JewishGen FAQ - Part 2 of 2 This document, "Frequently Asked Questions" (FAQ), attempts to answer some of the basic questions about Jewish Genealogy posted on this board. TABLE OF CONTENTS: 1) GETTING STARTED 2) PUBLICATIONS 3) JEWISH GENEALOGICAL FAMILY FINDER (JGFF) 4) BOOKS 5) VENDORS 6) JEWISH GENEALOGICAL SOCIETIES (JGSs) 7) SEMINARS ON JEWISH GENEALOGY 8) NATIONAL ARCHIVES 9) VITAL RECORDS (BIRTHS, MARRIAGES & DEATHS) 10) PASSENGER LISTS 11) FINDING YOUR ANCESTRAL TOWN 12) NATURALIZATION RECORDS 13) LDS (MORMON) FAMILY HISTORY CENTERS 14) OTHER ARCHIVES 15) HOLOCAUST RESEARCH 16) JEWISH GENEALOGICAL PEOPLE FINDER (JGPF) 17) JEWISHGEN ECHO 18) GENEALOGICAL SOFTWARE DISTRIBUTION SYSTEM (GSDS) 19) COMPUTER GENEALOGY PROGRAMS 20) GLOSSARY, ABBREVIATIONS 11) FINDING YOUR ANCESTRAL TOWN: One of the most important challenges of your genealogical search will be finding your ancestors' town of origin. Knowing the exact location is very important in furthering your search, because records in Europe were kept on a local, municipal basis. Your best source, as always, are home sources -- your relatives, family papers, citizenship documents, passports, etc. Be aware that when someone says their family was from, for example, "Vilna" or "Minsk", this probably means that they were from some small town in Vilna or Minsk gubernia (province), and not the city itself (just as someone from "New York" is not necessarily from Manhattan). After home sources, the best source for finding town of origin are Naturalization (citizenship) papers (See Q#12). Passenger Lists (See Q#10) after 1893 contain a column for "Last Residence", which might be town, province, or country, depending upon the ship. Lists after 1906 always contain a "Birthplace" column, city and country. For earlier immigrants, the Hamburg emigration lists contain town of origin. Other potential sources for determining town of origin include: - U.S. Vital Records (Birth, marriage and death certificates). Some contain precise place of origin, depending upon state, town, clerk, etc. (See Q#9). - Cemetery. Many immigrants belonged to "landsmanshaftn", organizations of people from the same ancestral town. Synagogues were often comprised of members from the same area of origin. Check where your immigrant ancestor is buried. Many used congregational or landsmanshaft plots. Tombstones might also yield clues. - Social Security Application. Began 1937. If you know the Social Security Number (from SSDI or Death certificate), send $7.00 for copy of application; $16.00 if SocSec# is unknown. See Q#9 for address. Application form asks for "Birthplace" - sometimes town is filled in. - World War I Draft Registration Cards, 1917-1918. For men born between 1886 and 1897, gives exact place of birth - city/town, state/province, country. See FHLC under "UNITED STATES - MILITARY RECORDS - WORLD WAR, 1914-1918"; or write to National Archives Southeast branch (See Q#8). For large cities, a street address must be known. - Passport Applications. For U.S. citizens traveling abroad. Optional until 1941, except during wartime. Records before 1925 at National Archives (and on microfilm at LDS, see FHLC under "UNITED STATES - EMIGRATION AND IMMIGRATION"); records after 1925 at U.S. State Department, Passport Office, Washington, DC 20520. - Probate Records. Wills and administrations can contain clues. Filed on the county level. "Ancestry's Red Book" (See Q#4) or E. P. Bentley's "County Courthouse Book" (Gen'l Publ. Co, 1991) have addresses of county courts. - Alien Registration. Required of all non-citizens after 1941. Write to INS, Freedom of Information, Room 5114, 425 I Street NW, Washington, DC 20536. - Surname clues. If your surname is very unusual, consult Alexander Beider's "A Dictionary of Jewish Surnames from the Russian Empire" (Avotaynu, 1993). Some surnames are found only in a particular locality in Czarist Russia. Once you've determined your ancestral town, check "Where Once We Walked" (See Q#4). This gazetteer of Eastern and Central Europe will help you pinpoint the town's exact location, and will tell you