irish,” “Italian” and “Russian” is not ethnicity but country of origin. Thus a Russian who came to the U.S. from England and listed his country of origin as “England” is not in the Russians to America database.

NARA has other databases online that they consider of interest to genealogists. They can be linked to at http://aad.archives.gov/aad/index.jspunder “Genealogy/Personal History.”

Site Shows in Which Countries a Surname Appears
There is an Internet site indicating whether a surname occurs in a number of countries throughout the world. The countries included are—as determined from the map shown at the site— U.S., Canada, Argentina, Australia, New Zealand, India, Japan and most of Europe but not Finland, Greece, Portugal, Czech and Slovak Republics, the former Soviet Union and Yugoslavia. The site claims its sources are telephone directories and electoral rolls. It is located at http://www.publicprofiler.org/worldnames.

Other statistics for a given surname include the most common forenames, top countries that include the surname including frequency per million inhabitants, top regions and top cities. If you click on a country, it displays frequency by region.

I found out, for example, that there are persons named Wlodawer (my paternal grandmother’s name) living in Germany and France.


Jewish Metrical Records from L’viv Archives Recatalogued
JRI-Poland and Gesher Galicia are creating a detailed inventory of the microfilms of Lviv State Archives in Ukraine that are at the Mormon Family History Library. The cataloging done by the Library was found to contain errors. The inventory, an Excel file download, is located at the JRI-Poland website at http://www.jri-poland.org/agad/lvivinventory.xls and on the Gesher Galicia website at http://www.jewishgen.org/Galicia/assets/images/LvivFilmInventories.xls. A description of the project can be found at http://www.jri-poland.org/agad/lviv.htm.


“Do I Have Jewish Ancestry?”
Every week I (Gary Mokotoff) get inquiries from Christians who think they may have Jewish ancestry. The typical profile is that they had a grandparent who was secretive about his/her past or that the family has a lot of “Jewish” given names such as Jacob, Joseph, Abraham, etc. Many of them have searched Avotaynu’s Consolidated Jewish Surname Index (CJSI) and found their ancestral surname on the list.

The most popular page in the avotaynu.com domain is not our Home Page but the Consolidated Jewish Surname Index located at http://www.avotaynu.com/csi/csi-home.htm.  The CJSI is a collection of surnames appearing in 42 databases some of which contain only Jews (i.e., Jewish Records Indexing-Poland project) or contain mostly Jews (i.e., Family Tree of the Jewish People).

The fact that you find a surname in CJSI does not necessarily mean that this surname is Jewish. This occurs for three major reasons:

    1. Jews and non-Jews share surnames. The third most common Jewish surname in the United States (after Cohen and Levy) is Miller. Clearly Miller in both non-Jewish and Jewish.

    2. Intermarriage and conversion. The fact that the surname McKenney appears in CJSI does not mean that Jews bore this name. One source of McKenneys is the Family Tree of the Jewish People, a database of family trees developed by Jewish genealogists. But these trees would also include non-Jewish branches of families.

    3. Nature of database. Some of the databases named are predominantly Jewish but do contain non-Jewish individuals. An example is the Russian Consular Records database of people who transacted business with the Czarist consulates in the United States.

If the surname appears in one of the four Jewish surname dictionaries published by Avotaynu (Russian Empire, Galicia, Kingdom of Poland and German) or in one of the databases of Sephardic names, then the author’s sources were compelling enough for them to consider the surname Jewish.

Jewish given names is a poor source of the likelihood a family is Jewish, unless the given names are uniquely Jewish. Biblical names such as Jacob, Joseph and Abraham are not uniquely Jewish given names. Malka, Chaim and Feivel are. My experience has been that people who make inquiries based on given names are invariably people with German ancestry where use of Biblical given names was common.

Unbricking the Brick Walls

Sunday, October 12, 2008, 10 a.m.

Jewish Genealogical Society of Sacramento

Albert Einstein Residence Center, 1935 Wright Street, Sacramento

Whether you’re a newcomer to researching your family tree or a longtime genealogist, sooner or later you find yourself stumped.  Why isn’t Aunt Minnie in the Ellis Island database?  Where is Grandpa Myron in the 1880 census?  You have a town name, but don’t have a clue as to what country it is now. 

Bring your tough questions and take advantage of the collective wisdom of our members.  In past sessions, we’ve been able to offer good suggestions to help people surmount their research problems.  It's also prompted some spirited discussions.

All are welcome to attend the Sunday, October 12, 10 a.m. meeting at the Albert Einstein Residence Center, 1935 Wright St., Sacramento.  

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Ellis Island adding histories of Indians, slaves, new arrivals

By Mercury News Wire Services

Article Launched: 09/25/2008 02:00:12 PM PDT

Favourite genealogy websites  -- Roots to the Past  (a  Canadian perspective)

Published Tuesday October 14th, 2008

by Diana Lynn Tibert, New Brunswick, Canada

Each week, I spend hours visiting genealogy-related websites. Many are visited only once, but I've worn an electronic path to the front door of many others. Below are my top 10 favourite places on the Internet.

Like many genealogists, my research takes me all over Atlantic Canada, so some websites contain information for specific provinces while others cover the entire country.

1. Library and Archives of Canada (www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/index-e.html) which also includes the Soldiers of the First World War database (www.collectionscanada.ca/archivianet/cef) with digital images of attestation papers, and the Canadian Virtual War Memorial (www.vac-acc.gc.ca/remembers/sub.cfm?source=collections/virtualmem) containing details on Commonwealth soldiers killed in action in past wars.

2. Archives: A vast amount of information can be found on each provincial archives website. Often, data overlaps provincial boundaries, so regardless of which province you are researching, take a look at the archives in the nearby provinces: a. Provincial Archives of NB (including Daniel F. Johnson's NB Newspaper Vital Statistics database): http://archives.gnb.ca/Archives/Default.aspx?culture=en-CA.;b. NS Archives and Records Management (including the NS Historical Vital Statistics): www.gov.ns.ca/nsarm.;c. The Rooms, NL: www.therooms.ca.;d. Public Archives and Records Office of PEI: www.edu.pe.ca/paro.

3. Canada GenWeb site (www.canadagenweb.org): Contains genealogy information on Canada, as well as, links to each province and territory.

4. Automatic Genealogy (www.automatedgenealogy.com/index.html): Contains free access to transcribed census pages and digital images of the original forms for the 1911, 1906 (Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba), 1901 and 1851 (Upper and Lower Canada) Canada Censuses.

5. Immigrant Ships Transcribers Guild (http://immigrantships.net): The best website I found for finding ships' lists. Literally thousands of passenger lists have been transcribed and posted.

6. Newfoundland's Grand Banks Genealogy Site (http://ngb.chebucto.org): Contains extensive genealogy information for Newfoundland and Labrador and is a must visit for anyone researching family connected to this province.

7. Lost at Sea: Fishing? It Was a Way of Life (http://web.archive.org/web/20011125174009/www.lostatsea.ca): Contains information on the many who went to sea, but did not return home. This includes information on seaman and ships of various industries from locations all along the Eastern Seaboard.

8. Cyndi's List (www.cyndislist.com): If it's on the Internet and genealogy related, you'll probably find it on this massive website.

9. The Perpetual Calendar (www.wiskit.com/calendar.html) is handy when looking for a particular day. For example, if an obituary published Oct. 5, 1879, states the person died last Friday, the calendar will tell you it was Oct. 3. Herb's Calendar Wizard page does calendar calculations for you, taking into consideration the adoption of the Gregorian Calendar.

10. Google.ca (www.google.ca) is the first search engine I use when trying to locate any information I can't find on my book-marked websites.

