"30 Million Pages to Go: Digitizing the American Newspaper"

New York City Records Website

Events at the Southern Branch of the Nationanl Archives

Ports of Entry and Their Records

Update on Digital Yizkor books on line  

Genealogy Article from the AJC

Message from Yad Vashem

Steve Morse - - - Russian/English Transliteration Tools

Calendar of Events

Don't miss our next meeting:

Sunday, March 6, 1:30 – 4:30 PM

Using Internet Resources in Genealogical Research

There are so many sources of information on the Internet to help with genealogical resources, how can you possibly know when and why to use them.  What is the correct methodology in using the Internet to help grow your family tree?  Walk through real-life examples of using the Internet to track down information about your ancestors and relatives.  A few examples include: tracking down living descendants from an individual in the 1850s, finding individuals in the census that are not listed in online census indexes, using obituaries to trace family members, determining relationships from people buried in family plots, using property databases to acquire family information, and more.  Finding online resources that are relevant to your specific situation takes work and we’ll show you how.  

Taught by Gary Palgon, chairman of the Jewish Genealogical Society of Georgia, and Family Tree Expert www.FamilyTreeExpert.com.  The following Sunday, a hands-on workshop will be held to allow experts to help individuals use the sites themselves – visit http://www.thebreman.org/jgsg for details on the workshop.

The Ida Pearl and Joseph Cuba Achives and Genealogical Center will be open for research beginning at 1:00 pm.  Registration is not required.  The meeting is free for Museum members and $5 for non-members. 

For more information, visit http://www.thebreman.org/jgsg or contact Gary Palgon at 404.822.6280 or jgsg@thebreman.org.

Let our Mentors help you start Your Family Tree.

This program is open to all Breman Members.

The JGSG Mentoring program provides one-on-one assistance to those interested in researching their family tree. Sessions take place at the Breman Library on the first Thursday of the month from 10:30am-1:30pm. Appointments not needed.

JGSG Mentor program schedule:

Mar. 3, 2005

Apr. 7, 2005

May 5, 2005

"30 Million Pages to Go: Digitizing the American Newspaper"

Excerpts from a speech by Bruce Cole to the National Press Club

The complete speech can be found at:

http://www.neh.gov/whoweare/speeches/11162004.html

We are now launching a new effort--the National Digital Newspaper Program with our partners of the past 20 years, the Library of Congress. ............

Now we are embarking on the exciting next step. We have already microfilmed 67 million pages of newspapers. With the Library of Congress, we will begin to digitize 30 million pages. Anyone who’s interested..........will be able to go to their computer at home or at work and at the click of a mouse get immediate, unfiltered access to the greatest source of our history...........The project will be based at the Library of Congress--and the material will be available to the American public for free, forever........................

You can go to their pages and read about weddings and births, ...........about gossip, about what people were eating and drinking, about almost everything.........

The new National Digital Newspaper Program is a cornerstone of this effort........... Newspapers printed in German, Greek, Polish, French, Bohemian, Italian, Yiddish, Slovenian, Hebrew, Lithuanian, Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish. Plus English.

Now, with this new digital program, you will see the papers just as they were--you will be able to search the actual page. The technique is OCR--optical character recognition. In fact, there is already a model up on the Library of Congress site. It’s got the Stars and Stripes from World War One. It shows you the whole page and there’s a zoom device so you can focus in on a single story and be able to read it. It’s key word searchable. It’s a quantum leap from trying to read microfilm.

There are difficulties in putting any of these newspapers on the web. Newspapers have stories of different sizes; different typefaces; advertising; jumps--a story on page one that continues on page 15. It’s complicated. It’s going to take a couple of years to get the newspaper project up and running.

When it is complete, it will ultimately cover 1836 through 1922. That sounds strange, but it’s for a couple of very good reasons. The type from colonial times has elaborate fonts and OCR technology can’t read it well yet. At the other end--by 1923--we run into modern copyrights.

Eventually, whether it’s online or offline, the holdings and their locations will be part of a bibliography the Library of Congress is assembling. It will tell where every newspaper is located--from the first American newspaper in 1690 to the present day. That first newspaper, by the way, was Publick Occurrences and it was published for exactly one issue. The governor of the Massachusetts colony shut it down for rabble-rousing--talk about freedom of the press! There is no copy of it in this country. As far as we know, the only one is in the Public Records Office in London--it was sent there as evidence of our wayward ways.

Meanwhile, we have more than enough to do as we go into digitization. In this new phase, every state will eventually be represented. We are starting with a test run of a million pages covering 1900 to 1910..............There were 2600 dailies in 1909 and 14,000 weeklies.

This new technology is transformational. I remember the days when I had to go to a research library, or wait for interlibrary loan, or spend hours reeling through microfilm. The microfilm will still be there as backup, if needed, but the search will be from home and the answers as near as your computer.

