by Judith Segal
To email Judith Segal, click here
According to news reports, seventy percent of adults who use the Internet spend some of their on-line time doing genealogy research. The Internet has made it possible for people to do sophisticated research from the comfort of their own homes, turning this pursuit into a widespread hobby.
Five years ago, there were several contenders to being the complete resource for investigating Jewish genealogy, but JewishGen (www.jewishgen.org.) now is the definitive website for such research. While JewishGen reports a ten-fold increase in usage over the last few years, this genealogy group actually pre-dates the Worldwide Web. There was a recent burst of interest in its services when the news media in Israel reported how the organization had succeeded in linking a family there with relations in Russia who long had been presumed to have been killed in the Holocaust.
While JewishGen offers many services, its highlights are the search engine called the JEWISHGEN FAMILY FINDER ("JGFF",) and the "SHTETLSEEKER." The JGFF utilizes different search methods, including the DAITCH MOKOTOFF SOUNDEX ("D-M Soundex,") which converts any spelling of a family or shtetl name into all known spelling alternatives. This Soundex works for both surnames and shtetl names, but one must know the current name of the country where that shtetl was located. Once a family's name is added to the database, that name is available phonetically to anyone else using the "FamilyFinder" search engine.
The JewishGen's most popular area seems to be its SPECIAL INTEREST GROUPS, known as "SIGS." There are presently SIGS for about fifteen countries in Europe, and more are being added. With the re-partitioning in Europe over the last century, even those who know the places of origin of their great-grandparents may have to join more than one SIG. For example, the section called "Bessarabia" in what had been Ukraine in Czarist Russia and next had been in Romania between the World Wars now is in a separate country named Moldava. So those with an ancestor from Bessarabia may want to join both the Ukraine SIG and the Romanian SIG.
The newest SIG services the Sephardim, those people whose families never left the Mediterranean Basin after the fall of the Temples. Another SIG covers those whose ancestry goes back to the Rabbinic dynasties. There even is a SIG just for the LEIBOVITZ clan, in "all spelling variations," the website notes.
JewishGen references back to archives in Europe, such as the "All Lithuanian Database." ("ALD.") Space here does not allow a full listing of the multitude of services available through this organization, but suffice it to say that, for a fee, it also offers a test that will do DNA matching by using saliva samples!
Membership in the SIGS is free and interested parties may join as many SIGS as they desire. People who join any of these SIG can receive copies of all postings to the discussion forums and they are welcomed as active participants. Or people may elect simply to receive "Digests" of the pertinent postings.
Since all writers posting to the forum are required to provide their e-mail addresses, some of these letters replied to privately often result in heated correspondence from other SIG members. SIG participants come from all corners of the globe: from Israel, France, England, South America and South Africa and the South Seas in New Zealand and Australia. There are Jewish genealogists in most tiny hamlets in the United States. All SIG forums are moderated by volunteers. Frequent participants should consider making a donation, which is tax-deductible, to this worthy organization. 
AVOTAYNU (www.avotaynu. com), founded by Gary Mokotoff, co-designer of the Daitch-Mokotoff Soundex, offers an entertaining free on-line newsletter called "Nu,What's New?" This website offers a staggering selection of books, many unobtainable elsewhere, plus software relating to Jewish genealogy.
The popularity of on-line genealogy research is addictive. Hours, indeed, whole days disappear when one connects by modem to this mysterious lost world now documented in cyberspace. Every small discovery inspires the investment of more time. It becomes obvious on reading the individual letters posted on the JewishGen that, for some, genealogy research has become an obsession, even a game, with people vying to see who will succeed in uncovering the most obscure facts about our ancestors.
Let us realize that these are real people whom we research, and that any information we obtain cannot be applied in a vacuum. Does it truly matter what the price of a bushel of wheat was in Eastern Poland in 1880? Not unless we can judge that price by a proportionate yardstick. Was the profit enough to pay for a year's food for the family, or were the low proceeds a disaster? And if it were a disaster, how
did they cope with the financial devastation? The price of the bushel, by itself, has no meaning for us today.
