Diamant Discovery!

Alex Krakovsky added some more scanned Ukrainian documents to his awesome Wikipedia page.  No, they are not in English.  But yes, it's also worth learning how to at least read names in Russian.  Because there is some awesome stuff here.

As a side note, recent regulations are stopping Alex from doing this incredible work.  Check out some of his videos such as this one on his Facebook page--and make sure others know about what's happening.

Alex recently added two census addenda from the 1860s for Volhynia.  These are additions to a main census, but there are still a lot of names.  I initially went through the first file, which covers 1862-1863 and didn't find any of my family surnames.  So I then looked at the second, which covers 1862-1865.  And here I found something intriguing.

Diamant, Volhynia Guberniya Revision List Addendum, 1864 (page 1)

IAJGS2018 - Part 4 (JewishGen Updates)

This is the fourth in a series of posts about IAJGS2018.  You can read other posts I've made from this and other IAJGS conferences here.

JewishGen held an evening event, where many exciting new developments were unveiled.  Avraham Groll opened the session, presenting JewishGen's Volunteer of the Year.

Avraham Groll of JewishGen

IAJGS2018 - Part 3

This is the third in a series of posts about IAJGS2018.  You can read other posts I've made from this and other IAJGS conferences here.

Since I woke up early (thanks, jet-lag!), I walked down the block to the Monument Commemorating the Evacuation of Warsaw Ghetto Fighters.  It was kind of oddly placed, since it's currently right in front of a perfume store.  I then continued walking to see a remaining fragment of the ghetto wall, which is currently in the middle of a parking lot.

Monument Commemorating the Evacuation of Warsaw Ghetto Fighters

Spelling Doesn't Matter in Genealogy

These days, names have a set spelling.  I cringe when someone spells my name "Laura."  But it wasn't always that way--spellings of names used to be much more fluid and wasn't a big deal.

But often people researching a family disregard individuals with names not spelled the way in which they are accustomed.  They insist that those individuals with other spellings simply could not be the right family, so they miss clues that truly are connected to their own family members.

Well, I was recently indexing an 1892 death register from the Munkacs district (then Hungary, now the area around Mukacheve, Ukraine), and it's a great example for how fluid name spellings could be.  With only 7 deaths recorded on this page, 4 of the deceased (all young children) had surnames spelled differently from their father's surname.

Page of Munkacs Area 1892 Death Records

IAJGS2018 - Part 2

This is my second post about my time at IAJGS2018.  You can read other posts I've made from this and other IAJGS conferences here.

Sunday evening, I went to Umschlagplatz, from which over 250,000 Jewish Warsaw residents were deported to death camps.

Umschlagplatz in Warsaw

Monday morning started early, at 8AM.  I was fully armed with a large cup of coffee.  The first two talks were DNA-related.  First, Adam Brown spoke about the huge Avotaynu Project he is doing, concentrating on Y-DNA.

IAJGS2018 - Part 1

I'm just back from IAJGS2018 in Warsaw!  I'm extremely jetlagged, but the trip was very worth it.  This will be the first of several posts I plan to make about the trip.  You can read other posts I've made from this and other IAJGS conferences here.

I made a few non-genealogical stops on my way to Warsaw, but I also learned about the Jewish communities in those locations--and their fascinating histories.  My first stop was in Helsinki, Finland.

The Shul (Synagogue) in Helsinki