This digitizing will democratize knowledge by making it available to anyone with an internet connection. But just as important and revolutionary, it is also going create something new. The sheer volume of information in newspapers has been an obstacle. Newspapers carry 3000 to 7000 words on a page. The new technology overcomes that. The page is scanned; it’s tagged with name, date and page number--metadata. The process turns the enormous volume of material into a searchable asset. And this asset will be easy to use.

By being able to search and sort the metadata, we will be able to ask new and more sophisticated questions, which will create new knowledge. It’s still out on the horizon but we can see it coming.

New York City Records Website

COMMISSIONER'S MESSAGE FROM BRIAN G. ANDERSSON

Welcome to the website for the Department of Records & Information Services, celebrating the 25th anniversary of our creation as New York City's archival agency.

We are empowered by Charter mandate with managing New York City's records. The Department, through its unique Library, is the provider of information concerning the government of the City. Through our Records Management Division, we provide for and facilitate the professional administration, storage, and retrieval of the working records for City agencies. Our outstanding Municipal Archives preserves and provides public access to the historic records.........

As a genealogist, I am especially interested in our extraordinary collection of birth, marriage, death, and photographic records. This website will endeavor to showcase some of our treasures. We will be posting examples of our collection as they relate to New Yorkers of note. In response to the tremendous growth in the field of genealogy, and given New York City's role in the family history of millions of Americans, we seek to increase our holdings and make them and other items more accessible.

We are housed in the Old Hall of Records / Surrogate Court building at 31 Chambers Street, an outstanding landmark of grand architectural distinction and worthy of your visit. Please bookmark our site and check back often. http://www.ci.nyc.ny.us/html/records/html/vitalrecords/holdings.shtml

Events at the NATIONAL ARCHIVES SOUTHEAST REGION
5780 Jonesboro Road, Morrow, Georgia. 

March 1, 2005 - Microfilm Reading Room opens in Morrow. 

April 1, 2005 - Textual Research Room and Visitor Learning Center opens in Morrow. 

June, 2005 - Target date for completion of transfer of all records from East Point to Morrow. 

July-August, 2005 - Formal Dedication of New Archives in Morrow. 

September-December, 2005 - Special Events in Morrow - Congressional Open House; Open House for Genealogical Societies, Historical Societies, and Libraries; workshops, etc.

Map to the Archives

About This Guide:

Jewish voices fill Savannah book

Interviewing family or community members about life in earlier days is an important way to gain knowledge of and an appreciation for the past. In a new book, "Voices of Savannah: Selections from the Oral History Collection of the Savannah Jewish Archives," one sees the valuable information gleaned from such interviews. Valerie Frey, Kaye Kole and Luciana Spracher are the compilers of this book, filled with material from the Savannah Jewish Archives, housed within the Georgia Historical Society in Savannah.  

Read the rest of this article at

Subject: Message from Yad Vashem

From: Joyce Field <jfield@nlci.com>

I have been asked by Nadia Kahan of Yad Vashem to post the following message: I would like to avail myself of the opportunity to tell you and your readers what has happened here in the three weeks since the launch, and what they can expect from Yad Vashem. First of all I would like to thank all of you for the overwhelmingly positive responses that we have received from the more than 2.75 million visitors to the site. For those of you who sent us comments or corrections through the site: We are currently working our way through the backlog of  approximately 12,000 such queries.  We appreciate your patience.  I am providing details and suggestions regarding some of the most common categories of responses. For those of you who have received responses which seem unsatisfactory, feel free to contact us again.  We are trying hard to find a balance between the efficiency of standard answers, and the need to examine each case individually.  Many of our policies are still being clarified and modified based on actual responses, and we can only do this through your feedback.   Also, as our staff becomes more experienced we hope that fewer errors in judgment will occur. If you have not managed to access the site we suggest trying again. Many of the initial technical problems have been solved.  We suggest trying again.  Appendix 1 includes a few suggestions for those still experiencing technical difficulties. Appendix 2 includes a few guidelines regarding corrections.  These are designed to help you in your submissions, and in your evaluation of our responses. After corrections, the most frequently asked questions are about locating submitters.  Unfortunately we rarely have information beyond what can be found on the Pages of Testimony.  Appendix 3 includes guidelines which you may find helpful. The other type of comment which we are pleased to receive, is that an individual who appears in the database survived.  See Appendix 4 for various possibilities. If you discover overlapping records pertaining to the same individual such as two different Pages of Testimony, or the person's name in a list and on a Page of Testimony, we will make a note of it so that we can link the records at some point in the future. When dealing with Pages of Testimony this is rare, but in the case of material derived from archival lists, this is to be expected.  While all the archival lists in the database include mostly people who perished, in some cases they include people we know survived, and in this case the fact that they survived is noted in the database.  In cases of individuals from lists where we do not know their fate (even though we know that statistically, most of those in the list perished), the people in the list are not marked as people who were murdered in the Holocaust . (See, for instance, the records from the census of the Lodz ghetto.) Not all individuals who were deported-- from Drancy, for example--were subsequently murdered.  If someone is not marked as a survivor and you know that they in fact survived,  we want to know about it these cases, so we can, in fact, note this in the database. We can note that the individual is a survivor, but will ask for documentation, such as a copy of an identity card or passport, to verify it.  The Central Database of Shoah Victims' Names is a work in progress, and the product of cooperation between the public and Yad Vashem.  We continue to welcome your corrections, comments, photographs, and new Pages of Testimony, even if there may be a delay in our replies. With best wishes , Nadia Kahan Director of Reference and Information Services Yad Vashem, Jerusalem 

