Museum of Family History

List of New York City Synagogues Now Updated!

2011-09-04T16:49:00.000-04:00

The Museum's list of mostly defunct synagogues that once stood in Manhattan proper has been widely updated. It now includes information on synagogues from fifteen city directories, ranging from 1869 to 1933. Hopefully more will be added in the future.

The synagogue list is being presented to you in the form of an address directory, i.e. the listing is sorted first by building address, and when available, the names of the synagogue president, the rabbi, cantor and sexton. You can find this updated list by clicking here.

Synagogues of New York City Update

2011-08-02T16:38:00.010-04:00

Within the next few weeks the Museum of Family History's Education and Research Center will be updating its Manhattan webpage for its "Synagogues of New York City" exhibition. I now have copies of the synagogue listings from thirteen more Manhattan City directories. This will be a great addition to the current page which only represents a portion of all the synagogues that once existed on the island of Manhattan.

The synagogues to be added are listed in the directories starting in 1869 and go to 1933-4.

What's helpful on these lists -- besides the synagogue name and its address at the time the directory was printed-- is that often times the rabbi, president, reader and sexton of the synagogue are listed.

I have amended the way I present this particular list, so that it is an "address directory", so to speak, so it will be most helpful if you knew at least the street on which the synagogue once stood. Of course, you can always do a search on the page for any keyword you choose.

I will notify those of you who follow my blog once the webpage is updated, though as I've said, it might take a few weeks or so. To see the current lists of New York City synagogues, click here.

"To Honor and Preserve: The Memories of Leo and Sylvia Dashefsky"

2011-07-02T12:34:00.005-04:00

This exhibition is presented to you by the Museum through the cooperation of Batya Dashefsky, their daughter. She has created a lovely twenty-three minute slide show about her parents, her family et al. I recommend you visit this exhibition and watch her presentation (with music and narration) and think about how you might use your own unique creativity to honor your own family. This presentation spans many decades, from life in Erope to immigration, to immigrant Jewish life in America in the 1920s, Brownsville, Palestine, Syracuse, New York and Philadelphia.Mention is made of such organizations as Pioneer Women, Shomer Hatzair, the Labor Zionist Movement et al. Letters of correspondence are read, e.g. from pre-war Bialystok. Mention is also made of Grodno, Rezina in Bessarabia and Narewka, Poland.Also, Batya's father Leo dedicated his retirement to translating original Yiddish-language poetry and thus within the Museum' Yiddish Vinkl, if you have a mind to, you can read the English translations of such Yiddish poets and writers as Sholem Aleichem, Mordechai Gebirtig, Itzhak Katzenelson, H. Leivick, J. L. Peretz, Avraham Reisen and Yehoash.The exhibition begins here. This exhibition is ever-evolving; as the Museum receives more interesting, creative works of those who have honored their ancestors, they too will be added to this growing exhibition.

Elaine Rosenberg Miller has also written a small piece about her father's aunt which is included within the "To Honor and Preserve" exhibition. You can find it here.

Updated list of New York City Synagogues

2011-05-15T18:53:00.006-04:00

The Museum's list of synagogues once found within the borough of Manhattan, New York, has now been updated with an additional one hundred and seventy new entries. With this healthy number of additions, the list now includes the names of more than eight-hundred Manhattan synagogues.

This new synagogue information comes from Trow's New York City 1905-6 city directory, and this, in addition to the prior list (taken from another source, date unknown, but later than 1905-6), makes for a nice compilation of synagogue names and addresses.

The city directory from 1905-6 lists, from time to time, the names of the synagogue president, rabbi, sexton and the occasional cantor.

Most of the synagogues added to this list once stood on the Lower East Side of Manhattan.

When it can be discerned, the town association of a synagogue is listed too, as well as its street address.

To visit the page of Manhattan synagogue names, please click here.