All these websites and many others can be found on my Family Attic website: www.thefamilyattic.info/Roots.html.

Thu Oct 9, 2008 8:31pm EDT

By James Hibberd

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - "Survivor" producer Mark Burnett is developing a remake of the classic TV show "This Is Your Life."

The show, which surprises celebrity guests with people from their past, launched as a radio program in 1948. It aired as a TV series on NBC from 1952-61, and then had a brief revival in 1972.

NBC and Fox also are developing genealogy reality shows, where researchers discover secrets about participants' ancestral history.

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See you Sunday, November 9!

Tips for Searching the Ellis Island Database

Sunday, November 9, 2008, 10 a.m.

Jewish Genealogical Society of Sacramento

Internationally renowned genealogist Steve Morse will return to Sacramento to share tips on navigating through the Ellis Island database.  His talk is entitled, “What color Ellis Island search form should I use?”

In April 2001 the Ellis Island ship manifests and passenger records went online.  A few weeks later Steve created the One-Step Ellis Island Web site to make this resource easier to use.  Since that time the One-Step site has been greatly expanded to include new search capabilities and an array of color-coded search forms.

This talk will describe the evolution of the Web site from both a historical and a practical perspective, and provide a beacon for navigating through this color maze.

All are welcome to attend the Sunday morning, November 9 meeting at the Albert Einstein Residence Center, 1935 Wright St., Sacramento.

Documents trace lives of Jews worldwide

     October 29, 2008 - 6:05PM

A genealogy Web site has brought the famed Schindler's List into the 21st century - putting it online to help potentially thousands of Jewish families to trace their personal history.

Ancestry.com has obtained 26 million documents relating to Jewish history and placed them on the website, among them Schindler's List.

The list, made famous by an Oscar-winning film, contains the names of almost 2,000 Jews working for Oskar Schindler, a German businessman who employed them in his factories in Poland and the Czech Republic in order to save them from being sent to Nazi concentration camps.

Many of the documents are online for the first time - from photographs and immigration data to memorials offering first-hand accounts of the Holocaust and its aftermath. Also on the site are records about displaced Jews provided with food, medical care, clothing and emigration assistance.

One database is a registry of more than one million Jews buried in thousands of cemeteries worldwide.

Ancestry.com Debuts Jewish History Collection

From Ancestry.com's press release: Popular genealogy Web site Ancestry.com claimed Wednesday that it now boasts the world's largest online collection of Jewish family history records. The Provo, Utah-based company said it assembled the collection of historical documents through a partnership with a pair of Jewish heritage organizations—JewishGen and the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee.

For those with (paid) access to Ancestry.com, Bob Wascou passes on this announcement:

Gary Mokotoff is the editor of Avotaynu and one of our previous JGSS speakers in Sacramento.

Updated Topic for Steve Morse November 9

Steve Morse’s presentation next Sunday has evolved from a focus on the Ellis Island Web site to what he calls  “One-Step Web Pages: A Hodgepodge of Lesser-Known Gems” on the http://www.stevemorse.org site.  “This talk describes those gems you might not otherwise be aware of.  They range from problems with genealogical searches to to identity theft problems to DNA,” Steve writes.

Mark Your Calendars:

Sunday, December 14, 10 a.m. “Treasures from our Attics”

Start thinking now of what heirloom, photo or document you can bring to share with us from your family.  This usually proves to be one of the most fascinating meetings of the year

And Upcoming in 2009:

Sunday, January 18 - Barbara Leak, Naturalization Records

Sunday, February 15 - Gary Sandler, Using One-Step:  How I found my family in
        Ellis Island records and so can you

Sunday, March 15 - Allan Dolgow, What Steve Morse Never Covers and also Allan's extensive trip to the old country.

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A big thank you to President Mort Rumberg for providing these great minutes from the November 9 meeting.

Jewish Genealogy Society – Sacramento

Minutes of Meeting, November 9, 2008

President Mort Rumberg called the meeting to order and made several announcements:

First was a thank-you letter from the Einstein Residence Center Executive Director, Leslie Finke, thanking the JGSS for presentation of our Hanukah gift to them.  The gift was a Nintendo Wii for the seniors of the Albert Einstein Center. 

Mort announced that Bob Wascou is one of the coordinators for a new IAJGS project:  to computerize the Jewish records of the Wiener Stadt and Landesarchiv (Vienna City and Provincial archive) filmed by the LDS Family Search – Record Services.  Volunteers who would like to participate can contact Bob.  Mort mentioned that he is a volunteer engaged in the L’viv vital records project and the work is not complex and involves transferring data from the record to a spreadsheet.  He encouraged members to volunteer.

Since there were several new guests at the meeting, Mort suggested they introduce themselves and indicate their research objectives.  As always, guests were encouraged to join JGSS, and benefits of becoming a member were mentioned.

Mort introduced our speaker, Steve Morse.  Steve’s presentation was “A Hodgepodge of Lesser-Known Gems.”

The presentation began with a brief history of how these search gems were an outgrowth of his one-step web pages and Ellis Island presentations.  Originally they were destined for the cutting-room floor, but have become so useful, they've been resurrected.

Steve Morse’s one-step pages offer the following search tools:

#  Obtaining Ship Records – Initially, the film image covered only the left half of the manifest.  Steve had to use the LDS records.  First he had to locate the microfilm and search for the subject.  After much effort he found the right half of the manifest.

#  To get information from gravestones - Use the one-step Web site, enter the date of death - it automatically converts dates, including Hebrew, to secular. 

#  To find people who lost lives in wars – Israel’s Fallen, a Web site in Hebrew.  One-step walks you through the process in English and transliterates foreign words into English.

Also, Russia’s Fallen – is a Web site in Russian, but the one-step site does searches in English and brings you to the original documents.

#  Table Lookups are often daunting because of so much detail.  One-step offers several simple table lookups. 

Country Codes -  a matrix displaying all country codes

Telephone Codes – a table of every prefix

Credit Card Numbers – this one-step program decodes social security numbers.  There is a three digit recorder which tells where it was issued and the range of date of issue;  the five digit recorder tells where and specifically when it was issued

# Finding Birthdays from Vital Records

#  DNA – shows DNA markers and allows updating.  Accommodates 12 to 37 markers.  You can build a group chart, for example with father’s cousin, mother’s cousin, etc., to see if they’re actually related.  It also shows distance (close match or not).

You can determine early migration using haplogroups.  Originally maps depicting migration were quite complex, so one-step has a simplified map to show your ancestral trail of migration.

#  eBay Submission – shows bids, chronology of each bid.

#  Universal Book Marks – lists access to them, allows management.

#  Lat/Long. – provides calculations using one-step and also provides distance between lat/long points.

#  Rural area searches of federal cnsus – When names are pronounced with a heavy accent, the recorder writes the name as he hears it (or thinks he heard it), which makes it difficult to find the person.  The one-step site uses Enumeration District (ED) to narrow the search and locate the person.

#  One-step has a Mass Mailer, which allows a person to send out mass mailings (but it is the private section.  You need to contact Steve for use of this tool.

Where is the One-Step site?  Go to:  www.stevemorse.org

Interested in a Lithuanian Trip?

This came in by e-mail from member Shelley Harris Ross. .

Please let the Sacramento JGS folks know that my sister Nancy and I went to Lithuania this past summer with the (Howard) Margol- (Peggy) Freedman Group. If anyone is interested in going and has questions about the trip they can contact me directly for my candid comments. Regards to all from sunny Southern Cal. 