what sources of information are available for that town. WOWW contains a phonetic soundex index, so even if you're unsure of the correct spelling, you can find the town. 12) NATURALIZATION RECORDS: U.S. Naturalization Records (citizenship papers) are usually the best source for determining an immigrant ancestor's town of origin. All U.S. Naturalization papers after 1906 contain the new citizen's exact town of origin; papers before 1906 may or may not, depending upon the court. Before 1906, naturalizations could be performed in any court: federal, state, county, or local. The information contained in these records varies greatly from court to court. There are no centralized indexes to these records -- you need to know which court. In 1906, the U.S. government set up the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), which established standards. All Naturalization records after September 1906 have duplicate copies filed at: Immigration and Naturalization Service FOIA/PA Section, Room 5114 425 Eye Street NW Washington, DC 20530 The INS has an index to all 1906-1956 naturalizations, but it is not public. It takes a year or more to receive a response from the INS. Use them only as a last resort -- try to find the original papers at the courthouse. Naturalization records from many courts are now located at the National Archives regional branches (See Q#8). Start your search at the regional branch in the area where you ancestor lived. By mail, they will search their records, and charge you $6.00 if a record is found. They can also recommend which courthouses in the region are likely to have naturalization records. For a few regions of the country, indexes to pre-1906 court records were prepared by the WPA: - New England (all 6 states, 1790-1906). - New York City (all 5 boros, 1790-1906). These indexes are at the National Archives and also available through LDS Family History Centers (Q#13). The LDS have also microfilmed many naturalization papers at county courthouses over the last 10 years. Look in the FHLC Locality section under the heading "[State], [County] - NATURALIZATION AND CITIZENSHIP". There are three basic types of naturalization documents: - Declaration of Intention ("First Papers") Filed soon after immigrant's arrival - Petition for Naturalization ("Final Papers") Filed after required waiting period (usually 5 years). These papers contain the most information. - Certificate of Citizenship Given to new citizen to take home. Does not provide much genealogical information, but useful for locating the other court documents. Naturalization laws are very complicated, and have been changed hundreds of times. For details see: Newman, John J. "American Naturalization Processes and Procedures, 1790-1985". (Indiana Historical Society, 1985). 43 pages. ($6). Some basic laws: - Before 1922, wives and children became citizens when the father did. After 1922, women had to file their own papers. 13) LDS (MORMON) FAMILY HISTORY CENTERS: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (LDS), also known as the Mormon Church, operates the Family History Library (FHL) in Salt Lake City, the largest genealogical library in the world. Their collection contains over 1.8 million reels of microfilm, 385,000 microfiche and 250,000 books. The Church also operates over 2,000 "Family History Centers" (FHCs) worldwide. Records on microfilm can be loaned from Salt Lake City to any Family History Center for a small fee. For a list of Family History Centers in your area, write to the Family History Library, 50 East North Temple St., Salt Lake City, UT 84150. Tel. (801) 240-2331. Family History Centers, located in church meetinghouses and staffed by volunteers, are open to all. Over 90% of their patrons are non-Mormons. The Church's genealogical endeavors are completely separate from their proselytizing efforts. The Church's microfilming program makes copies of records from all over the world, including Jewish records. They have an extensive collection of 19th-century Jewish records from Poland, Germany and Hungary. Listings of these records (over 