Where Once There Were Jews: Lapy, Poland

2011-04-03T15:05:00.006-04:00

The story of Łapy native Sol Rubenstein begins: "The one-story brick house in which I was born on March 2, 1916 stood on the main street in Łapy, Poland, twenty-five kilometers south of the city of Bialystok. Łapy, a small town called in Yiddish "shtetl," was a major railroad crossing for the Warsaw-Vilna line. It had approximately one hundred Jewish families and three-thousand gentile families in 1939. The main industry was government railroad repair shops that employed about 4,000 gentile people. The Jewish population was discriminated against and denied the opportunity to work at the railroad shops. Two of the major streets were Main Street and Railroad Street. The few side streets were no more than alleys inhabited mostly by Jewish residents. Most of the gentiles lived at the outskirts of town in small villages. Each family had a house with two or three acres of land to plant grains, potatoes, vegetables and to raise a few livestock and poultry. Most of the Jewish people were merchants and tradesmen. Each family had the front part of their home as a place of business and the back room as their living quarters. My entire family consisted of uncles, aunts, great-uncles, great-aunts, and their children branched out into ten separate and independent families. Each family had their own home and retail business on Main Street. Their businesses dealt with the farmers and railroad employees...."

Continue to read Sol's story as well as see many photographs of Łapy taken there both before and during the war when the Germans occupied the town. You can find the exhibition "Where Once There Were Jews: Lapy, Poland" by clicking here.

Kristallnacht and the Destruction of the Polish Jews, 1939-43

2011-03-12T22:47:00.003-05:00

A powerful film of nearly thirty-four minutes about the time of Kristallnacht and later, between 1928-43 in Poland, when destruction rained down upon the Jewish people.

In this film you will see a combination of archival film and roving scans of still photographs that give one a jarring view of this period.

Included within this film one can see pictures of many Polish synagogues, both interior and exterior; those synagogues that were still relatively intact before their destruction, and those who were destroyed or were in the process of being razed to the ground.

Tomek lists the following towns and their synagogues that are represented in his film. I can't vouch for the fact that each are represented, but it is most likely:

Lodź, Lodz-Litzmanstadt, Białystok, Zambrów, Wieruszów, Markuszów, Koło, Bychów, Biłgoraj, Lubaczów, Lubieszów, Tarnów, Luboml, Biała Podlaska, Jordanów, Częstochowa, Przemyśl, Żółkiew, Grajewo, Grodno, Mława, Równo, Łęczyca, Łaszczów,Tomaszów Lubelski,Knysyn, Tomaszów Mazowiecki, Jonawa, Połock and Czyżew. The link to this film can be found at the very top of the Tomek Wisniewski list.

Be sure to stick around until the very end of the film past the scrolling Polish-language text as the English version of the text will follow.

To Honor and Preserve: The Story of Irene Weinberg

2011-02-06T10:33:00.006-05:00

This is a multi-faceted ongoing exhibition about the many ways we as individuals, i.e. those of us who are interested in preserving the memory of our families, go about it. The first entry in this exhibition to be presented comes from Rabbi Norbert Weinberg. His mother Irene Weinberg was born in Lemberg (Lwow/L'viv) in Galicia.

“Megillat Esther: The Story of Esther” is the account of Irene Weinberg’s survival as an Aryan Pole during the Shoah, compiled by her son, Rabbi Norbert Weinberg and is based on original documents and taped and video testimony.

Esther, the Hebrew name of Irene, plays on the theme of “ Esther”, referring to the Hebrew word for “Hidden”, as both the original Esther of the first Megillah and this modern Esther saved themselves and others by living as a non-Jew under the nose of the oppressors and murderers.

It is part of the family history of Rabbi Dr. Wilhelm Weinberg and Irene Weinberg that explores the themes underlying the story of the Jewish people and the courage of the spirit that has enabled this people to survive over the millennia. The author’s father, Rabbi Dr. Wilhelm Weinberg, survived imprisonment in Berlin, capture in Czechoslovakia, and Soviet refuge, to return to lead the Surviving Remnant as the first Chief Rabbi of Hesse (Frankfurt), Germany, after the Shoah.

You can find Irene Weinberg's story here. Many of his family photos were originally posted on the website of the Galicia Jewish Museum of Krakow. He also has a blog which he uses to update those interested on his ongoing research into the the history of the Jewish people in Europe in the twentieth century. His blog can be found here.

Look for more entries within this exhibition, "To Honor and Preserve", in the coming months. More such dedications to family members are always welcome.

The March of Time (1937): Poland and War

2011-01-30T10:19:00.005-05:00

I am currently watching one of the "March of Time" thirty-minute films (Volume 3, Number 11), this one from 11 Jun 1937, and one part of it is entitled "Poland and War."

In one scene (the segment is less than six mintues long) the film's narrator is talking about the increasing attacks on the Jews of Europe, and they show a number of certificates that I believe are hanging on an office wall in some European town or city, and there are names of Jews printed on these certificates.