Shelley can be e-mailed at shelleyhross@...

from RootsWeb  October 8, 2008

Genealogy Tip

By Joan Young

Archaic and Unfamiliar Terminology in Genealogical Research

You have received your great-grandfather John MAIR's death certificate. The certificate tells you he died of "phlegmonous erysipelas." In reading your Grand-aunt Martha's diary you learn that her sister was afflicted with "ablepsy" and that your Uncle Alfred suffered from "dropsy." In the diary you also read that John MAIR worked as a "dyker" in his native Scotland. Martha's husband was a "cordwainer" and Uncle Alfred was working as a "huckster."

Genealogists frequently encounter archaic, foreign, regional, or merely unfamiliar terminology for causes of death and illnesses, as well as for our ancestors' occupations.

ILLNESSES, DISEASES, AND OTHER ARCHAIC MEDICAL TERMINOLOGY
The following Web sites are among many I've used over the years to learn the meanings of terms no longer in common use or with which I wasn't familiar:
http://rmhh.co.uk/illness.html (Illnesses.)
http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~billingh/disease.htm (Diseases.)
http://www.neonatology.org/classics/old.terms.html (Terms concerning neonatology.)
http://www.antiquusmorbus.com/Index.htm (Archaic medical terms.)

DISASTERS—NATURAL and MANMADE
Sometimes the factors involved in ancestral deaths could indicate that family members died as the result of a disaster. Disasters should be considered when multiple family members died at exactly the same time. A disaster could be an earthquake, flood, fire, shipwreck, mining accident, train wreck, etc.
http://www.cyndislist.com/disasters.htm (Disasters.)

EPIDEMICS
Deaths of more than one person over a short time period (but not necessarily on the same day), especially when children are involved, might indicate an epidemic caused by the flu, typhoid, yellow fever, or any other contagious disease.
http://www.cyndislist.com/disasters.htm#Epidemics (Epidemics.)

OBSOLETE AND UNFAMILIAR OCCUPATIONAL TERMS
Unfamiliar occupational terms and obsolete occupational terminology often varies from country to country or even from region to region within a country.
http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~wiashlan/occupations.html (American.)
http://www.olivetreegenealogy.com/misc/occupations.shtml (Medieval English and early New World.)
http://rmhh.co.uk/occup/index.html (United Kingdom.)
http://www.worldroots.com/~brigitte/occupat.htm (German occupations and illnesses.)

A quick review of the sites referenced here reveals that your great-grandfather died of a severe inflammation and fever, Martha's sister was blind, and Uncle Alfred had swelling or fluid retention (edema). Your great-grandfather worked as a stonemason in Scotland. Martha's husband was a shoemaker and Uncle Alfred sold small wares.

                                                                  --------------

From Gary Mokotoff's Avotaynu’s E-Zine

Library and Archives of Canada has a Web site called the Canadian Genealogy Centre withan index to nearly three million records in a variety of categories. It is located at http://collectionscanada.ca/genealogy/index-e.html. I  (Gary Mokotoff) could not find a simple list of the entire collection, but you can find it by clicking “Search fo Ancestors (Databases).” On the following page click the drop-down menu on the line “Topics.” For example, they have 830,2311 immigrations records from 1925–1935.

If you have interest in Canadian research, the entire Web site has information that may be of value. Under “Other Web Sites” it introduces you to AVITUS, a directory of Canadian genealogical resources. Using the keyword “Jewish” it provided links to the various Jewish genealogical societies in Canada as well as the site of the International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies.

South African Research
The South African Jewish Rootsbank has a number of databases about the Jewish presence in that country. These include vital records as well as military, community, congregational, cemetery, immigration and naturalization records. They claim that 95% of all South African Jewish burial records are online. Immigration records cover the years 1895–1925. The site is located at http://chrysalis.its.uct.ac.za/CGI/CGI_ROOTWEB.exe?entry_point=Home.

 
New FamilySearch Site
I have avoided making readers aware of the new FamilySearch -- the Mormon Church genealogy site -- because most of the databases are duplicated at other free sites (Examples: Ellis Island records and Social Security Death Index) and are Christian records or pre-1880 U.S. records.

But there now are a few databases that might be of value to Jewish researchers (Example: Philadelphia Marriage Index 1885–1951). Another possible index of value might be Rio de Janeiro civil registrations, 1886–2006. The site is located at http://pilot.familysearch.org/. If you get too many hits because the results include the Ellis Island database and Social Security Index, it might be easier to search just a particular record group, by clicking on the map on the home page. This will provide a list of all the record groups for that geographic area

Incidentally, it was the Mormon Church that indexed the Ellis Island Database located at EllisIsland.org using thousands of volunteers. They donated it to the Statue of Liberty - Ellis Island Foundation who placed it on the Internet.


Ancestry.com Adds French Vital Records Index
Ancestry.com has added Parisian vital records indexes and images to their site. Specifically they are:
    • Paris, France & Vicinity Births, 1700–1899 (in French)
    • Paris, France & Vicinity Marriages, 1710–1907 (in French)
    • Paris, France & Vicinity Deaths, 1707–1907 (in French)
    • Paris, France & Vicinity Marriage Banns, 1860–1902 (in French)

All told, there are some 13 million entries.


Scottish Resources
An official government Web site, http://www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk/, provides many records about the people of Scotland. This includes births, 1855–2006; marriages 1855–1932; deaths 1855–2006; and censuses from 1841 to 1901. At its home page, you can do a surname search and the results will show how many hits there are for each record group. Unusual for a government site, there is a fee to see even the index portion of the actual results. You can purchase 30 credits for £6 (about $10). The charge is one credit for each page viewed of the index and five credits to retrieve the actual record, if available. I did a broad search of the surname Levy in the birth records. The results were available on 24 pages. Each page would have cost one credit to view.


Holocaust Site: Jewishtraces.org
A Web site, http://www.jewishtraces.org/, has an index to various records of people caught up in the Holocaust. Their latest addition is a list of Jewish refugees who were allowed to enter Switzerland, primarily between 1942 and 1945.  

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And, for  your next research trip to Salt Lake City ...

Foodie Outposts Add Spice To Salt Lake City's Menu

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp- dyn/content/article/2008/11/14/AR2008111401610.html

                                                         ---------------------

See you Sunday, December 14 with your family heirloom!

December 27, 2008

Upcoming Meetings --  Mark Your Calendars

Sunday, January 18, 10 a.m.  -- Barbara Leak, Naturalization Rules and Records

Sunday, February 15, 10 a.m.  -- Gary Sandler,  How My Family Unexpectedly Materialized in Ellis Island Records

Sunday, March 15, 10 a.m.  -- Allan Dolgow -- Ukraine Scrapbook

Membership Dues Due

If you haven't had a chance to pay your 2009 dues yet, bring a $25 check made out to the JGSS for treasurer Allan Bonderoff to the January meeting, or mail it to him c/o the Einstein Residence Center, 1935 Wright Street #116, Sacramento, CA 95825.  Your dues allow us to make library acquisitions and pay expenses for our speakers.  Any extra donations you'd like to make would be greatly appreciated.

Genealogy Classes Offered

The Folsom Cordova Unified School District  and San Juan School District are both offering genealogy classes beginning in January.  These include Beginning Family History, Intermediate Genealogy, Ancestry.com, Using Roots Magic Version 4, New Family Search and Computerized Genealogy.

It’s unclear when registration deadlines are; for further details, contact

Folsom Cordova Unified School District

916-635-0905

Folsom Cordova Online Registration

http://www.fcusd.org/AdultEd/

and  San Juan Spring 2009 Catalog & Registration Form

http://www.sanjuan.edu/Winterstein.cfm?subpage=81685

Mail In Registration Form Only

http://www.sanjuan.edu/files/filesystem/RegistrationFormSpring2009.pdf

December 14, 2008 Meeting

President Mort Rumberg called the meeting to order.  He provided an overview of upcoming meetings: in January we’ll hear from Barbara Leak re naturalization records; in February, it’s our 20th anniversary party -- “there’ll be a surprise for everyone” along with a presentation by Gary Sandler on his success with Ellis Island records; March will feature Allan Dolgow on his recent trip to the Ukraine; and April we’ll hear from Steve Morse on another way to do name matching, to get closer to the records you’re seeking.