5,000 reels microfilmed as of 1985) were published in "Avotaynu" and "The Encyclopedia of Jewish Genealogy". New records are microfilmed and added to the collection every year. Four to five thousand reels of microfilm are added to the collection each month, so you should re-check their catalog each year. They have recently begun microfilming in the republics of the former Soviet Union (see details below), and these films should begin to become available within a few years. The key to finding records in the Church's collection is the "Family History Library Catalog" (FHLC), the card catalog of the holdings of the library in Salt Lake, available on microfiche at all Family History Centers, and updated annually. The most important part of the FHLC is the LOCALITY section, where records are organized by jurisdiction: By Country, then State, then County/Province, then City/Town. They have instructional videos on "How to use the FHLC" and "How to use a Family History Center". ($5.00 each from: Salt Lake Distribution Center, 1999 West 1700 South, Salt Lake City, UT 84104, Tel. 801-240-2504). Other research guides are also available. Ask for the "Family History Publications List" (#34083). "FamilySearch" is a set of computer databases on CD-ROM available at most Family History Centers. Most of the databases are useless for Jewish researchers -- don't bother with the International Genealogical Index (IGI) or Ancestral File. One database, the "Social Security Death Index" (SSDI), is extremely useful. It is an index of 40 million U.S. residents who died between 1962 and 1988 and had Social Security Numbers. (See Q#9 for more info). Nearly all U.S. National Archives microfilms (Federal Census, Passenger Lists, Naturalization records, Military records, see Q#8); many U.S. state, county, and city records; as well as records from nearly every country on earth, are also available through the LDS. Status of current LDS microfilming projects in Eastern Europe: - Belarus: Contract signed, filming began 1993 (Minsk), some Jewish records have been filmed. - Estonia: Contract signed, filming began 1992, no Jewish records filmed yet. - Germany: Over 2100 microfilms of Jewish records, through 1880s. Ongoing filming in Leipzig. - Hungary: Over 800 microfilms of Jewish records, through 1910s. Ongoing filming. - Latvia: No contract. - Lithuania: No contract. - Moldova: No contract. - Poland: Ongoing filming of records thru the 1880s. (Over 1700 films, but few Jewish records filmed recently). - Romania: Weak contract signed, but no records filmed yet. - Russia: Contract signed, filming began 1992 (Ostrakan, Tula, St. Petersburg), but no Jewish records filmed yet. - Slovakia: Ongoing filming (Levoca, Presov). - Ukraine: Contract signed, filming expected to begin 1994. In the meantime, some records in archives in Ukraine, Belarus, and the republic of Russia may be researched by RAGAS, the Russian-American Genealogical Archival Service. Contact RAGAS at P.O. Box 236, Glen Echo, MD 20812 for more information. They charge $20 per hour. 14) OTHER ARCHIVES: The following organizations preserve documents, letters, local histories, manuscripts, etc. pertaining to Jewish communities and organizations. Most of their material is arranged by locality and organization. They cannot do research for you, but can tell you whether they have records for a specific organization or locality. American Jewish Archives 3101 Clifton Ave. Cincinnati, OH 45220 [American Jewry] American Jewish Historical Society 2 Thornton Road Waltham, MA 02154 [American Jewry] Leo Baeck Institute 129 East 73rd St. New York, NY 10021 [German Jewry] YIVO Institute 1048 Fifth Ave. New York, NY 10028 [East European Jewry] Central Archives for the History of the Jewish People P.O. Box 1149 91010 Jerusalem, ISRAEL [Worldwide focus, but strong collections on French, Italian, German, and Austrian Jewry] 15) HOLOCAUST RESEARCH: The Holocaust has been called the most documented event of the 20th century. Tens of thousands of books and resources exist. However, the overabundance of material is not conveniently