I can't say from what city/town these certificates hung--perhaps Danzig, or Warsaw, Galicia, Lithuania, or a town in the Bialystok region, I can't tell from the newsreel footage--but I would be remiss if I didn't pass these names on to you. I can't really read what else is printed on these
certificates, but can tell you the names as they are the largest printing on said certificates.

So then here are the names:

Estera Adlermanowna
Mendla Apfel
Abraham Schwannanfeld
Abraham Selig Rappaport
Wolf Mamber (the second 'm' and 'b' are a bit suspect)
Sarah z Tuchmanow Krebsowa
Leib Schwarz
Gedale Loffler

I'll keep my eyes open for more names, etc. One never knows where one may find a name of interest.

If you'd like to see a complete list of segments of all the "March of Time" films, click here.
To view links to complete "March of Time" segments, including the one mentioned here, click here. To do this, you'll be asked by the website to create a user name and password.

The Jewish Folk Style in the Wooden Wall Paintings of Eastern Europe

2011-01-22T21:03:00.006-05:00

A new online exhibition entitled "The Jewish Folk Style in the Wooden Wall Paintings of Eastern Europe" is now available for viewing at the Museum of Family History. This exhibition should be of interest to those of you who are interested in art history, or simply the old wooden synagogues that once existed aplenty in Europe, particularly in the Ukraine.

This exhibition is replete with many black and white and color photographs, including a number of the exteriors of some wooden synagogues and more of the interior wall paintings of others. This exhibition comes to you courtesy of an associate professor of art history in Kharkov, Ukraine. Professor Kotlyar gives interesting insights into the paintings themselves, as only an art historian can.

Most of the photos of wall paintings presented are of synagogues associated with the Ukraine. They represent such towns as (in alphabetical order): Drogobych, Gorodok, Gvozdetz, Khodrov, Kopys, Mikhalpol, Moghilev on the Dnieper, Norinsk, Novomirgorod, Smotrich, Talne, Targoritza, Unterlimpurg and Yaryshev.

The exhibition may be found by clicking here. More exhibitions are always welcome from those on the outside who are willing to contribute them for display at the Museum. Please contact the Museum if you're willing to put together an exhibition for online display.

"Lexicon of the Yiddish Theatre" Museum Transliteration Project Complete

2011-01-14T17:28:00.004-05:00

The Museum has now completed the transliteration from Yiddish to English of all names listed within the six volumes of Zalmen Zylbercweig's "Lexicon of the Yiddish Theatre."

On this database is included the following information (all when available):

Surname, given name, alterate names, date of birth, date of death, and town and country of birth (usually the name of the town at the time they were born--most were born in the second half of the nineteenth century or first decade of the twentieth).

Also listed is the page on which each name appears in these six volumes, not only the original book page number, but also the page number on the pdf version that's online--this is a very helpful finding aid when trying to locate a specific page. In addition, there are also thirty Yiddish theatre organizations included within this master list.

YIVO orthographic (name spelling) standards have been used most often in compiling this database, though this was a daunting task.

There are more than 2,700 individual names listed within this master list. The most often represented town/city of individual births is not unexpectedly Warszawa; the number is 213, more than double the number of the second most frequent, Lodz; then farther down the list but close behind comes Odessa, Lemberg, Vilna and Iasi.

These six volumes of the Lexicon were published in either New York City, Warsaw or Mexico City between 1931 and 1969. The entire six volumes are in Yiddish, so while transliterating the names was a very time-consuming task, it was doable even for a non-Yiddish speaker.

There is much good information biographically for most of those individuals listed. It is hoped that fluent Yiddish speakers will come forth and volunteer to translate some of these passages into English. If you'd like to volunteer to translate--perhaps you have a town of interest and would like to add a translated biography to your own town webpage--please contact the Museum.

It should be noted that not all Yiddish actors and actresses that ever lived are included within these six volumes, but there is more than enough names and information about individuals and organizations and theatre groups to maintain one's interest, assuming one's interest lies in the Yiddish theatre.

Within these six volumes, there are also many photos of scenes of plays, of actors in their roles and many illustrations.

"Lexicon of the Yiddish Theatre" Museum Transliteration Project

2011-01-07T17:42:00.006-05:00

The Museum is currently in the midst of a small project to transliterate (in this case exchange the Yiddish/Hebrew letters listed for the English) Zalmen Zylbercweig's six-volume "Lexicon of the Yiddish Theatre."

