BF: Jewish Genealogy and More - Navigating Jewish Genealogy

Time 2020-12-19 17:04:24

Web Name: BF: Jewish Genealogy and More - Navigating Jewish Genealogy

WebSite: http://bloodandfrogs.com

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Ten years ago today, I posted my first article on this site, then a blog on Google s Blogger platform. The post itself was thinking aloud about whether to switch genealogy programs from Reunion 9 to Family Tree Maker, which had just been introduced on the Mac for the first time (in case you re wondering what I decided back then, I m using Reunion 13 now).How the first post on this site looked back then (more or less)Roughly three years later, in 2013, I made the move over to WordPress, where the site took on its current appearance:The transition from Blogger to WordPress in October 2013Continuing this slightly technical thread, the site was moved off a shared hosting site in 2018 onto an Amazon Lightsail server, and upgraded to a larger server in 2020. I only point these out since people don t always think about what goes on behind the scenes to keep sites like this running.Looking back, I ve written about 250 articles. There are also about a dozen article drafts I started but were never completed. The reason I call this is a site anniversary, and don t use the term Blogiversary which I used after the first year (1st Blogiversary: The Year in Review) is that this site has grown well beyond just being a blog. The B F Compendium of Jewish Genealogy, which was added in 2016, currently has over 25,000 pages of resources for Jewish genealogy.Some of my favorite articles include:Preserving Photographic Prints, Slides and Negatives2011What DPI should I scan my photos, and in what format do I save them?2015Photos handed down through different family branches2020Finding Information on US Immigrants2011Getting Started in Jewish Genealogy2018Variations in Jewish Given Names2011Animals and Name Pairs in Jewish Given Names2011Jewish Gravestone Symbols2011Deciphering Jewish Gravestones2020Learning from Okopawa St.2018Communities tied to Rzeszów (Reisha), Poland via marriage2018Tracking down a couple that disappeared during the Holocaust2017Food as Genealogy – Iraqi Kubbe2012When my grandfather traveled to Nazi Germany to save his family2017These articles stand out to me for very different reasons. The first few deal with photographs, and the importance of collecting them and properly preserving them. I grew up with a dark room in my attic, and a love of photography, so it s no wonder I believe photographs are so important. Finding Information on US Immigrants is my go-to article to share when people are first getting started and want to figure out where their families came from before reaching the US. While I wrote that almost ten years ago, I try to update it from time to time to make sure the links all work and everything still makes sense. Getting Started in Jewish Genealogy is my overview of the resources on this site and others across the world that people getting started in Jewish genealogy should know about. My gravestone symbols article has been popular since I published it back in 2011 (even Billiongraves cites it in their article on Jewish gravestones), and I ve supplemented that with my article on understanding the inscriptions as well, Deciphering Jewish Gravestones, which at over 30 pages has a lot of useful information. My post on communities tied to Rzeszow is a look at how you can extract patterns in old records beyond just looking for specific records. I looked at marriage records, and figured out which towns spouses of those in Rzeszow came from, and showed the community stamps, as well as those of local Rabbis. This kind of research can help you figure out where to look for records when you ve exhausted the obvious places. Food as Genealogy is just a fun article with a great recipe that my mother-in-law showed my wife how to cook. This kind of passing on of oral tradition is also important, and sometimes overlooked as part of genealogy – it s not all BMD records. The last article on my grandfather, is great because it shows how the significance of a simple piece of information might be overlooked, if you don t understand the context. A visa stamp (with a swastika) on November 11, 1938 might not seem especially significant, until you realize he was entering Nazi Germany the day after Kristallnacht, a pogrom where hundreds of synagogues were burned to the ground, thousands of Jewish businesses were destroyed, and tens of thousands of Jews were rounded up and sent to concentration camps. The day after. So always try to understand the context of what you re looking at and if you are scanning documents, scan all the pages (what if I had only scanned the photo page of the passport?).Beyond this site, in the past ten years I ve spoken at various genealogy conferences (remember those?), written articles for journals, and helped found the Israel Genealogy Research Association (IGRA) where I started by building their web site, and later served four years as President (which ended this past June). I m proud that during that time IGRA became the largest of the over 80 member societies of the IAJGS. I m next speaking at Rootstech Connect, the massive (I ve heard there will be over 100,000 participants) virtual genealogy conference taking place next year.While this year has been difficult, with four kids at home trying to zoom into their various schools, I did have time to post several great lists of Jewish names published in books dating back 150 years, which were prepared while I worked on a major article (over 30 pages) on Deciphering Jewish Gravestones. I also posted the 2019 lists of Jewish boys and girls names from Israel, a very popular series of articles on this site. To see all the articles on names, see the Names page which collects the various lists and articles I ve posted over the years related to names.I also finally updated my US Immigration Census Form, adding the 1940 US Census to it.While this site has long had a presence on Facebook (facebook.com/jewishgenealogy) and Twitter (twitter.com/bloodandfrogs), this past August I added Instagram (instagram.com/bloodandfrogs): View this post on Instagram A post shared by B F Jewish Genealogy (@bloodandfrogs)While that photo collage was posted to