The WNC Jewish Genealogical Society Meeting – Program of the Asheville JCC

Join us for a genealogy discussion to help you learn to connect with your roots and discover more about your heritage. The following is a description of the group activities from the facilitator of the genealogy discussions group at the JCC, Professor Barbara Weitz, retired Director of Film Studies and Director of the Czech Studies Program at Florida International University:

We will be viewing different webinars that I’ve purchased through IAJGS which should help a lot with the genealogical research I hope you’re involved with.  If you attended some of our first meetings, you should remember Debbie Long and Mike Kalt speaking more generally about how to best use the genealogy tools on hand.

This will, hopefully, give you more information where you can possibly find answers to questions and brick walls you may be ‘stuck on’.

Then, I’d like to continue the ‘informal’ discussion we all got into last time at the Old Buncombe County Genealogical Society.  That kind of information sharing is another way to help each other find different avenues to pursue.

I can’t tell you how much I’ve learned about Jewish migration, geography, as well as European history since I started this research.  It’s been fascinating to learn new things (at our ages) and to feel our ancestors as individual people, thinking about what most of them went through.

Let me share with you how I’m currently ‘breaking through’ the brick wall I had.

 

My grandfather was born in Ukraine and quite probably from the village of Kamenets-Podolsky (which I discovered on his Naturalization Papers from 1923 even though my grandmother always told us he was from Kyiv).  He, unfortunately, died in 1925 at age 38 from colon cancer and left my Romanian-born  grandmother with 4 children under the age of 6.  That much I already knew (though now, it all has a greater impact on me).

I was able to find his Death Certificate and the name of the cemetery he’s buried in.  He found his Marriage Certificate, which was great because it not only told me when they got married (I never thought to ask my grandmother) but also gave me the names of his father and mother in Kamenets.

Then, I wanted to know if he had any siblings and if any of the family came with him to the U.S.  Here, I ran into a Brick Wall.  While he lists very clearly on his Naturalization papers what ship he arrived on, when the ship left Rotterdam and when it arrived in NY, as well as the name of the ship.  HOWEVER, when I went to all the sources to find Passenger lists and manifests for that ship (which did arrive exactly on the day he said), his name (in any form) does not appear.

I did find that he was a ‘boarder’ on the 1905 NY census but the other people in the house don’t have his name so, as far as I can tell, he came alone (at 17 years old!).

That’s all I could glean for many months, until I decided to put my query up on “Tracing the Tribe” on Facebook.  Within hours, I got a reply from a Ukrainian genealogist.  I copied it for you in the 2^nd attachment.  If you click on the link, you can see the entry for, what seems to be, his family.  It’s impossible to read so I went to Cynthia Rush (if you remember, she came to teach us how to use FamilySearch)  She just wrote me back with instructions on how to find a Ukrainian genealogist on the website (maybe the same guy).  I’ll keep you posted!

 

 

If anyone has not filled out an application and would like to join, please find the attachment here.  The class requires a $27 membership for the year, which gives access to all databases and research that are on the IAJGS website. Please make the check out to the Asheville JCC for $27 ($37 for couples).

For more information, please contact Barbara Weitz  weitzb@fiu.edu

Barbara Newman  newman.barbara49@yahoo.com or Leonard Koenick lkoenick40@verizon.net