This is a bit of an undertaking as these volumes are rather large, but the project is at least halfway done. The names listed in volumes 3, 4 and 5 have been transliterated to date, and Volume 1 will be completed shortly.

Even though the transliterated names and associated page numbers for Volume 5 can be found on JewishGen by clicking here, the Museum's name listings are more complete. The Museum has corrected many errors and omissions that were found in the Volume 5 listing.

Also the Museum's own listings for each of the volumes, not only have surnames, given names and "alternate names" been included, but when listed, the individual's date of birth and death are given, as well as the town/city and country of their birth. The Museum has tried to use the YIVO orthographic standards in the spellings of the names, though there are no doubt errors here too.

You can now find Zylbercweig's six volumes online (for free) by clicking here. Simply search for these volumes by using the words "Leksikon fun Yidishn teater".

Also, not only are the actual page numbers listed for each entry as in the original Yiddish-language volume, but the pdf page number has been added too, so all you have to do is enter that page number where the individual's name (and most often photos) appears.

It might be interesting for those of you who have familial ties with European countries and towns to see what person associated with the Yiddish theatre in some way came from that town or city. It should be to no one's surprise that the towns/cities that are most associated with these many names are Warsaw, Lodz, Vilna and Lemberg(L'viv).

The Museum hopes to complete this project within the next two or three weeks. If you need any lookups, please let the Museum know by e-mail. Of course you might want to wait till the Museum is finished with all six volumes. I understand that Volume 7 has never been published, and that parts of it sit in various repositories, so it is unlikely that the Museum be able to transliterate the names in that volume unless the institution/person that has it makes it available.

The Museum is hoping to put this information, once completed, on a free, online searchable database.

The National Archives in New York City is Moving!

2010-12-30T10:00:00.003-05:00

According to the National Archives website:

The National Archives at New York City is pleased to announce that within the next two years we will move our office to the Alexander Hamilton U.S. Custom House at One Bowling Green in New York City. Our new home will be located in the same building as the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of the American Indian. The building is currently known as the Custom House building, designed by Cass Gilbert in the Beaux Arts style and listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

We have just started the design phase of for our new space. After extensive renovation, our new space will be ready in the late fall of 2011. We will announce the exact dates of the move as soon as possible.

At One Bowling Green our patrons will continue to receive the same great service they have come to expect from the experienced National Archives staff. We will continue to provide access to all of our holdings. An increase in our public and outreach programs, and our new proximity to other important New York cultural institutions including the Museum of the American Indian and Ellis Island, will enable us to reach a wider audience.

At One Bowling Green we will:

Occupy space on the 3rd and 4th floor of this historic building.

Store our most used original records and most popular microfilm holdings.

Provide access to all of our records (including records stored offsite).

Continue to provide certified copies of National Archives holdings.

Increase the number of public access computers so that patrons can access online resources.

Continue to make available online subscription services including Ancestry, Footnote, Heritage Quest, ProQuest, free of charge.

Provide additional outreach programs to increase awareness of National Archives resources in New York, the Northeast Region, and nationwide.

We are moving for several reasons. Our new location will provide state-of-the-art storage facilities for our original records. We must provide a secure preservation environment so that current and future generations of researchers can use the holdings. The new location will also be more patron friendly, and will allow greater accessibility to our programs and services. It is a historic building fit to house the holdings of the National Archives.

It will be necessary to close and/or limit some services when we make the physical move. We will do everything possible to keep any disruption in service at a minimum.

At One Bowling Green we will have more space than we currently do to accommodate researchers, staff, volunteers, teachers, and students. We are just beginning the design phase. Our space at One Bowling Green will have the same functions as our current space including a research room, computer search room, and a reference library.

If you would like to read the full amount of information about the move, as well as the "frequently asked questions," please click here.

The Synagogues of Egypt

2010-12-14T15:36:00.005-05:00

For those of you who would like to see a small number of black and white photographs of three Cairo synagogues and one in Alexandria, Egypt, you may now do so within one of the Museum's synagogue exhibitions.

The synagogues in question are the Eliyahu HaNavi synagogue in Alexandria; the Haim Cappoussi Synagogue, the Ben Ezra Synagogue and the Sha'ar Hashamayim Synagogoue in Cairo. Also featured with these photos is a photo of a synagogue in Mozambique.

