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(such as Belgium, The Netherlands, Germany, Poland, Israel, etc).

Contact me and let’s discuss fees and further details about your request.

Tag: jewish genealogy

  • Some of my family members in Cuba during WWII

    I mentioned in another article the fact that Belgian Jews exiled to Cuba during WWII. My relatives also stayed in Cuba. Many of the Jews who lived in Cuba during the War, were Belgian refugees. For more on this topic you may read Jews from Antwerp in Cuba.

    Cuba and some of my relatives:
    I found in the book “Jewish Community of Cuba – The Golden Years 1906-1958” by Mr. Jay Levinson (ISBN 78-0977620708) a paragraph on page 133 with a reference to the copy of La Voz de Betar:

    “Not all the Belgian Jews, however, confined all of their activity to their own closely-knit society. J. Dorf lectured to Betar on Jewish History; Ringler spoke to the meeting of Betar about geography of the Holy Land.”

    I found in that copy of La Voz de Betar (Cuba) which appeared in September 1944 (this file is known at the Jabotinsky Institute archives as file 3/239 bet), some names of people belonging to the Dorf family (my great-grandmother Liebe Dorf was married to my great-grandfather Gerschon Lehrer):

  • The State Archives in Belgium: Getting there

    (See also the links at the end of this article)

    How to get there:
    The State Archives of Belgium are on the following address:

    rue de Ruysbroeck 2
    1000 Brussels
    phone: +32 2 513 76 80

    [cetsEmbedGmap src=http://maps.google.com/maps?q=Rue+de+Ruysbroeck+2,+1000+Bruxelles,+Belgi%C3%AB&hl=nl&ie=UTF8&ll=50.842262,4.356058&spn=0.006436,0.014999&z=16&vpsrc=0 width=400 height=425 marginwidth=0 marginheight=0 frameborder=0 scrolling=no]

    It is easy to get there by taxi or public transportation. The national airport of Belgium, which is situated in Zaventem near Brussels, is about 14.4 km (8.95 miles) away and it takes about 16 minutes to drive by car (without traffic).

    The museum district “Kunstberg – Mont des Arts”:
    The archives are near the Kunstberg which in French is called Mont des Arts (hill of Arts).

    That area in fact serves as the Museum District of Brussels which was conceived by King Léopold II. King Léopold II decided to turn the whole district into what today is known as the Mont des Arts. The King dreamed of making Brussels a modern and cultural capital city and Mont des Arts the treasure of his country and witness to the history of Belgium.

    A plate memorializing Belgian kings Leopold II for conceiving the Mont des Arts, king Leopold III for implementing it and king Baudouin/Boudewijn I for establishing it. The Mont des Arts was dedicated to the memory of king Albert I

    The Mont des Arts is situated in about the same area which was known as the “Jewish (more…)

  • The abbreviation “v.” commonly found in Galician records

    The following is a post which appeared in the Gesher Galicia SIG digest from August 29, 2011.
    In this post, Suzan Wynne discusses the ‘v.’ which is commonly found in Galician records.
    (The Gesher Galicia Discussion Group is sponsored by Gesher Galicia and hosted by JewishGen, the Home of Jewish Genealogy. See for more here: http://www.jewishgen.org/galicia)

    Subject: abbreviation v is for vel non
    From: “Suzan Wynne”
    Date: Sun, 28 Aug 2011 20:04:55 -0400
    X-Message-Number: 1

    The abbreviation “v,” commonly found in Galician records about Jewish events, stands for vel non, a Latin legal term, which means “or not” or “alternatively.” This Latin term was adapted from the Latin that was commonly used for recording Jewish and non-Jewish vital events in Galicia until 1877 when the government authorized the kehillot to be responsible for collecting and maintaining Jewish births, marriages (civil), and deaths.

    The abbreviation was used when (more…)

  • Yizkor Book on Ustrzyki Dolne (Istrik) and vicinity – part 2 (namelists)

    (Please click here to go to the explanation for this page)
    This is part 2 of 2 with a selection of the complete Yizkor Book on Ustrzyki-Dolne. Click here for part 1.

     

  • Yizkor Book on Ustrzyki Dolne (Istrik) and vicinity – part 1

    (Please click here to go to the explanation for this page)
    This is part 1 of 2 with a selection of the complete Yizkor Book on Ustrzyki-Dolne. Click here for part 2.
    Click here to go directly to the article about family Beer on this page

     

  • Yizkor Book on Dinov (1973)

    (Please click here to go to the explanation for this page)
    Click here to go directly to the article by Yoshua Kalech a”h on this page

  • Yizkor Book on Dinov (1979)

    (Please click here to go to the explanation for this page)

  • Yizkor Book on Dinov (1950)

    (Please click here to go to the explanation for this page)

  • Yizkor books on Polish towns and cities

    One of the families which I do descend from, is Kalech.
    Other cities of which I do know already that they lived there is: Ustrzyki, Ulucz and apparently also Tarnobrzeg (Dinow).

    There are some sources where you can get to the yizkor books, one such source is the yizkor Books Project on JewishGen (http://www.jewishgen.org/yizkor/). That project’s goal as stated on their site is

    Our goal is to facilitate access to Yizkor Books and the information contained in them 

    Another great source is the online repository of scanned yizkor books on the website of the Dorot Jewish Division at the New york Public Library: http://yizkor.nypl.org.
    The goal of the Dorot Jewish Division as stated on their website is:

    The Dorot Jewish Division is responsible for administering, developing and promoting the exploitation of one of the world’s great collections of Hebraica and Judaica. Reference and research services are available in a dedicated Jewish studies reading room on the first floor of the Library’s landmark Stephen A. Schwarzman Building. Contact us.

    Primary source materials are especially rich in the following areas: Jews in the United States, especially in New York in the age of immigration; Yiddish theater; Jews in the land of Israel, through 1948; Jews in early modern Europe, especially Jewish-Gentile relations; Christian Hebraism; antisemitism; and world Jewish newspapers and periodicals of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

    If you are interested in hardcopies of these yizkor books, you can (more…)

  • How long does it take to get files from Poland and are these sent at all?!

    I’ve recently been asked a couple times to explain how I did manage to receive successfully some files from the Polish archives and how long it took to get these files. Most of the people asking me this question, had some less good experiences. Some of them even never received a response at all from these archives.
    My own general observation is that there is barely communication besides the communication relating to ordering the copies. So when I ask them for example if they could translate the file in question, there is almost never a reply (on that question).
    Someone last week told me that it could be that if the applicant of the copies lives outside Europe, or if the requests are too complicated, that you may never get a response. I am not sure if it matters whether you are from Europe or not, but the latter possibility is of course something to consider before sending your requests. Therefore you should make sure to keep it as simple as possible. I used for example the order form on this page http://www.jewishgen.org/jri-pl/psa/orderform.htm as my template.
    Also make sure not to add any other questions. And if you have any other questions, ask them, but I would separate it and send another mail and may be even consider sending it on different dates.

    I put down in a table how long it took to get responses from the archive, where did I send my requests to, etc.

    Please share also your experience with the other visitors of this website. You can contact me and I’ll update the table (I hope the table with grow with the time):
    [table “16” not found /]