Mort noted that Sue Miller is recovering from knee replacement surgery, and we send her our best.

Every quarter, the Sacramento Valley Genealogical and Historical Council meets.  Mort said they now have an updated speaker’s directory.  If you know of anybody who would like to be a speaker, let Mort know.  We have the speaker’s directory both on paper and CD.

Dave Reingold mentioned he is involved with the Florin Historical Society, for those who might be interested, or know of a possible speaker.

Mort discussed the possibility of what happens when a speaker doesn’t show up -- what options do we have?  Some suggestions -- learning more about JewishGen online; watching the “Brooklyn and Soto” video on Los Angeles; watching a video on the Dead Sea Scrolls.  Sid Salinger  mentioned his “Googling for Grandma” genealogy talk;  it was also suggested members could each share their backgrounds and what they’re searching for.

Bob Wascou noted that our library now has a copy of the CDs from the Chicago conference, donated by Carl and Sue Miller, along with a printout of what’s on each disk.  The CDs are available to be checked out of the library, and each one has an index.

Bob proposed that we again make a donation to JewishGen of $100 and suggested that everyone who uses it also make a contribution.  For a donation of $100 or more, you receive immediate notification of someone searching your name on FamilySearch.  Bob said he went into the JewishGen database, researching his father’s mother’s line, through the Bessarabia database (of which he’s in charge) -- one hit of his name from the Message Board, from a woman who wrote him, turned out to be a relative -- “her grandmother was my father’s first cousin.”

December Program

Our December program featured “Treasures from our Attics.”  Those attending shared items of personal family interest.

Marv Freedman brought in a mortal and pestle which his mother’s family brought from Russia.  He recalls whenever he was sick his mother would put in by his side and he’d ring it if he needed anything.  Marv also mentioned that his mother had huge copper pots brought from Russia and used for things like soup and gefilte fish.

Susanne Levitsky shared a 1910 photo of her great-grandfather in front of his general store in Yolo County, and a framed Christmas-time grocery ad from the store from 1931, that she has up in her kitchen.  Many of the products included in the ad are still around today.

Gerry Ross showed a gold ring with initials that belonged to her great-grandfather who died when she was about four.  Gerry was given the ring when she graduated from high school and has used it to seal things, with sealing wax.

Allan Bonderoff recounted his efforts to try to track down his maternal grandfather.  “My aunt said he deserted from the Czar’s army and the Russians were chasing him,” he said.  Allan has been unable to find his grandfather’s naturalization records and he’s not in the 1920 census.  “My grandmother said he probably never answered the knock on the door.”   One suggestion from Bob Wascou -- search the Yad Vashem database.

Burt Hecht said one branch of his family was in the printing business and he had hoped to bring in an old calendar, but hadn’t yet received it from the relative who has them.

Mort brought in two binders that showcase his family history.  The first contains legal documents, census and naturalization records and family trees.  The second includes humor, recipes from the old country, photos and more.

David Reingold showed an old photo of his great-grandfather and great-grandmother --“it has to have been taken in the old country, since they never emigrated.” He also brought several other old photos of his family, who lived in the Belarus region.

Bob Wascou brought a small silver kiddush cup from his father’s family, who came from Russia.  There were marks on the bottom and apparently the cup was made in Moscow.

From Gary Mokotoff’s Avotaynu E-Zine Dec. 21

Status of Internet Access to Canadian Census and Passenger Lists
If Canadian genealogy is an important part of your research, I suggest you subscribe to “Gordon Watts Reports.” His latest e-zine summarizes the status of the digitizing and indexing of the 1851 through 1911 and 1916 censuses and Canadian Passenger Lists.  Watts’ latest release is located at http://globalgenealogy.com/globalgazette/gazgw/gazgw-0114.htm.

The planned Index to Quebec Passenger Lists 1865–1900 is now available at  http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/databases/passengers-quebec-1865-1900/index-e.html.

Videos of Pre-Holocaust Jewish Poland
Tomasz Wisniewski of Bialystok has placed on YouTube 16 videos of pre-Holocaust Jewish Poland. They can be found at http://www.youtube.com/bagnowka7. They are mostly still pictures presented in video format.

Titles include Jewish Cemeteries til 1945, Hassidim Chasidim - Holocaust, Jewish Cemeteries til 1945, Bielsk Podlaski Synagogue, Jewish Children in Holocaust and Bialystok 1939-1944
One film, Chivalrous Wehrmacht, shows photos and films of the German occupation of Poland taken by German soldiers. In one portion, there is a photo of German soldiers who had plundered a synagogue and were mockingly wearing keters (crowns of the Torah) on their heads. Another soldier was removing precious stones from the plates that adorned torahs.

Wisniewski has a major website at http://bagnowka.com/, which includes nearly 60,000 photographs --some from postcards -- of Poland. Most are pre-World War II and many are of Jewish life in Poland. A search engine at the site allows you to search by surname or town name. Warning: A tiny note states the search is case sensitive. When I searched for the Mokotow ancestral town of “warka” (lower case “W”) there were no hits. Searching for “Warka” (upper case “W”) produced 18 results.


Foundation for Jewish Heritage in Poland
The mission of the Foundation for the Preservation of Jewish Heritage in Poland is to protect and commemorate the surviving monuments of Jewish cultural heritage; they're also working to reclaim and restore properties which before WWII were the property of Jewish religious communities and other Jewish entities. They have a web site at http://fodz.pl/?d=1&l=en. This site has a list of Jewish cemeteries in Poland and their current status that can be searched from the home page. The home page also links to current and past projects of the organization. Click on “Gallery” to view information about specific projects.

Ancestry.com Now Has 1935 and 1945 Florida Censuses Online
Ancestry.com has digitized and indexed Florida state censuses for the years 1867, 1875, 1935 and 1945. Florida is one of only two U.S. states (South Dakota is the other) to have completed a census as recently as 1945. This adds to Ancestry’s Florida State Collection which already includes the 1885 state census, marriages (1822–1875 and 1927–2001), death index (1877–1998), passenger lists (1898–1951) and land records. The Florida census search is located at http://content.ancestry.com/iexec/?htx=List&dbid=1506&offerid=0%3a7858%3a0

Centropa.org
A Viennese-based organization, Centropa, has developed a remarkable Internet site, http://centropa.org/, that is an oral history project which combines old family pictures with interviews. Centropa interviewed more than 1,350 elderly Jews living in Central and Eastern Europe; the former Soviet Union; and the Sephardic communities of Greece, Turkey and the Balkans. They combined the text of the interviews with 25,000 digitized images to created professional-looking autobiographies of these people. The intent was to document—at the family level—what it was like to live as Jews in 20th-century Europe.

When browsing this site, be sure to include http://centropa.org/?nID=1 which provides a list of the surnames, cities and countries of the people they interviewed. From this page you can click on a specific surname, city of country that will lead to a list of persons who met the criteria. From there you can select the interview and photographs of the particular person.

Living in America: The Jewish Experience—Philadelphia
In recognition that the 2009 International Conference on Jewish Genealogy will be held in Philadelphia this summer, the online Museum of Family History has created a component titled “Living in America: The Jewish Experience—Philadelphia” at http://www.museumoffamilyhistory.com/mfh-philadelphia.htm. It currently includes three articles with photographs about Jewish Philadelphia: “The Jewish Quarter of Philadelphia,” by Harry Boonin; “The Fabric of our Lives: A History of Philadelphia's Fourth Street,” by Michele Winitsky Palmer; and “Four Jewish Families in Philadelphia: The End of the 19th Century,” by Leonard Markowitz.