Within the Museum of Family History's Synagogue photo collection you may see many photographs of synagogues, both past and present, from Europe, Asia and Africa.

If you have other synagogue photographs from outside North America and would like to send them to the Museum for inclusion, please send them to postmaster@museumoffamilyhistory.com .

The Displaced Persons Camps Post-World War II

2010-12-11T15:41:00.005-05:00

The Museum is now preparing many new online exhibitions for the coming year. The topic of one of these exhibitions will be many of the D.P. (Displaced Persons) camps that sprouted in Europe after the end of World War II, which housed thousands of refugees, survivors of the Holocaust.

The Museum wishes all who are fans and followers of the Museum to consider contributing material to any of the forthcoming exhibitions (watch for the announcement of new 2011 exhibitions coming soon.)

If you have any family photos that were taken in any of the D.P. camps, as well as any written accounts of life there or audio or video interviews of same, please consider sending copies to the Museum for inclusion in this forthcoming exhibition.

Already the Museum has filled one "wall" of this exhibition room with nearly forty photographs taken from the memorial album produced for the D.P. camp in Hof, Germany. As the Museum of Family History is a virtual (Internet-only) Museum, the walls will always have room for material that may be of interest to other Museum "visitors."

If you have any questions, feel free to contact me, Steven Lasky, at steve@museumoffamilyhistory.com .

Going Sky-ing at Thomas Jefferson High School

2010-11-29T19:27:00.006-05:00

Just for the purpose of illustration, to give you a simple indication of the number of Jewish teenagers who once attended Jefferson and graduated in the pre-war years, here are a list of June 1937 grads whose last name ended in the letters -sky. We can assume that most all of these students were Jewish as indicated by their often used Jewish given names. Here are thirty-two -skys:

Antipolsky, Belsky, Biolostosky, Brodsky, Dolinsky, Cinensky, Kanefsy, Kanofsky, Kozimensky, Krinsky, Lubinsky, Miletsky, Mirsky, Natowsky, Olinsky, Orshansky, Ostrofsky, Patashinsky, Puhalsky, Razansky, Ruvinsky, Savitsky, Shetarsky, Sovronsky, Swidzensky, Tulchinsky, Turetsky, Uretsky, Wilensky, Wishinsky, Witofsky and Wolinsky.

Just imagine how many -skys can be found within the school's database of 47,000 graduates! Do your own search and see if you can find your own surnames of interest here.

June 1937 Thomas Jefferson High School Yearbook Now Online

2010-11-29T08:50:00.007-05:00

I have finally been able to add another yearbook to my online searchable collection of Jefferson yearbooks, this one from June 1937. The graduating class numbered 764.

Thomas Jefferson High School is located in the East New York section of Brooklyn, New York. Jefferson was once (before World War II) one of the finest high schools in all of New York City. Especially during these times, due to the presence of many families of Jewish immigrants, a good percentage of the students were indeed Jewish.

You can either browse the yearbook cover to cover or do a search by graduate's name. There are now photographs of more than 47,000 graduates from seventy-four graduating classes. This represents sixty-five percent of all graduating classes from Jan 1927 (the first graduating class) to 2006. This is a great resource for Jewish genealogists, for those whose families once lived in this section of Brooklyn.

More yearbooks will be added in the future if and when they become available to the Museum.

Pitfalls in Using Online Searchable Cemetery Databases

2010-11-18T21:02:00.005-05:00

Now that I've introduced to you two new searchable cemetery databases, it is probably a good idea to review some of the reasons you might not find the burial record you're looking for. This is, of course, assuming that the person is truly buried in that particular cemetery. I may miss a few reasons why your search may result in a "false negative," but it may be interesting to you nevertheless to read what I have to say.

Remember that these cemeteries never thought in the many years they were in existence before the Internet that their records would ever be made available in this way to the public. Most of the cemetery from their inception used burial ledgers and/or burial cards which they file either by society name, year of burial, alphabetically by surname, etc. Many of the office help who wrote out these burial records over the years made errors in recording the deceased's burial information, which in fact was often taken from the death certificate or burial permit. The death certificate might have been filled out incorrectly for one reason or the other, either the fault of the person who filled it out (e.g. at the funeral parlor), or the person that gave them the information, family member or not, gave them the information. Then once the cemetery office recorded the information, this became the official record, not necessarily what appeared on the gravestone. Also while inputting or uploading the data into the new cemetery databases, errors could have been made.

