Summer 2016 Vol. 25 No.2 Making the Most of Jewishgen
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Summer 2016 Vol. 25 No.2 Making the Most of JewishGen -- Moving Beyond the Basic Searches presented by Garri Regev JewishGen.org is the go-to website for father's first name, e.g.: “Yaakov ben Jewish genealogists. Basic searches of its Shmuel” (in Hebrew), or “Yaakov Shmulo- many databases, help files, and affiliated vich” (in Russian), both meaning “Yaakov, SIG groups is free, but you may be asked for the son of Shmuel”. Surname adoption for a donation to do more extensive searches. Jews began to be required by the various Garri Regev told us in May how to make governments during the late 18th and early better use of the website. 19th centuries. The years varied by country . She started with some of the “myth- Myth #2: Spelling of surnames is im- busters” we should know, and gave the truth portant — RESPONSE: Spelling is irrelevant to counter those myths. in genealogy, as the consistent spelling of Myth #1: Your family surname can be names is a 20th-century invention and ob- traced to BEFORE the 18th century — RE- session. Names were almost never spelled SPONSE: Most Jews did not have fixed he- in a standard way in earlier records. Trans- reditary surnames until the early 19th centu- literation from one language to another ry. Before that, people were known only by their first name and a patronymic, i.e., their Regev see p. 6 Garri Regev did her un- Central Zionist Archives and also dergraduate work in Education at the National Library of Israel at Lake Erie College. She has Genealogy Center. She was Pres- lived in Israel since 1978 and ident of the Israel Genealogical was an elementary teacher for Society and is currently the Pres- more than 20 years there. She ident of the Israel Genealogy Re- has been doing genealogical re- search Association. Garri serves search for over 20 years, and has on the IAJGS Board of Directors. lectured on genealogy to many She was the Vice-Chair of the adult groups and IAJGS Confer- 2015 IAJGS Conference in Jeru- ences. Garri currently volunteers salem and co-chair of program at the Israel Museum, at the for the Conference. The Kol Summer 2016 Index p. 33 A message from President Amy Wachs... The Jewish Genealogy Society of Cleveland Ed Abramson and Ellen Pill, came from is having a very good year! In this column, I’d Wooster, OH, to discuss the experience of Jew- like to highlight some of our new and expanded ish immigrants in Wooster in their presentation services and resources. titled “Where the Horse Died—The History of At our September membership meeting, we Wooster, Ohio’s Jewish Community”. Our July announced the launch of a new “members-only” program was co-sponsored with the Kol Israel section for our website. You can visit our web- Foundation. Henry Bitterman explained site at www. clevelandjgs.org. Members who how to research family lost in the Holocaust in are current with their dues payments will re- his presentation “A Story of Survival: All We ceive a username and password to access the Had Was Hope”. In August, Daniel Horo- password protected files on our website. As we witz, Chief Genealogist of MyHeritage, came build content for our members, we anticipate from Israel to discuss “Israel Genealogy on the that these files will include handouts from our Internet”. At our September meeting, Rabbi programs, as well as research and membership Naphtali Burnstein explained “How to Read resources. Many thanks to our webmaster Paul a Jewish Tombstone”. All of these programs Wolf for creating this new feature for our mem- have been very well-attended. Special thanks to bers. Sylvia Abrams, our First Vice President- We are also growing our library, which is Programs, for organizing such a great variety of located at Fairmount Temple (Beachwood, OH). events with excellent speakers. Earlier this year, we acquired a complete set of We will be welcoming more out-of-town AVOTAYNU and STAMMBAUM journals. I speakers for our October and November meet- invite our members to visit our library—we have ings. In October, Dr. David Kendall will visit many helpful resources available there. Cleveland and discuss “When Descendants We have also expanded our research assis- Become Ancestors: The Flip Side of Genealogy”. tance. In July, Adelle Gloger announced her Be sure to join us for our November meeting, retirement from responding to requests for when author and activist Grant Gochin will research help. Our new research team is com- come from California to discuss “A Genealogical prised of members Paul Klein, Russ Journey to Heritage Citizenship in Lithuania”. Maurer, and Helen Wolf. All are highly Our December meeting will include a re- skilled and experienced researchers. They have port and discussion on the