See  you at our Sunday, January 18 meeting!

Join us next Sunday for ….

"Naturalization Rules and Records"

Sunday, January 18, 10 a.m.

Jewish Genealogical Society of Sacramento

Area genealogist Barbara Leak will talk about the variety of naturalization documents we may find for our relatives.  The rules for becoming a U.S. citizen have changed, and the records created by the process vary.  Barbara will talk about the laws and share examples of the documents created by those who became Americans.  From these documents, we may discover new information or clues about our relatives.  This talk should prompt you to track down naturalization papers to fill in some of the blanks on your family tree.

Barbara is a fifth-generation Californian with early-American ancestry.  She is a five-term former president of the Placer County Genealogical Society and has served as president of the Genealogical and Historical Council of Sacramento Valley.  She was a speaker at the recent 2008 Family History Day at the State Archives.

Please join us for Barbara Leak's presentation on Sunday, January 18 at 10 a.m. at the Albert Einstein Residence Center, 1935 Wright St., Sacramento.

Web site gathers millions of Jewish genealogy records online

By Verena Dobnik | The Associated Press January 4, 2009

A genealogy Web site has launched what it calls the world's largest online collection of Jewish family history records.

Ancestry.com has partnered with two organizations for the project — JewishGen, an affiliate of New York's Museum of Jewish Heritage, and the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee.

The online collection, ancestry.com/JewishFamilyHistory, features millions of historic Jewish records including Schindler's List — the names of almost 2,000 Jews saved by a German businessman who employed them. Their story was told in the Oscar-winning 1993 film.

Many of the 26 million documents are online for the first time — from photographs and immigration data to a list of people who died in Nazi concentration camps.

The Joint Distribution Committee says it has digitized records of displaced Jews who were provided with food, medical care, clothing and emigration assistance by the JDC.

Interesting headstone …

Bob Wascou passes on this link from JewishGen …check out the gravestone at the bottom of the page.

http://www.jewishgen.org/romsig/BUCUREST%20Cemetery.html 

See you next Sunday the 18th!

Barbara Leak will talk to us about "Naturalization Rules and Records" this Sunday the 18th at 10 a.m.   We bet there's a good chance you can glean new information for at least one relative from their naturalization papers. 

And a few items from Avotaynu's E-Zine by Gary Mokotoff…

1911 Census of England and Wales Now Online
The 1911 census of England and Wales is now online at http://www.1911census.co.uk/. Not all counties are available, but when complete, it will identify 36 million people. At present, 27 million people are online.

Marian Smith
One of the great assets for understanding the process of immigration to the United States is Marian L. Smith, historian of the Citizenship and Immigration Service. For years, Marian has lectured and written articles on the immigration process. She now has her own personal blog at http://mariansmith.com/.

Her first topic -- Are there missing manifests from Ellis Island? The title is “Fact or Myth: Missing (Cabin) Manifests 1897–1903


JewishGen Continues to Grow
JewishGen ended 2008 with a number of announcements demonstrating the site continues to grow. The Yizkor Book project reported that in December two new books, two new entries, and six updates have been added to the site: http://www.jewishgen.org/Yizkor/translations.html.

The JewishGen Online Worldwide Burial Registry—JOWBR—added some 50,000 burial records and 25,000 new photos of tombstones to its database at www.jewishgen.org/databases/Cemetery/tree/CemList.htm. There are now listings of 2,033 cemeteries worldwide and plots in the searchable database, comprising 1,074,427 records. New entries are for cemeteries in Alabama, Indian, Mississippi, Argentina, Israel and Romania.

The ShtetLinks project—web sites that provide information about ancestral towns—has added seven additional towns in December. The list of towns can be found at http://www.shtetlinks.jewishgen.org/.

February 7, 2009

The JGSS hits 20 years!

 It's our 20th anniversary!  The Jewish Genealogical Society of Sacramento was started back in 1989, and our February 15 meeting will not only feature Gary Sandler's presentation (see below) but a birthday celebration.  President Mort Rumberg promises that every attendee will get a gently used gift plus a slice of cake.

Great Programs Coming Up:

Sunday, February 15, 2009, 10 a.m. -- Gary Sandler: “How My Family Unexpectedly Materialized in Ellis Island Records and So Can Yours”

JGS member Gary Sandler talks about his longtime search for family members on the Ellis Island Web site.  He had heard the stories about when and how his family arrived, but scoured the records for years to no avail.  He ultimately succeeded, and will share some helpful search strategies that others might use as well.  And, is Gary related to Adam Sandler? Come and find out.

Sunday, March 15, 2009, 10 a.m. -- Allan Dolgow, Ukraine Scrapbook -- A Journey That Took 105 Years to Plan and Finally Take

Sunday, April 19, 2009, 10 a.m. -- Steve Morse, Phonetic Matching: An Alternative to Soundex with Fewer False Hits

JewishGen on the Move

The JewishGen Web site is now back up, although not all functions are yet available.  The servers have been moved from Texas to their new location at the Ancestry.com data center.

Sutro Library Bus Trip

The Genealogy Association of Sacramento (GAS) is planning a bus trip to Sutro Library in San Francisco on Wed. Mar 25th.  They hope to fill the bus and are seeking participants. The cost for non members of GAS is $40; members $35.  If you'd like to go, contact Melanie Howard, president of GAS, and make a reservation. Melnesia@..., 916-383-1221.

Conference in Philadelphia, August 2-7

The 2009 IAJGS conference registration -- International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies -- is now live as is the hotel reservation link.  Go to: http://www.philly2009.org/ to register for conference and to get to hotel link.  One very important difference this time -- to get a printed copy of the syllabus, you have to order with registration. All registrants will get a CD.

There is also a call for papers to be presented at the conference as well as a poster contest that could win you free registration.  The poster is for Jewish Genealogy Month this fall, with a theme of "From One Generation to the Next -- Passing Down our Family History in the Oral Tradition."  Entries must be submitted by April 1; for details, e-mail steve725@...

January 18, 2009 Meeting Notes

The meeting was called to order by President Mort Rumberg.  He noted a special discount of 25% for those interested in subscribing to ancestry.com.  He also mentioned that genealogy classes are being offered through June in the Folsom-Cordova School District.

Mort introduced two guests from Root Cellar -- the Sacramento Genealogical Society -- who talked about their upcoming Spring Seminar set for March 28 from  9 to 3:45.  It will feature Geoff Rasmussen of Legacy-Millenia Corporation.  He is one of the developers of the Legacy software program.  The seminar will be held at the Fair Oaks Presbyterian Church; cost is $22 for non-members if you register by March 14.  For details, go to www.rootcellar.org.

There is also an Family History Symposium coming up on March 21 from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. hosted by the El Dorado Family History Center.   For details, go to
www.eldoradofamilyhistorycenter.org

Marv Freedman passed around copies of photos he took at last month's "Treasures from our Attics" meeting.

Art Yates said he's checked out the 1911 English census online and purchased a copy of the record of his father and grandfather, which he passed around.  "There's a separate page for every household, and my grandfather's includes his signature."  Burt Hecht noted that Scottish records are also available.

Dave Reingold noted that he will be reinstalled as president of the Florin Historical Society at a luncheon February 7.

Bob Wascou talked about our library -- one of the advantages of being a JGS member.  If you've borrowed books, please return them.  Bob's ordered the new book "Google Your Family Tree."