On some level, family history can be no more than anecdotal. Those who descend from the Jews of Middle and Eastern Europe share a common past, which turns out to be more significant than any individual details. Life was very hard a hundred or more years ago, especially for Jews, who never could know when the next pogrom was about to start.
Whether we are the grandchildren of the precious few who survived the Nazis, or whether our relatives left earlier to escape the poverty and pogroms, we all now live better lives, easier lives, than our ancestors possibly could have imagined.
Those grandparents we strive to know had real problems and real fears. Thanks to these ancestors, the Jewish people have survived the greatest adversities. We learn that they endured unbearably harsh conditions without ever considering turning away from our faith. The worst atrocities in those terrible days did not sway them from the tenets of Judaism, tenets which in the ease of today's world too often are ignored. Without any hesitation, our forefathers kept this religion intact for us. And that is the underlying discovery of all this genealogy searching; ultimately, that discovery is the only lesson that matters.
www.nara.org The United States government has numerous databases with statistical information, which may be accessed at the NATIONAL ARCHIVES AND RECORDS ADMINISTRATION. ("NARA.") Dozens of links are offered, as well as a fine bibliography on genealogy research. Other ports of entry into the US may be researched through NARA which also has the records for "Castle Garden," the processing facility that preceded Ellis Island. NARA offices are located all over the United States to accommodate those who want to go in person to inspect the microfilms. www.ci.nyc.ny.us/html/doh/html/ vr/vr. html For people who had one or more ancestors coming through New York City, birth, death, marriage and divorce records are available for all five boroughs, dating back to about 1850. These records usually show the applicant's place of birth and the names of the applicant's parents. www.CyndisList.com CYNDI'S LIST is a comprehensive and free service with tens of thousands of links to an enormous range of websites. The Jewish-themed links by themselves probably run into the hundreds. Cyndi is a woman of extraordinary generosity to do all of this work for the benefit of millions of strangers. ANCESTRY.COM and ROOTSWEB.COM are two famous sites which offer similar services. Some of their data can be accessed for free, and other information is available for a nominal fee. The records here run to naturalization, census, Social Security and death certificates. Many of these types of records provide information as to mothers' maiden names and places of birth CYNDI'S LIST provided the URL www. geocities . com/ tolnajews, which is a comprehensive list of links of interest to Jews of Hungarian ancestry. And JewishGen offered www.geocities. com/ thierryjacobs, covering French Jews, available in French only.
The ELLIS ISLAND DATABASE (www.ellisisland.org) offers the records of all passenger ships docking in New York City between 1892 and 1924. Unfortunately, the volunteers who transcribed the old, hand-written ledgers and entered the information on-line often had problems deciphering the data, so there are mistakes and inconsistencies. The Ellis Island ("EIDB") website does not utilize a "Soundex" to convert names which had foreign pronunciations to their possible English spellings, so a devoted researcher named Stephen Morse created his own, which he generously has shared. Steve's site requests that the user enter all the information currently available, according to the prompts presented. This is far more information than is possible to enter directly on the Ellis Island site and Steve's engine has worked marvels for people who were frustrated on the EIDB. It is best to access the Ellis Island website by using Steve's creation. Steve's first site can be accessed at http://sites. netscape. net/ stephenmorse/ ellis. html. When Steve realized how busy this first server had become, he set up an identical alternate at http:// home. pacbell. net/ spmorse/ ellis. Steve may be reached at morse@netscape.com by those who wish to thank him.
To generate revenues, JewishGen has a service called "Shtetlschleppers," which plans tours, with knowledgeable guides, to various parts of Middle and Eastern Europe. Another company offering similar travel services to Europe is ROUTES TO ROOTS, at www.routestoroots.com.
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