Also, with a small percentage of records (in the case of Montefiore, more than 7,000 burials have no date of death associated with them out of a total of 140,000 or so burials, i.e. five percent) there are no dates of death listed within the database's records which probably occurred because there was no date on the burial card or it was illegible for some reason.

In addition, the name that is in the cemetery's burial records, whether it be the deceased's given name or surname, could be different (either by a letter or two, or in one place the name could be in English instead of Yiddish or vice versa with regards to the deceased's given name). You might find that in the cemetery database a woman's maiden name might be used, but on the gravestone their married name is used. Some cemeteries will list a woman's burial info twice, once with her maiden name and once with her married name....Go figure.

With the Montefiore databases you can't use Soundex, so you need to be spot on in what you enter a name into the search fields, although you can just enter the first two letters of a given name or surname and still be successful.

Just by reviewing one society plot, one of Montefiore's landsmanshaftn plots associated with Lomza, Poland, I've found at least a ten percent error or omission of names. Of course, this is just one plot, but I imagine that there are errors in most plots to one degree or the other for the reasons mentioned above. The Lomza society in question is abbreviated in the deceased's burial record, i.e. "Chev Poale Zedek An Lomze" whose full name is Chevera Poale Zedek Anshe Lomze. In one burial record one record "Lomze" was spelled "Lodge," so if one had the ability to search by society name (as one could with the other seven New York cemetery databases), one would miss this burial record, if you entered "Lomze" into the search field for society name and had all of the information exactly correct.

Other errors you may find that lead you to false search results include a difference of a single letter in a surname, usually a vowel (so if you can't find who you're looking for, change the vowel and see if that works); reversal of letters, e.g. Finkelstien instead of Finkelstein, or Sohn instead of Shon. There may be a double consonant in the database, e.g. Feller, and a single consonant on the stone, e.g. Feler. As mentioned earlier, a Yiddish given name may appear in the cemetery's records with one spelling, e.g. Chaia, while on the gravestone Ida may appear (or vice versa.)

Note too that these searchable cemetery burial databases are especially useful for finding burial information on babies, whose gravestones are either non-existend, devoid of any inscription either by intent or because the material used for their small gravestone eroded very easily, or even that the ground "swallowed up" the stone as it sank into the ground either partly or fully over time.

There are also a number of double entries within these databases. Now remember that when someone loses an appendage, e.g. an arm, leg, foot, most often this is listed as a separate burial. The deceased's name is listed the same, but their burial record numbers will be different, and perhaps the burial location too (within the same plot of course). Sometimes, except for the burial record number, all the info is the same. So either this is a duplicate, an error in the burial record number so the burial was entered twice, once erroneously, or somehow on the same day they lost a body part and passed away and both are buried separately but near each other in the same society plot. Strange but probably true in some instances.

I am also not convinced that every date found under the Montefiore databases "date of death" field is the date of death or burial. But you can only search by month and year of death using their databases, so the day itself doesn't matter as far as searching is concerned. If the death was in the New York metro area, one can always check the death index at www.italiangen.org if the date of death was early enough, to verify a spelling or a date of death. Past 1965, give or take, you can also check the SSDI (Social Security Death Index) to verify spelling or date of death.

That's it for now. Remember I'm not in contact with these cemeteries per se and cannot request that they change the burial record of someone in your family. If you find an error, you will have to contact the cemetery yourself, and odds are, you'll have to supply them with an official document, e.g. the person's death certificate, to compel them to change their records.

You might also like to read a previously published webpage I've written about searching cemetery databases. If you'd like to read it, please click here.

If you'd like to begin searching the databases of the Montefiore cemeteries, click here and then on the appropriate cemetery name. Then click on the word "Locator" at the top of that page.

New Montefiore Cemetery Searchable Database Now Fully Updated (More or Less)

2010-11-17T20:40:00.003-05:00

This evening I checked the burial numbers per year for Pinelawn, New York's New Montefiore Cemetery and it seems that they have within the last day or so vastly updated their searchable database. Just three days ago the total burials online were more than 95,000; now the total number is nearing 149,000. Although we can assume that there will be tweaks to the database in the coming days etc., most of their burials should be online now. Not only are the New Montefiore burials for the 1990s and 2000s included now, but also for other years that were previously strangely underrepresented, e.g. 1936, 1954-6.