Bob mentioned several books we have that members should know about -- Alexander Beider's "A Dictionary of Jewish Surnames from the Russian Empire (revised,"  "A Dictionary of Jewish Surnames from the Kingdom of Poland," and "A Dictionary of Jewish Surnames from Galicia."

Member Gloria Powers has donated several books, including "Jewish Cities, Towns, and Villages in Lithuania up to 1918," "Immigrants to Freedom," "Europe 1500-1848" and "The Jews, Biography of a People."

January Program  -- Naturalization Rules and Records

Our guest was Barbara Leak, a five-term former president of the Placer County Genealogical Society who servedas president of the Genealogical and Historical Council of Sacramento Valley.  She was a speaker at the  2008 Family History Day at the State Archives.

Naturalization is the process by which a foreign-born immigrant becomes a U.S. citizen.  Barbara traced the process from colonial days to the present.  Some highlights:

-- The Naturalization Law of 1740 required seven years of residency in the colony, sacraments of the Church of England and an oath of allegiance sworn before a local magistratet.  By 1773, further British colonial naturaliztaions were banned.

-- Early U.S. Naturalization Laws -- in 1790, requirements included two years U.S. residency and one year in the state.  In 1795, this changed to five years residency and a Declaration of Intent filed three years prior to the naturalization application. These basicrequirements, reiterated in 1802, would hold until 1906.

-- Special group naturalizations, receiving citizenship by acts of Congress. These included residents loyal ot the states during the Revolutionary War, residents of various territories acquired by annexation or treaty (Louisiana Purchase, 1803; Florida, 1819; Alaska, 1867); all Native Americans (1924); and former slaves and free blacks by the 14th Amendment in 1868.

-- Citizenship requirements for aliens in the military: Those serving in World War I, for example, had no residency requirement; naturalization was conferred by military posts.

-- Minor children: the child's citizenship is derived from his/her father's citizenship.

-- Women: From 1790 to 1922, a woman's citizenship is derived from her husband's citizenship.  From 1907-1922, U.S. women who married aliens lost their U.S. citizenship. Since 1922, women must apply for citizenship on their own.  If they're married to a citizen, do not have to file a Declaration of Intent.

-- In 1906, the Bureau of Immigration and Naturalization (BIN) was established, later becoming the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), and then today's agency: Citizenship and Immigration Services (CIS).  In 1906, the first standardized forms are created and courts are required to file copies of naturalization records with the federal government.

-- From 1906 to 1956, files are sent to the BIN in Washington, D.C.  Since 1956, the files are sent to CIS district offices.

-- Declaration of Intention, also known as "First Papers."  These were not required until 1795; from 1906 on a standardized form was used.

-- Petition for Citizenship, also known as Application for Citizenship, "2nd Papers" and "Final Papers."  From 1790 to 1905, these were issued by the court and the format varies. From 1906 on there have been standardized forms used.

-- Repatriations were filed to reestablish citizenship, including that of women after 1922 who had lost their citizenship by marriage to aliens.

-- Which Courts to Search: Before 1906, naturalization could occur in any court of record -- federal, state, county or municipal.  Barbara suggests you begin by searching the court that was closest and easiest for your ancestor to travel to.

-- After 1906, the naturalization could occur in any court, but increasingly the federal courts.  The Declaration of Intent and the Petition could be filed in different courts.

Other sources of records -- the Family History Center in Salt Lake City -- do a place search for records under U.S. but also state, county and if it's a large city, the municipal courts.

-- Ordering Federal Files -- 1906 to 1956-- use Form G-1041A: Genealogy Records Request.  The cost is $20-35.   The C-File number is required on the form-- use Form G-1041:Genealogy Index Search Request.  This costs about $20.  The forms are available online: www.uscis.gov and go to the "Immigration Forms" tab.

-- For naturalizations filed since 1956, use Form G-639.  Request records form the local CIS office where filed.  Addresses for CIS offices are available under the "Services and Benefits" tab on the www.uscis.gov Web site.

-- All forms may be downloaded from the "Immigrations Forms" tab.

NBC Spawns Genealogy Series Featuring Sarah Jessica Parker and More

Jan 28, 2009 08:10 PM ET

How well do you really know your favorite stars?

Fans can soon see family histories of some of Hollywood's biggest celebs when NBC airs Who Do You Think You Are? this spring, Variety says. The show, based on the BBC original, will feature such stars as Lisa Kudrow, Sarah Jessica Parker and Susan Sarandon investigating their genealogy.

Kudrow will also be exec-producing the series with U.K.'s Wall to Wall. Think will hit the airwaves in Chuck's slot starting Mon., April 20 (8 pm/ET), once the spy comedy has completed its spring episodes.

From Avotaynu's E-Zine

IIJG Forms Advisory Board
The International Institute for Jewish Genealogy is formalizing its structure by setting up an Advisory Board with an extraordinary group of 12 distinguished Jews from Israel, Canada, UK and US. Nothing like this line-up has been seen in modern Jewish genealogy.

Now in its third year of existence, the Institute is already having a positive effect on Jewish family history research. The Beider-Morse Phonetic Matching System was a direct result of the IIJG project, “Reconstituting the Destroyed Jewish Communities of Eastern Europe.”  The Institute has eight other projects in hand, some pure research and some designed to produce tools and technologies for Jewish family historians. One of the goals of IIJG is to have family history as a recognized academic discipline.
Information about IIJG can be found at their website: http://iijg.org.

The Advisory Board consists of:
    • Irwin Cotler, member of the Canadian Parliament and former Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada
    • Baroness Ruth Deech, member of the British House of Lords; former Principal, St. Anne’s College, Oxford
    • Alan M. Dershowitz, Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law, Harvard Law School
    • Abraham Foxman, National Director, Anti-Defamation League
    • Stuart Eizenstat, former U.S. Deputy Secretary of the Treasury and Ambassador to the European Union
    • Sir Martin Gilbert, historian and author, Oxford
    • Arthur Kurzweil, author and a founding father of contemporary Jewish genealogy
    • Rabbi Israel Meir Lau, Chairman of Yad Vashem and Chief Rabbi of Tel Aviv. Former Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi of Israel
    • Senator Joseph I. Lieberman, U.S. Senator and former vice-presidential candidate
    • David G. Marwell, Director, Museum of Jewish Heritage, New York
    • Sir Malcolm L. Rifkind, Member of Parliament and former UK Foreign Secretary
    • Henry A. Waxman, Member, U.S. House of Representatives and Chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee.


MuseumOfFamilyHistory.com Adds Search Engine
Steve Lasky’s Museum of Family History Web site is a potpourri of Jewish-genealogy-relevant information from throughout the world. To gain an understanding of what is available required going to the site map. Lasky has now added a search engine at http://www.museumoffamilyhistory.com/search.htm, making it much easier to determine if there is information of value at the site.

Using the search engine, I discovered that there are Mokotoffs buried in Warsaw society burial plots in the New York City area. Prior to the search engine, the data was buried in Cemetery Project > New York and New Jersey Burials > Town List: Warszawa > (Letters) L-R. I knew this information, but the search was valuable because it demonstrated there are no Mokotoffs buried in town society plots for any of the other 200 towns that are listed at the Museum of Family History site.

Searching for my ancestral towns, I discovered there is a Warka (Poland) society burial plot. It included a photo of the gateway to the plot. The picture shows there are virtually no tombstones, almost as if the society disbanded and the burial area is unused.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

See You Sunday, the 15th for our 20th Anniversary Celebration!

Jewish Genealogical Society of Sacramento

Sunday, February 15, 2009, 10 a.m.

20th Anniversary Meeting!