Instagram in August, I didn t actually write an article about those photos until just recently (Photos handed down through different family branches). If you click on the link in my Instagram profile, you will actually see all the Instagram images, each of which now links to an article on this site. This gets around the restriction on Instagram preventing links for individual images. While there are services that automate that type of linking, I ve managed to develop something on my own site that does the same thing. Follow me on Instagram, and let me know what you think of the link system. I ve added a bunch of images connected to past articles, and moving forward I hope each new article will get a post to Instagram.I imagine I m not alone among writers wondering why certain articles become more popular than others. I have an idea of how many people visit my site, and which articles they read, but it s always nice to hear from readers about what they like, and what they ve learned from on the site. If you have a favorite article or feature on this site, please let me know in the comments.One of the first things I always recommend to those getting started in genealogy is to collect as many family photographs as possible, from the oldest relatives you know, and try to identify everyone in the photographs. There may be a time that you won t be able to ask who the people in your family photos are, and if you don t find out who has old family photos, they may end up being thrown out at some point. If you do have a photo, but no way to identify the person or person in the photo, there is an approach you can take that may help you to figure it out.In one of my earliest posts (Genealogy Basics: Up, Down and Sideways) I describe why it s important to track down collateral relatives, such as finding all the descendants of your oldest known ancestor. Besides building out your tree, these people may end up knowing more about your common ancestors than you do. Even a small piece of information, such as the town someone was born in, can help break down genealogical brick walls. Similarly, those distant relatives may actually have the same photograph you have, and they may know who is in it.When I started collecting family photos, my grandfather gave me a set of three large glass slides that his uncle had given him. One slide had two photos on it, of the same family, one with them wearing hats, and one without hats. I had an idea of who was in those family photos, and later confirm it. The other two slides were individual portraits of a man and a woman. I did not know who they were, and neither did my grandfather. This is what the negatives looked like:The glass negativesContinue reading Photos handed down through different family branches For those unaware, this site has a set of genealogy forms that you can fill out on a computer, or print out to be filled out by hand. I find this is a great way to get started with genealogy, and these forms are also helpful for sending out to relatives to be filled out and returned. These forms are designed to work together in useful ways. One form that is particularly useful is the US Immigrant Census Form, which was released all the way back in 2011. This form has fields for the useful genealogy information that you can extract from US Census records during the critical turn-of-the-century period of mass immigration to the US. When the original form was created, the 1940 Census had not yet been released, so it only covered the censuses between 1880 and 1930. This updated form adds a column for 1940.B F US Immigrant Census Form v2Continue reading Updated Immigrant Census Form (1940 added) After a delay due to COVID-19, the Israel Central Bureau of Statistics has released the baby name data for 2019. As I ve done for 2014, 2015, 2016, and 2017-2018, I m posting the top 101 Jewish boys names. These are the most popular names given to Jewish boys born in Israel during 2019. Below you can see the number of boys that were named each name, and the ranking for 2019, as well as 2018 and 2017 for comparison. For number and rankings from earlier years, see the annual posts linked to above. For the parallel girl s list, see 101 Most Popular Jewish Girls Names in Israel in 2019.Seven boys names entered the top 101 in 2019, including Aryeh (105 to 81), Asaf (118 to 86), Yaheli (102 to 87), Lenny (131 to 88), Oz (106 to 90), and Tom (103 to 98). The boys names that exited the list were Ophir (81 to 102), Yedidya (87 to 104), Leroi (95 to 108), Yinon (98 to 110), Eyal (74 to 111), Shai (99 to 113), and Adir (97 to 117)All the columns in the table below can be used to sort the table, so you can sort the table to see the order of ranking for each year, or by the spelling of the name in Hebrew or English. You can also search the table using the search field on the top right of the table.Continue reading 101 Most Popular Jewish Boys Names in Israel in 2019 After a delay due to COVID-19, the Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics has released the baby name data for 2019. As I ve done for 2014, 2015, 2016, and 2017-2018, I m posting the top 101 Jewish girls names. These are the most popular names given to Jewish girls born in Israel during 2019. Below you can see the number of girls that were named each name, and the ranking for 2019, as well as 2018 and 2017 for comparison. For number and rankings from earlier years, see the annual posts linked to above. For the parallel boy s list, see 101 Most Popular Jewish Boys Names in Israel in 2019.Two girls names entered the top 101 in 2019, Darya (104 to 99) and Feiga (116 to 101). The two names that exited the list were Anne (101 to 104) and Shani (100 to 107).All the columns in the table below can be used to sort the table, so you can sort the table to see the order of ranking for each year, or by the spelling of the name in Hebrew or English. You can also search the table using the search field on the top right of the table.Continue reading 101 Most Popular Jewish Girls Names in Israel in 2019 This website uses cookies to improve your experience. We'll assume you're ok with this, but you can opt-out if you wish.Accept Read MorePrivacy & Cookies PolicyPrivacy Overview This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. 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