So now for those of you who became frustrated when you couldn't find your family member within their database, try again. Now I am just the messenger, so to speak, and don't represent the cemetery nor do I have anything to do with their database. If you think their is a misspelling or other mistake within their database, you must contact them directly. I'm just trying to keep you informed about newly formed searchable cemetery databases when I discover them.

I don't know if (Old) Montefiore Cemetery in Springfield Gardens, Queens, New York has been updated within the last couple of weeks or so since I first made the announcement about the Montefiore Cemetery databases. Besides a tweak here and there, I think the burial database for (Old) Montefiore Cemetery is mostly done, but I haven't fully checked it out yet and am not sure.

So to date, the Queens cemetery ("Old" Montefiore) has 133,402 burials online (more or less), and the Pinelawn cemetery has 148,704 for a total of 282,106.

So if you add this number to the number of NY metro cemetery burials that are currently online (along with Riverside and Mt. Moriah Cemeteries in New Jersey there are at least seven), there must be close to a million burial records available for searching, if not more (though one has to search each cemetery's online database individually.)

To search either of the Montefiore Cemetery databases, click here . Just click on the cemetery whose database you wish to search and then click on "Locator" at the top of the page.

Happy hunting!

A Timeout for Rosh Hashanah on the European Battlefield during World War I

2010-11-11T23:21:00.005-05:00

After much delay, the next article to be presented to you as part of the Museum's Newspaper Archive is now ready for your perusal.

Nearly half a million Jewish soldiers, the "largest number under arms since the children of Israel ceased to be a nation," laid aside their weapons of war in 1914 to observe Rosh Hashanah. The picture displayed here shows Day of Atonement services held by the Jewish soldiers in the German army during the Franco-Prussian War (which took place between 1870 and 1871). It presents a scene that was enacted by the rival armies of Europe more than forty years later.

You can read this September 21, 1914 article that appeared within Philadelphia's Evening Ledger. The article is entitled "Jews Worshipping Amid Din of Battle in War-Torn Europe" and can be found here.

The Museum's entire Newspaper Archive list with links to more than one hundred articles (most of them published in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century) can be found here.

Notes on Searching the "Old Man's Registration" World War II Database

2010-11-11T17:27:00.002-05:00

Now that for a time Ancestry.com is offering free access to military records, it might behoove you as a researcher or interested party, to partake in this.

One does not have to always search this database by the registrant's name. If, for instance, you would like to know the names of all the registrants who were born in a particular town in the U.S. or Europe, e.g. Pultusk, Poland/Russia, all you would have to do is simply enter the word "Pultusk" in the "Location" field under the "Birth" section, and voila. Of course, you might miss some entries because the word "Pultusk" or other town name might have been spelled wrong on the registration card (and thus in the database).

It might also have been that the town name was left out and only the word "Poland" or "Russia" was written on the registration card. Whatever the case, a search such as I've suggested might lead to some interesting results, familiar surnames, etc., so it's worth looking into.

The records available here for searching are for the draft registration of 1942 (the "fourth registration") and were generally for men who were outside of the age range for active duty, but were required to register I believe just in case the U.S. Government needed them for the war effort in some way.

This fourth registration is the only one that is currently available to the public(because of privacy restrictions.) This "old man's registration" was for men born betwen April 28, 1877 and February 16, 1897 (men between ages forty-five and sixty-four) who were not in the military at the time.

One can learn the name of the registrant, their age, birth place, place of residence, who their employer was (name of company/person, work address), the name and address of the person who would always know where the registrant was, as well as the physical characteristics of the registrant.

It should be noted that registration information is only available for twenty-three states and one territory. Still definitely worth checking out!

One can search the Ancestry.com database for this fourth registration by clicking here.

For those of you who would like to see the list of 115 Pultusk-born registrants, click here.

The Synagogue of Lubaczów, Poland

2010-11-08T13:22:00.002-05:00

A magnificent synagogue, built in the eighteenth century and rebuilt in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, the Lubaczów Synagogue was burned down by the Germans between 12 and 15 September 1939. Used in this newest film of Tomek Wisniewski, "The Synagogue of Lubaczów", were photographs taken by German soldiers.

Lubaczów today is located in southeast Poland and was once part of Galicia/the Austrian Empire (until 1918 when Poland was declared an independent state.) At that time Lubaczów became part of an independent Poland.

The film is set to music and is less than ten minutes long. It is composed of slow scans of both the interior and exterior of the synagogue and its surrounds.

