Items discussed:

What is Genealogy?

  • a record or account of the ancestry and descent of a person, family, or a group
  • the study of family ancestries and histories
  • descent from an original form or progenitor; lineage; ancestry
  • person’s family tree

from British Dictionary

  • the direct descent of an individual or group from an ancestor
  • a chart showing the relationships and descent of an individual, group, genes, etc.

Word Origin. Latin - "tracing of a family", Greek - "generation, descent" (genus), Old English

  • "study of family trees"

Genealogy in Torah

Myths about Jewish Genealogy

Family Memoirs, Stories are the best part of the Genealogy!


Resources:

www.iajgs.org The International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies
www.JewishGen.org

Where to start...

What records are available at JewishGen?

  • Birth records, Marriages, Divorces, Death records
  • Revision lists
  • Business Record
  • Duma Voters Lists (1906, 1907)
  • Jewish Soldiers killed and wounded in WWI
  • Jewish Religious Personnel in the Russian Empire, 1853-1854
  • Jews involved in Public life in Russian Empire
  • Holocaust Databases: Jews from Ghettos, Concentration Camps
  • Jewish Refugees in Tashkent (in fact these are Jews who evacuated from Eastern parts
  • of the Soviet Union to Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Siberia, etc.)
  • Jewish Partisans and Fighters in different regions
  • Passports for Jews in Germany from Gestapo files
  • Jews killed and buried in many Mass Graves
  • Jews deported to concentration camps
  • and more...

Town, shteitle websites (KehilaLinks). Large number of towns, shteitlakh, villages have their
own websites, where researcher put information about Geography, General history,
Governments, Jewish history, Holocaust in that place, maps, Family stories, photos, old and new,
and more.

Yizkor Books. The original Yizkor Memorial books were written in 1950s-1970s mostly in
Israel by towns, shteitle societies (Landsmanshaften). The Hebrew books are available online
at NY Public Library, and JewishGen organized translations of these valuable books. They
include History of Jews in these places, articles about town, people, photos, stories, and more.
Sephardic Genealogy. There is a large section on Sephardic Genealogy at JewishGen with
information on Sephardim in different countries: Turkey, Greece, France, Caribbean, Holland,
Israel, and many other places.

Conclusion
This session is just an Introduction to Jewish Genealogy. It provides methods to start your
personal research. To be successful you need to spend some time on the sites mentioned above.
If there is an interest, we can continue with more advanced methods.