organized, there are few general indexes, and most material is not in English. Yad Vashem is the principal repository of information about the Holocaust. Located in Jerusalem, Yad Vashem has a museum, a library, an archive, and a special memorial called the "Hall of Names". The library of 100,000 volumes includes over 800 yizkor books (see below), and the archives contains original source material, much of which is organized by town. See "Guide to Unpublished Material of the Holocaust", Volumes 3-6. The "Hall of Names" houses the "Pages of Testimony", a manuscript collection of information about victims. More than three million Pages of Testimony have been filled out by relatives of Holocaust victims. Each Page of Testimony contains names of parents, spouse and children; birth and death dates and places; and name, address and relationship of person submitting. Write to: Yad Vashem, P.O. Box 3477, 91034 Jerusalem, Israel. Some books which contain information about Holocaust victims: "Gedenkbukh" (Koblenz, 1986) 1823 pages in 2 volumes. Lists 128,000 German Jews who perished in the Holocaust. Includes birth date, place deported from, deported to. ISBN 3-89192-00302. "Memorial to the Jews Deported from France". (Serge Klarsfeld, 1983). 663 pages. Lists 70,000 Jews deported from France to concentration camps. Gives name, birth date and place. (Index also available on 1 microfiche from Avotaynu). YIZKOR BOOKS (Memorial books) are published histories of individual Eastern European Jewish communities, memorializing the town and its Holocaust victims. There is usually a narrative section on the town's history, culture, institutions and rabbis, and sometimes a list of Holocaust victims, survivors, or emigrants. Most memorial books are entirely in Hebrew and/or Yiddish, though some do have sections in English or other languages. Yizkor books have been published for over 800 towns. The most complete list is "Bibliography of Eastern European Memorial (Yizkor) Books", Compiled by Zachary M. Baker (51 pages, July 1992), available for $5.00 from the JGS of New York (see address in Q#6 above). This list also contains call numbers at six libraries in New York. A previous version of this list appears in Estelle Guzik's "Genealogical Resources in the New York Metropolitan Area", pages 323-372 (see Q#4). Most yizkor books were published in the 1950s and 60s in very limited quantities, and are therefore usually difficult to find and expensive to purchase. Most books currently sell for $40 to $100. The following establishments sell yizkor books: - J. Robinson & Co., 31 Nachlat Benjamin St., P.O. Box 4308, Tel Aviv 65162, Israel - Moshe Schreiber, Mea Sharim St. 16, Jerusalem, Israel - Chaim Dzialowski, P.O. Box 6413, Jerusalem 90163, Israel - Pinat Ha-Sefer, P.O. Box 46646, Haifa 31464, Israel - Eichler's Book Store, 1429 Coney Island Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11230 Tel. (718) 258-7643 - National Yiddish Book Center, P.O. Box 969, Amherst, MA 01004 Major collections of Yizkor books are housed at Yad Vashem (Jerusalem); Library of Congress (Washington); YIVO, New York Public Library, Jewish Theological Seminary, Yeshiva University (New York); UCLA (Los Angeles); Harvard and Brandeis Universities (near Boston); and Price Judaica Library (Gainsville, FL). The U.S. National Archives (see Q#8), Military Archives Division, has microfilms of many captured German records from World War II, including concentration camp records. Information on Holocaust survivors: - American Gathering of Jewish Holocaust Survivors, 122 West 30th Street, New York, NY 10001. Maintains a list of over 80,000 survivors in the U.S. and Canada. - HIAS (Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society), 333 Seventh Ave., New York, NY 10001. Assisted more than 70,000 Holocaust families in the 1940s and '50s. They maintain case files on these persons, and will search for a $25 fee. - International Tracing Service, D-3548 Arolsen, Germany. Set up by the International Red Cross after the war. Maintains 40 million index cards, mostly of survivors. The Red Cross is not inclined to answer genealogical requests -- very slow in responding (1-2 years). - Bureau for Missing Relatives, P.O. Box 92, Jerusalem, Israel. The new U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington has a library which is rapidly building a collection, including much material recently microfilmed in the former Soviet bloc. They also have a cooperative agreement with Yad Vashem. Contact the Museum at: 100 Raoul Wallenberg Place SW, Washington, DC 20024. Tel. (202) 488-0400. 