You can find the link to the film on the Museum's Tomek Wisniewski Film Series page. The films are listed alphabetically by town association.

Grajewo, Poland: A 2010 Meeting between Pole and Jew

2010-11-06T14:09:00.003-04:00

Now available for viewing at the Museum of Family History is a new film of fifteen minutes created by Tomek Wisniewski about Grajewo, Poland. This film includes color film of Grajewo taken this year, scans of old family photos, as well as film taken in Grajewo of a meeting between Poles and Jews on May 18th. The meeting was also attended by members of the Israeli government. An interesting film to see.

If you have any comments about the film after seeing it, feel free to send them to me and I will forward them to Tomek.

You can find the link to this film "Grajewo: Poles and Jews" on Tomek's Museum webpage. The films are listed alphabetically according to town association.

Burials per Year at the Montefiore Cemeteries of New York

2010-11-05T23:28:00.005-04:00

With my recent announcement of the online availability of the two searchable burial databases for Montefiore and New Montefiore Cemeteries in New York, many have flocked to these databases in search of family members. These databases have been a boon to many, yet for others who know that there are family members buried in one of these cemeteries but have to date been unable to locate their burial records, they are understandably frustrated.

Within each cemetery lies more than five hundred society plots, not only landsmanshaftn (mutual aid) societies, but societies formed within synagogues, fraternal orders, labor unions, community centers and other organizations, not to mention family plots and plots unaffiliated with any particular organization. The landsmanshaftn are associated with many countries, especially those from Europe, such as Poland, Ukraine, Lithuania, Belarus, Austria-Hungary et al.

The reason that burials are not found within these particular databases most often is that the data for every burial has not been entered yet; it is an ongoing process whose completion date is unknown. This is especially true of the database of New Montefiore Cemtery. One often tends to look for reasons why one relative can be found, e.g. from 1930, but not of a family member who died more recently. Of course, there may be data entry errors, differences in spellings between a headstone, death certificate, etc., which would lead one to a false negative result, so one must use one's imagination when searching for information via these databases.

What I have done for you is create a table and webpage that lists the number of burials currently listed on each cemetery's database per year, from 1900 to the present. You might like to visit this page and see where the "gaping holes" are in burial numbers, so to speak, especially with regard to the New Montefiore Cemetery database. As a side note, you might find a burial that occurred before the cemetery officially opened; this can be either because of a typo in data entry or because of a disterment from one cemetetery into this one, and of course, the date of death would remain the same.

In order for me to determine how many burials per year there are currently listed on each database (as of Nov. 1 of this year), I simply entered the full year in the "year of death" field and the number of burials on the current database appeared at the bottom of the page. Certainly if someone periodically wishes to search the New Montefiore Cemetery database, for instance, and search under the years most seemingly deficient in numbers on either database according to my aforementioned webpage table, please feel free to do so. If you happen to discover that the number of burials for a particular year and cemetery have increased significantly, please contact me and I will notify all of you.

The webpage I created with the numbers of burials per cemetery per year can be found here.

The two online searchable cemetery databases can be found by clicking on either cemetery name here.

You can find overall grounds maps for each cemetery within each cemetery's website or you can see them (along with dozens of others) here.

New Zambrow, Poland Yizkor Book Translations Now Available for Viewing

2010-10-31T10:49:00.006-04:00

The United Zembrover Society, the lone remaining landsmanshaft society for the town of Zambrow, Poland, has now put online within the Museum of Family History the next installment of its ongoing Yizkor Book Yiddish/Hebrew to English translation project.

Twenty new original pages have now been translated into English and are available for viewing. You can find the Museum's Zambrow Yizkor Book translation project here. The link to the new material can be found at the Project's Table of Contents page here.

Then to read the very latest translation, please click on the link "pp. 90-111."

The Synagogue of Gwozdziec: A New Short Film by Tomek Wisniewski

2010-10-31T10:39:00.003-04:00

The seventy-second film created by Bialystok native Tomek Wisniewski and made available at the cyber Museum of Family History is now available for viewing.

The name of the film is "The Synagogue of Gwozdziec" and is fifteen minutes long.

Gwozdziec was part of Poland between the two World Wars.

It was part of Galicia around the turn of the twentieth century.

After World War II, the name of the town was changed to Gvozdets and became part of the Soviet Union.

Today, the town is still called Gvozdets and is part of the Ukraine.

To see this film, please click here.