Jewish Genealogical Society of Great Britain Blog

From David Mendoza and Ton Tielen, The Sephardi Heritage Project: " A free new online Jewish genealogy and history group is launching on Sunday 3rd May 2020, focused on Sephardim and also including the universal Jewish experience. Enjoy your time at home exploring your family history. Hosted on Zoom by two of the best-known names in Sephardic genealogy, Ton Tielen and David Mendoza. We will be hosting fun and informative seminars, as well as publishing a regular email newsletter. The entire service is free, although we are hoping to find sponsors. Our first conversation on Sunday 3rd May 2020 will explore the Amsterdam archives, including synagogue records dating back to 1615 and other free online resources. Future meetings will cover topics as varied as interviews, family histories and the Inquisition. There will be a weekly broadcast on Sundays (excluding Jewish holidays) at: 21:00 Israel time; 20:00 Paris time; 19:00 London time; 14:00 EST; and 11:00 PT.   P

The Arolsen Archives are appealing for people to take part in the online project “Every Name Counts”. The Arolsen Archives are building the world’s largest online archive with information on the victims of Nazism. The crowdsourcing project “Every Name Counts” calls for volunteers to enter names found on documents into the online archive to ensure that they will never be forgotten. Bad Arolsen - The COVID-19 pandemic makes it impossible for people to come together as they have done in the past to take part in joint acts of remembrance: It has become necessary to cancel many memorial ceremonies involving the laying of wreaths and visits to memorial sites that were planned long in advance to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the liberation of the concentration camps and the end of the Second World War. This is why the Arolsen Archives have chosen this time to offer a new form of remembrance which is open to all. The aim of “Every Name Counts” is to motivate as many people as pos

Peter Heilbrunn has passed on this announcement from MyHeritage: 
 "We’ve opened up access to our yearbook collection for FREE, through May 23, 2020! Our yearbook collection consists of 290 million names in 36 million pages, from yearbooks across the U.S. from 1890 until 1979. Take this opportunity to reminisce about your own high school years or search for your loved ones in the collection. 
 In addition, following the successful release of MyHeritage In Color™ (10 million photos were colorized in the first 3 months), one of the ideas raised by our team was to apply this technology also to records, in cases where black and white photos are abundant and colors could enhance the records. We focused our attention on the huge U.S. Yearbook collection on MyHeritage, and I’m happy to announce that you can now view our entire collection of U.S. yearbooks in color! 
 Search MyHeritage U.S. Yearbooks for Free Now 
 Ordinarily, accessing the yearbook records on MyHeritage requires

The April edition of the Jewish Heritage Europe monthly Newsletter is out. A summary of the news, views, and insights published over the last month. In this edition — an online exhibition of remarkable papercuts by the Warsaw-based artist Monika Krajewska; long reads about Jewish cemeteries in Poland and Ecuador, and news reports from Hungary, Lithuania, Italy, the UK, and Germany. There are links to “news you can use” during the Coronavirus stay-at-home measures — virtual tours, online exhibits, lectures, and more. And you can also download a book chapter by JHE coordinator Ruth Ellen Gruber. Go to https://mailchi.mp/jewish-heritage-europe/jewish-heritage-europe-newsletter-april-2020?e=0ce32e7b82

Announcement from the UK National Archives: We are making digital records available on our website free of charge for as long as our Kew site is closed to visitors. Registered users will be able to order and download up to 10 items at no cost, to a maximum of 50 items over 30 days. How can I download documents for free? You will be required to  register for a free account on our website and be logged in to be able to download documents. To find records that are available to download for free, filter your search results in Discovery to include records that are ‘available for download only’. What sort of documents can I download? You will be able to download records digitised by The National Archives and published through Discovery, our online catalogue. These include: First and Second World War records, including medal index cards Military records, including unit war diaries Royal and Merchant Navy records, including Royal Marine service records Wills from the juri

The Society has already cancelled face-to-face meetings through to the end of March and Council has now considered the longer-term implications of Covid-19 and will attempt to mitigate the impact of the virus on the Society’s activities. Sadly we are forced to extend cancellations further. A substantial proportion of our members are in the at-risk category and face-to-face meetings are unlikely to be possible for some time. Council has, therefore, decided to cancel or postpone all face-to-face meetings until the end of May. This means that the AGM scheduled for 10 May will be postponed. Council will review the position when it holds its next virtual meeting at the end of April. Council is exploring the possibility of providing virtual meetings so that groups can still hear from speakers and there can still be direct communication between members. Shemot and the Newsletter will continue to be issued and JGSGB Discuss, the JGSGB Facebook, page and this new J