16) JEWISH GENEALOGICAL PEOPLE FINDER (JGPF): The JGPF is a database of individuals on family trees submitted by Jewish genealogists, somewhat like the LDS Ancestral File. While the Jewish Genealogical Family Finder (JGFF, see Q#3) contains only surnames and town names, the JGPF contains data on individual people: birth date and place, death date and place, parents' names and spouse's name. Family trees in GEDCOM format (see Q#19) can be submitted for inclusion in the JGPF without charge. All Jewish genealogists are encouraged to participate. Send your diskettes to Avotaynu, Inc. (see Q#2). The JGPF is published on microfiche, and is available at all JGSs (see Q#6), and may be purchased from Avotaynu, Inc. for $22.50. The JGPF was first released in July 1992. The 2nd edition (on 17 microfiche) contains information on over 230,000 individuals, submitted by nearly 200 Jewish genealogists (released January 1994). It is NOT available online. 17) JEWISHGEN ECHO: The JEWISHGEN echo is a FIDOnet computer conference devoted to Jewish Genealogy, carried by over 150 Bulletin Board Systems (BBSs) around the world. Users can request help with problems, post new sources of information, and network globally. For a list of BBSs that carry the echo, either: 1) download the file GBBSyymm.zip from your local BBS (where yy and mm are the most recent year and month respectively, e.g. GBBS9405); or 2) Send a SASE to Bruce Kahn, 265 Viennawood Dr., Rochester NY 14618, for a list of BBSs in your area. The JEWISHGEN echo is moderated by Bruce Kahn and Susan King (susan.king@trace.cgsg.com, bkahn@kodak.com). The JEWISHGEN echo is now also available via Internet, using a gateway set up by Susan King in September 1993. To subscribe to the conference, send an e-mail message to: "listproc@nysernet.org", containing the message body "SUBSCRIBE JEWISHGEN " Your message will be handled by an automated list processor. This will result in 20-30 messages a day delivered to your e-mail inbox. To receive only one message per day, a "digest" of all of today's genealogy messages concatenated, send the message "SET JEWISHGEN Mail Digest" to the list processor after subscribing. This will greatly reduce your e-mail traffic. All messages sent from either FIDOnet or Internet will eventually appear in both networks, thanks to the gateway. To submit a message to the network, address it to: "JEWISHGEN@nysernet.org". To unsubscribe from the Internet list, send the message: "UNSUBSCRIBE JEWISHGEN"; to get more information about the list processor commands, send the message "HELP" to the list processor (listproc@nysernet.org). 18) GENEALOGICAL SOFTWARE DISTRIBUTION SYSTEM (GSDS): The GSDS is a system that allows files to be distributed to BBSs on the FIDO network. There is a special area for Jewish Genealogy files, called GENEJEW. For a list of FIDOnet BBSs that carry the GSDS, consult the sources listed above for the JEWISHGEN conference (Q#17). There are very few GSDS sites, and only a dozen files of Jewish interest. There is no direct Internet access to GSDS, but most GSDS files are mirrored on ftp.cac.psu.edu, and available for anonymous ftp (logon as user "anonymous", and use your Internet address as the password). The files are in the directory ~ftp/pub/genealogy/text/jewish. 