“How My Family Unexpectedly Materialized in Ellis Island Records and So Can Yours”  --  Gary Sandler

Join us this Sunday, February 15 as JGSS member Gary Sandler talks about his longtime search for family members on the Ellis Island Web site.  He had heard the stories about when and how his family arrived, but scoured the records for years to no avail.  He ultimately succeeded, and will share some helpful search strategies that others might use as well.

Gary has been a “computer guy” for more than 30 years. His interest in genealogy sprang from his curiosity about whether he was related to the actor Adam Sandler. For more than eight years, he’s been researching and documenting his Russian, Lithuanian and Polish roots. In 2006 and 2007, Gary worked with Steve Morse to create the “Gold Form” for searching Ellis Island passenger records.

Steve Morse Speaking in Davis Feb. 22

Steve Morse is scheduled for our April JGSS meeting, but you can also catch him at Congregation Bet Haverim in Davis on Sunday, Feb. 22 from 1 to 4 p.m., talking about "Genealogy Made Simple."  For details, call (530) 758-0842.

Museum Podcasts

Thanks to Allan Dolgow for passing this on:

Museum of Jewish Heritage

http://www.mjhnyc.org/safrahall/visit_safra_podcasts.htm

The Museum's Web site is now offering podcasts — a media file that can be automatically played on a computer or iPod. This technology allows visitors to re-live the exciting sold-out program or to experience it for the first time.

From the Feb. 8 Avotaynu E-Zine by Gary Mokotoff

JewishGen Now on Ancestry Servers
JewishGen is now operational on Ancestry.com servers and the performance difference is remarkable. The increasing popularity of this “Home of Jewish Genealogy” overtaxed the organization’s servers, often to the point where searches would time out. Now all the JewishGen data is housed on high-speed equipment and search results are almost instantaneous. A search of the JewishGen Family Finder was executed in two seconds; Family Tree of the Jewish People also in two seconds and a Jewish Records Indexing-Poland search in 11 seconds. The latter search used to take upwards of a minute.

JewishGen and Ancestry are not merging; Ancestry gained the rights for selective databases from JewishGen. JewishGen will continue to exist independent of Ancestry. The principal advantage to users is that in one location, Ancestry.com, you can find Jewish and secular information about individuals. For example, at the Ancestry site, I was able to find Reuben Mokotoff in the Social Security Death Index and the JewishGen Online Worldwide Burial Registry (JOWBR). The disadvantage of the Ancestry site is that, for some reason, they did not necessarily copy all the components of certain JewishGen databases. In the case of JOWBR, Ancestry states that Reuben Mokotoff is buried in New York State. JewishGen gives the exact cemetery: Mt. Sinai Cemetery in Pine Bush, NY.

Riverside Cemetery Is Eighth New York-area Jewish Cemetery To Go Online
Riverside Cemetery in Saddle Brook, New Jersey has become the eighth Jewish cemetery in the New York City area to go online. It may be the first that is genealogy-friendly -- it has a “Genealogy Search” button on its home page. http://www.riversidecemetery.org/.

Other cemeteries in the New York City area with online burial information are:
    Mount Ararat Cemetery
    Mount Carmel Cemetery
    Mount Hebron Cemetery
    Mount Judah
    Mount Lebanon
    Mount Moriah Cemetery, Fairview, New Jersey
    Mount Zion Cemetery

See You Sunday for a piece of 20th Anniversary cake and a great meeting!

February 28, 2009

Upcoming Meetings

Sunday, March 15, 10 a.m.  -- Allan Dolgow:  Ukraine Scrapbook -- A Journey That Took 105 Years to Plan and Finally Take

Sunday, April 19, 10 a.m. -- Steve Morse: Phonetic Matching

Sunday, May 17, 10 a.m. -- Ron Arons: The Musical "Chicago" and all that Genealogical Jazz

February 15 Meeting Notes

President Mort Rumberg called the meeting to order for our 20th anniversary meeting.  He showed a plaque with the names of all the past JGSS presidents, from the first president Judy Persin, in 1989, to the present day.

                All of the past JGSS presidents were invited to attend. Those present included Bob Wascou, Art Yates, Lester Smith, Burt Hecht. Also invited but unable to attend was three-time past president Steve Kitnick, who now lives in Las Vegas.  Steve sent an anniversary gift of several books for our library, including a biography of San Franciscan William Allen Leidesdorff (1810-48), the first black (and Jewish) millionaire, and a two-volume set of Judaica America.  Mort mentioned Steve's family tree Web site -- www.kitnick.com.  Steve currently lives in Las Vegas and can be reached via  lasvegasproperty@....

Burt Hecht also donated a book to our library: "A Guide to Jewish Genealogical Research in Israel."

Mort sent letters to local, state and federal officials asking for recognition of the JGSS' 20th anniversary.  Mayor Kevin Johnson's staff requested more information; Mort did receive a certificate honoring the occasion from Governor

Arnold Schwarzenegger and read the commendation at the meeting. Mort also presented JGSS secretary Susanne Levitsky with a framed certificate and pen to thank her for her continuing efforts.

In honor of the 20th anniversary, everyone had a "slightly used" gift to open, courtesy of Mort.  Members went home with many interesting novels and games to enjoy.

Bob Wascou showed off the new book purchased for our library, "Google Your Family Tree" by Daniel Lynch.  It comes with a reference card for genealogists doing Google searches.  Bob made copies for everyone to have and encouraged members not to overlook Google Earth searches for ancestral homes.

Art Yates said he discovered a new cousin after getting a copy of the 1911 English census.  He got the cousin's death certificate for a cost of $10.

February Program

JGSS member Gary Sandler was our February speaker.  Gary worked with Steve Morse to develop the Gold Form for searching the Ellis Island database.  His presentation, based on one he delivered at last year's IAJGS conference in Chicago, was entitled, "How My Family Unexpectedly Materialized in Ellis Island Records and So Can Yours."

"I wanted to share my 'aha' moment with you," he said, noting that by sharing how we find out information may open opportunities for others to discover information as well.

Gary said his objective was to find his family in the Ellis Island database. The family name he was seeking was Weiner, with family members traveling from the town of Ostrow in Lublin Gubernia around 1912.

The 1920 census shows the family in New York City, confirms their ages and says they are from Russia, language Yiddish, with a year of entry listed as 1914.

Gary tried searching the Ellis Island database to no avail.  He tried name variants (Weiner, Vina).  He tried Steve Morse's White Form and Blue Form.  He met Steve Morse and volunteered to help with transcribing enumeration districts for the 1940 census.  Steve asked for help on other projects, and Gary helped to set up the new Gold Form, with its 24. 5 million entries and improved search capabilities. "But I didn't find anything on my family."

Some tips on using the Gold Form:

# 1    Use the first initial with the surname (can also use full first name, last initial). This reduces the number of entries you have to read through and speeds the search.

# 2    Use the date ranges -- use one or two ranges, not all three.

# 3    Use gender and marital status sparingly.  They produce the best results when combined with the name and date.  Don't try all widows arriving 1910-1914, there are too many.

# 4   Change what columns get shown, tailoring the results for what you want to research.  Include the ship and port if that's valuable to your scanning.

# 5   Use the town of origin -- "starts with" is the fastest.  Can also pick "sounds like," "contains," or experiment with different spellings.

#6    Save the whole results page.

#7    Use ethnicity, picking combinations that may apply.  There are 110 options to pick from.

# 8   Change the sorting.  Finding your relative may be easier if the entries are sorted by town, age, name or arrival date.  For example, you might start by searching by town first.

# 9   Don't save to Excel.

# 10  A companion search may be helpful, if you have a "first name" entry, knowing who your relative traveled with.

#11  Experiment with "sounds like," which uses the Daitch Mokotoff Soundex method.   Steve Morse has devised an alternative, phonetic method (which he'll share more with us at the April meeting).   Despite these options, Gary still didn't find his family.