IAJGS 2016 Annual already responded to several research inquiries Conference that was held in Seattle in August. and are now engaged in an exciting new project Our Jewish Genealogy Society was well- involving the Willet Street Cemetery in Cleve- represented at the IAJGS Conference, with nine land. members attending. Our former President, We have also established an on-site “Help Ken Bravo, is Vice President of IAJGS. Ken Desk” at our meetings. Board members are and I were featured speakers at the Conference. available before meetings to answer questions It was an honor to be included among the tal- and provide assistance to members and guests. ented speakers at this year’s IAJGS Conference. You may have noticed that we have also set up a I was very impressed with the breadth and new “Welcome Desk” at meetings, where Board depth of the Conference offerings, and urge members are available to greet members and members to consider attending future events. I guests, provide membership information, and hope you enjoy this edition of the KOL. Many answer questions. thanks to our Editor, Cynthia Spikell, for Our summer programs have been outstand- creating another excellent issue. ing! In May, we welcomed Garri Regev, for- Thank you for your support and member- mer President of the Israel Genealogical Re- ship. Best wishes to you and your families for a search Association, who visited Cleveland and happy, healthy, and peaceful new year. L’Sha- spoke to our group about “Making the Most of na Tovah! JewishGen’s Resources”. Our June speakers, The Kol 2 Amy Summer 2016 Upcoming Meetings From April through November, meetings are held at Menorah Park’s second floor Miller Boardroom, 27100 Cedar Road, Beachwood, at 7:30 p.m. on the first Wednesday of the month. See our website www.clevelandjgs.org/ . Wednesday, September 7 -- “How to Read a Jewish Tombstone” -- Rabbi Naphtali Burnstein, Young Israel of Greater Cleveland Wednesday, October 5 -- When Descendants Become Ancestors: The Flip Side of Gen- ealogy -- author Dr. David Kendall Wednesday, November 2 -- “A Genealogical Journey to Heritage Citizenship in Lith- uania” -- Grant Gochin, activist on behalf of Lithuanian Jewry and author of Mal ice, Murder and Manipulation: One Man’s Quest for Truth In December we will resume our winter schedule. We meet the first Sunday at 1:30 p.m. at Anshe Chesed Fairmount Temple, 23737 Fairmount Blvd, Beachwood. Sunday, December 4 -- Report from members who attended the 2016 IAJGS Seattle conference. Sunday, January 8, 2017 -- “Tetiev: Documentary Film Project”-– Susan Kirkman Zake, Assistant Professor in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Kent State University Future IAJGS Conferences 2017, July 23 – 28 Orlando, Florida 37th Conference 2018 Eastern Europe (tentative) 38th Conference 2019 Ken Bravo announced at our September meeting that it will be CLEVELAND, OHIO !! April 26-29, 2017, The Ohio Genealogical Society (OGS) annual conference will be held at the Kalahari Resort and Convention Center in Sandusky, Ohio. See www.ogs.org for more information. Can’t get enough of genealogy? If you are looking for more, The Cleve- land District Round Table is a discussion group of the leadership of the genealogi- cal societies in the five-county district which includes Cuyahoga, Geauga, Lake, Lorain, and Medina. It has an online calendar of “Activities of Genealogical Interest” -- events sponsored by various groups. See http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~ohcdrt/ . The Kol 3 Summer 2016 Local Webcasting our meetings? We have been asked if You need the slides with the speaker, but we could do webcasts of our if you both at one, you don't get the other meetings, or video record and if you point at both, you don't get a them for out-of-town mem- good image of either. bers or members who cannot attend “At the IAJGS annual conference we monthly meetings. Ken Bravo wrote a have Family Search doing the video work good explanation of why this is not cur- but they are using broadcast-quality rently possible. equipment. The audio DVDs that we sell “The concept of recording presenta- are prepared by a company that records tions and putting them online is certainly the audio and separately captures the neither new nor novel. How it is done is PowerPoint slides electronically. They the issue and also the problem. then have to manually sync the audio and “First of all, it needs to be high quality the images. or else it looks like someone's bad home “Finally, there is the issue of getting movies of their last vacation. So you need the speaker's permission, both for the au- equipment of the proper quality and a tri- dio and the slides. Some, but not a huge pod to keep it steady. Forget about any- number, refuse. Some fear that they won't one's iPhone.