Appendix 1 - Technical Suggestions

 At times, the database has been hard to access because it was overloaded. This is no longer happening.  If you have tried getting into the database a few times at different hours and failed, we suggest you check the following points: -Do you have a version of Explorer above 5.5? -If you have a firewall, at times turning it off will allow access to the database. -If you have protection against pop-up ads, canceling this protection will allow access to the database. -It is not always possible to access the database with Apple computers  

Appendix 2 - Corrections

 Yes we want them!  Submit corrections through the "correct our deciphering form" from the individual Page of Testimony, on the "more details" page".  It saves time and confusion in identifying the Page in question. If the Page of Testimony is correct, and we agree that the information was keyed in improperly, we will correct it.  If we disagree, we will tell you that we disagree. Note that it will be several months before these corrections appear in the online database, which is only updated periodically. If the mistake is on the Page of Testimony and not in our transcription, we cannot alter the Page of Testimony which is in and of itself a piece of archival documentation.  We suggest submitting a new Page of Testimony. In the case of a minor mistake on a Page of Testimony, which you yourself submitted, we will alter it as per your specific instructions.  

Appendix 3 - Finding Submitters

 Yad Vashem's goal and mandate in collecting Pages of Testimony and developing the Central Database was to commemorate the victims of the Shoah.  Reconnecting family members is a secondary function. Unfortunately, we rarely have information on whether the submitter of a Page of  Testimony is still alive, nor on how to contact them today. To locate a person's current address in Israel: 1.         Look for them in the online Israel phone book    http://www.144.bezek.com/  The site is in Hebrew.  Stephen Morse at   http://stevemorse.org/hebrew/bezeq.html has created a utility which allows non-Hebrew speakers to use the Bezeq site. 2.         Call or write the Israeli Ministry of Interior. mailto:oc_info@moin.gov.il    972-2-6294666.  Generally, the information they can give is the person's current address, or whether the person is deceased. The more you know about the person, the more likely they are to be able to supply you with information.  This service is limited to one request per day. 3.         Use the various services on the JewishGen website http://www.jewishgen.org/      Note that there are many different services on this website, some of which require registration. 4.         Use the service being developed by the Israel Genealogical Society [IGS].    By sending full information to:  "Rose Feldman"   mailto:rosef@post.tau.ac.il    who will post it to   http://www.isragen.org.il/      In "Projects" on the side bar, there is a category called "Searching for Submitters of Pages of Testimony in Israel". 5.         If you know Hebrew, send a letter to the family roots (Shorashim Mishpachtiyim) forum on the Tapuz website  http://www.tapuz.co.il/tapuzforum/main/anashim.asp?forum=325&pass=1 For survivors outside of Israel there are local and online phone books, as well as various Internet services such as Yahoo's People Search   http://people.yahoo.com/    The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum maintains a registry of Holocaust survivors.  http://www.ushmm.org/remembrance/registry     which includes survivors primarily, but not exclusively, from North America. The Yad Vashem Archives and Library include extensive offline, information about survivors, but few of the records go beyond the year 1954.  As such, the submitter's information on the Pages of Testimony, is usually more recent than what we are likely to find for you at Yad Vashem.  However, you are welcome to contact us.  There is a fee for the research and it may take us up to two months to respond.  You are also welcome to come to the reading room, where our staff can help you to research the matter yourself.   We hope that you will find this information helpful, and that you will succeed in contacting your family members. Appendix 4 Individuals who survived who appear in the database. When dealing with Pages of Testimony this is rare.  Verify that the details, such as parents' names, spouse's name, and approximate dates of birth match before contacting us. In the case of material derived from archival lists this is to be expected. All the archival lists in the database include mostly individuals who perished, but in some cases they include people we know survived, and in this case the fact that they survived is noted in the database.  

Jewish Genealogical Society of Georgia

Thurs Mar 3, 10:30-1:30, Mentoring Program

Sun Mar 6, 1:30 PM, Using Internet Resources in Genealogical Research

Thurs, Apr 7, 10:30-1:30, Mentoring Program

Sun, Apr 17, 1:30 PM, Publishing Your Family History

Thurs, May 5, 10:30-1:30, Mentoring Program,

Tues, May 24, 7:30 pm Yale Reisner, Jewish Institute of Warsaw, Poland

Visit the Breman Jewish Genealogical Society of Georgia web site at www.thebreman.org/jgsg.htm

For more information, contact Gary Palgon at jgsg@thebreman.org.

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