# 12   Combine all the tips.

Gary noted that there is a link on the Gold Form to the passenger manifests.

Okay, you've done all this, Gary says you then have to go back and check your facts with your family.  Verify your assumptions, find new sources if needed.  Get referrals to other family members and don't take "no results" as your answer.

Gary had no luck until some information surfaced at a bar mitzvah about a Zalman Leib Piontek, who later became Louis Weiner.  And relatives shared that the town he was from was reportedly Paremba, not Ostrow.

Gary went back to his 12 tips and experimented with various spellings of Piontek as well as different dates, locations, ages, and other sorts.  He sent a note to JewishGen asking for help in trying to locate Paremba, Lodz, Russia.  He learned that Lodz was a listing from the line above. He heard from Stanley Diamond about a Book of Residents project for Ostrow Mazowieck and donated some money to JRI Poland for research work.  He studied the scanned ship's manifests on the Ellis Island site, for which you need a free account.  Gary said there are various ways to save and print manifests, depending on the version of Internet Explorer or Firefox.

Ultimately, Gary found his family members using Steve Morse's Gold Form and the Ellis Island site.  He used family resources to validate and complete information he found online  "I had eight years of nothing, then a breakthrough in 2008," he said.  "It happens when it happens."

And what about the actor, Adam Sandler?  "So far, we haven't discovered a relationship."

For more information on his efforts, Gary can be contacted at gsandler@...

####

Guide to Passenger Lists:  Allan Dolgow passes on this Web site on JewishGen: Manifest Markings Home   http://www.jewishgen.org/InfoFiles/Manifests/

It includes such items as "A Guide to Interpreting Passenger List Annotations," Glossary of Acronyms and Abbreviations, and Reading the Record of Detained Aliens.

####

See you at our next meeting, Sunday, March 15.

Ukraine Scrapbook -- A Journey That Took 105 Years to Plan and Finally
Take

March 15, 2009, 10 a.m.

Jewish Genealogical Society of Sacramento

Member Allan Dolgow’s upcoming presentation is more than his trip to
the Ukraine; it is his genealogical journey.  When Allan started it was
his journey into the past, but what resulted was a journey into the
present.   It’s a story of how he found relatives living in the
Ukraine, Russia, Israel, Canada, India and the United States, and how
it culminated in his visit to a cousin in the Ukraine.

Last August, Allan traveled to Kiev, Novograd Volinsky, Kamenny Brod
and Polonne. Using data bases, networking and applying an approach that
is not taught,  Allan was able to locate an 87-year-old second cousin
[her grandfather and his were brothers] living in Polonne.  This cousin
turned out to have an interesting background; she had worked as a
surgeon at a field hospital in the Russian Army during WW II.   Meeting
her and her granddaughters and grandniece has added numerous branches
to Allan’s family tree; he found relatives living in Israel, France,
Russia, India, and even in the United States.

Come and learn more about Allan Dolgow’s Ukraine trip at 10 a.m.,
Sunday, March 15, at the Albert Einstein Residence Center, 1935 Wright
Street, Sacramento.  You might also want to make time to browse our
gorwing library.

Mark your
calendars for Sunday, March 15.

Ukraine Scrapbook -- A Journey That Took 105 Years to Plan and Finally
Take

Sunday,  March 15, 2009, 10 a.m.

Jewish Genealogical Society of Sacramento

Member Allan Dolgow’s presentation is more than his trip to the
Ukraine; it is his genealogical journey.  When Allan started it was his
journey into the past, but what resulted was a journey into the
present.   It’s a story of how he found relatives living in the
Ukraine, Russia, Israel, Canada, India and the United States, and how
it culminated in his visit to a cousin in the Ukraine.

Last August, Allan traveled to Kiev, Novograd Volinsky, Kamenny Brod
and Polonne. Using data bases, networking and applying an approach that
is not taught,  Allan was able to locate an 87-year-old second cousin
[her grandfather and his were brothers] living in Polonne.  This cousin
turned out to have an interesting background; she had worked as a
surgeon at a field hospital in the Russian Army during WW II.   Meeting
her and her granddaughters and grandniece has added numerous branches
to Allan’s family tree; he found relatives living in Israel, France,
Russia, India, and even in the United States.

Come and learn more about Allan Dolgow’s Ukraine trip at 10 a.m.,
Sunday, March 15, at the Albert Einstein Residence Center, 1935 Wright
Street, Sacramento.
-----------------

And below is an article by a Maryland columnist which may be o
f
interest -- wouldn’t we like to know 25 random things about even one or
two relatives....


The Paper of Montgomery County Online    Rockville, MD
Random things about me
Karen Zach


Grandcestors
Tuesday, March 3, 2009

My genealogy pal, Phil, sent me one of those e-mails the other day that
I usually nix, yet, I looked at this one and thought, "Oh, wow, what a
nifty idea for the article." So, thanks Phil.

In his e-mail, he requested me to send him "25 Random Things About Me."
Now, I'm not going to share all my 25, but will a few, then, what I
really want you to do is write-down 25 for each ancestor and close
relative you remember (parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles...).

Here are mine so you'll get the idea and I'll do a couple for each of
my parents and grandparents. By then, you'll be able to see what a
fabulous genealogical tool this is.


1) Jim and I eloped to Michigan in one of the biggest snowstorms ever
recorded in that state.

2) I climbed the Waveland water tower when I was 15 (on a 50 cent bet
that by the way, I didn't receive until 40 years later and he wouldn't
pay me interest).

3) Between my eighth-grade and freshman year, and Jim Fullenwider's
seventh- and eighth-grade summer he and I did our Freshman Biology I
Bug Collection project together. I got a B+ and the next year, he got
an A. Go figure!

4) I ga
ve my Girl Scout Summer Camp Counselor, Sharon Kay Young, the
nickname SKY. It stuck - she wrote me many years later and said it was
still her nickname.. I thought it was ridiculous no one else had
thought of it. By the way, I love to give nicknames.

Okay, you get the picture on me (now, wouldn't you just love to hear
the rest?). Alas, here goes two each for my parents and grandparents.
My father Fred Bazzani (who had no middle name or initial), loved to
eat peanut butter and jelly on Ritz Crackers. He also could make the
best lemonade pie EVER. Kathryn (Kate) Smith Bazzani, my mom, kept her
old boyfriend's letters and read them all the time (I finally threw 'em
away - you guessed it, she was MAD). She named me (my middle name)
after a fat male comedian she thought was hilarious and wanted me to be
funny, too. Not telling you who that was but maybe you can guess.

My grandfather, Leland (Carl) Smith, lived in Waveland most of his
adult life and loved lemon pie as well as horehound candy (that stuff
tastes like medicine - yuk). His wife, Sarah Hazel Morgan Smith and
Carl met when he bought her food basket (he'd heard her mother made
great pies) at a church social. Just FYI - I still have that basket.

My grandfather, Antonio (Tony) Bazzani taught me how to cuss in Italian
(I'm grinning as I still remember a few words). He also would start
ballgames with us five first cousins (
his grandchildren) and then leave
in the middle of it (playing just long enough to get us riled-up). My
Italian grandmother, Carolina Berti Bazzani changed her name from Clara
(her grandmother's name which she hated) to Carolina. She once killed a
black snake almost as big as she was with her bare hands to save her
little brother whom the reptile was encircling.

So, you see, genealogy is NOT just names, dates, places, but a lot of
fun when you learn the little pieces of trivia about those you have
gone before you. Now, get busy and make your list.
---------------

See you all at Sunday's meeting, 10 a.m., March 15!

Steve Morse will speak on Phonetic Matching.