19) COMPUTER GENEALOGY PROGRAMS: There are many programs available to computerize your family records, print charts and trees, etc. There is an entire FIDOnet echo devoted to genealogical software issues, called GENSOFT; these issues should not be discussed in the JEWISHGEN echo. Most genealogy programs can be easily adapted for use by Jewish genealogists, by adding custom fields such as Hebrew name, namesake (whom someone is named after), Yarzheit date, immigration date, etc. Information about computers and genealogy can be found in: "Genealogical Computing", a quarterly, $25.00 annually. Ancestry, Inc., P.O. Box 476, Salt Lake City, UT 84110. Przecha, Donna and Joan Lowrey. "Guide to Genealogy Software". (Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1993). 195 pages. ($25). ISBN 0-8063-1382-X. Pence, Richard A., editor. "Computer Genealogy: A Guide to Research through High Technology". Revised Edition. (Salt Lake City: Ancestry, Inc., 1991). 258 pages. ($13). ISBN 0-916489-02-7. There are dozens of programs on the market. Whichever you choose, be sure that the program includes a GEDCOM capability. GEDCOM is a file format that allows information to be exchanged between programs and shared with others. You also need GEDCOM in order to submit your data to the JGPF (See Q#16 above). My personal recommendations are: - "Family Tree Maker". Versions for DOS (3.0) & Windows (1.01). $59 from Banner Blue, P.O. Box 7865, Fremont, CA 94537 (510) 794-6850. Available at most software stores. Very easy to use. Highly recommended for beginners. - "Brother's Keeper", version 5.1. For DOS. $45 shareware fee. John Steed, 6907 Chilsdale Rd., Rockford, MI 49341. Popular shareware program. May be intimidating to beginners. - "Personal Ancestral File" (PAF), version 2.3. For DOS. $35 from Salt Lake Distribution Center, 1999 West 1700 South, Salt Lake City, UT 84104 (801) 240-2584. The official software of the Mormon Church. A bit outdated and not entirely appropriate for Jewish genealogy, but inexpensive and widely used. - "Reunion" (for Macintosh); "Reunion for Windows". $149 from Leister Productions, P.O. Box 289, Mechanicsburg, PA 17055 (717) 697-1378. Very powerful programs, with graphical user interfaces. Incredible chart-making capabilities. More sophisticated programs include: - Roots IV (Commsoft, Windsor, CA). For DOS, Windows soon. - The Master Genealogist (Wholly Genes Software, Elk Ridge, MA). 20) GLOSSARY: - brit, bris [Heb] = circumcision ceremony. - chevra kadisha [Heb] = burial society. - guberniya [Rus] = province of the Russian Empire, pre-1917. There were 15 gubernias in the Pale of Settlement, and 10 gubernias in the Polish provinces. - kehilla (pl. kehillot) [Heb] = Jewish community. - ketuba (pl. ketubot) [Heb] = marriage contract, document usually written in Aramaic. - landsman (pl. landslayt) [Yid] = townsman, someone from the same town. - landsmanshaft (pl. landsmanshaftn) [Yid] = township society; organization of people from the same ancestral town/village. - shtetl (pl. shtetlach) [Yid] = town, village - yarhzeit [Yid] = anniversary of death, using the Hebrew calendar - yizkor [Heb] = memorial ABBREVIATIONS: - BBS: Bulletin Board System (Q#17) - EOJG: Encyclopedia of Jewish Genealogy (Q#4) - FHC: Family History Center, LDS branch library (Q#13) - FHL: Family History Library, in Salt Lake City (Q#13) - FHLC: Family History Library Catalog (Q#13) - GSDS: Genealogical Software Distribution System (Q#18) - JGFF: Jewish Genealogical Family Finder (Q#3) - JGPF: Jewish Genealogical People Finder (Q#16) - JGS: Jewish Genealogical Society (Q#6) - LDS: Latter-Day Saints, the Mormon Church (Q#13) - RAGAS: Russian-American Genealogical Archival Service (Q#13) - SIG: Special Interest Group (Q#6) - SSDI: Social Security Death Index (Q#9, Q#13) - WOWW: Where Once We Walked, the gazetteer (Q#4) This FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) list is updated and posted monthly to the JEWISHGEN echo, around the first of the month. The FAQ is also available from BBSs which have GSDS (filename JEWGFAQ.ZIP), or may be requested on Internet via e-mail from warren@warren.vis.com. Suggestions, additions and corrections to the FAQ are encouraged. Warren Blatt END PART 2 OF 2 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Vicki Lindsay Thauvin Administrator of vicki@thauvin.net the GENEALOG files on Roots-L, the genealogy list