One of the most interesting and unusual items pertaining to the Jewish history of confederate and pre-confederate Canada is a two-centuries-old diary in the custody of the National Archives of Canada. The diary belonged to Samuel Jacobs, a European merchant whose ship, the Betsy, was known to have plied the St. Lawrence carrying trade goods…
Tag: genealogy
The 1911 census is a powerful tool
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The 1911 census of Canada, which became available to the public in mid July for the first time, is a tremendously valuable resource for family tree researchers whose relatives were in Canada in the first decade of the 20th century. It is the latest in a wave of genealogical resources — the Ellis Island data…
Genealogy as a labour of love
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“I’m working on a book of family history,” Sara Edell Kelman declares, as she shows me her massive collection of archival documents, ketubot, photographs, Yiddish letters and other family memorabilia, spilling out of diverse albums, binders and boxes. “No, it’s more than one book — it’s a series of books. There’s a lot of stuff…
The Family Orchard, family history novel
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Nomi Eve, author of The Family Orchard, has taken sections of her family history, as supplied to her by her father, a genealogist, and used them as the foundation for a novel that spans two centuries and the familiar Jewish terrain from Eastern Europe to the land of Israel. As she advises, references to actual localities…
Mormons still baptizing deceased Jews (2002)
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Jewish and Mormon officials met this week to discuss allegations that church members are still posthumously baptizing many deceased Jews, including thousands of Holocaust victims. Seven years after the church signed an agreement to do all it could to stop the practice, new evidence has emerged that the church=s vast International Genealogical Index lists as…
A conversation with great aunt Sophie
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It is a truism of family tree research that you can visit libraries and archives any time you like, but you must not delay interviewing elderly relatives as they will not be around forever. The greatest regret of many genealogists is that they didn’t ask the right questions of the right people at the right…
More genealogical adventures (Jassem, McCartney)
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Peter Jassem’s surname was always a puzzle to him as he grew up in a Polish home in Krakow. Jassem certainly wasn’t a Polish name; neither was it Belarussian, Latvian or Ukrainian. His father said it may have come from the town of Jassy (Iasi) Romania but Peter wasn’t convinced and suspected the truth even…
Ontario Jewish Archives: treasure trove on Bathurst Street
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Ask Dr. Stephen Speisman about the 80-year-old minute books of Toronto’s Kielcer Society and a gleam appears in his eyes. Director of the Ontario Jewish Archives, Speisman has long been seeking early records of landsmanschaft, mutual benefit and like societies in Toronto and other Jewish communities in Ontario. But too often such records get stashed…
It’s worth the trip to Salt Lake City
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As of this writing, more than 600 people have registered for the 20th International Conference on Jewish Genealogy, scheduled for Salt Lake City, July 9 to 14. Most are American but some will be coming from as far away as South America, Europe, Israel and Australia. Why are so many Jews shlepping to Utah? Along…
Klavir family ‘together again for the first time’
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Toronto legal secretary Debbie Klavir-Donda and her aunt, Shelagh Klavir, a travel agent, are preparing to welcome about 100 relatives to a family reunion next month at a resort in Huntsville, Ont. With the exception of their own small family circle in Toronto, all of the various Klavir relatives are flying in for the “reunion”…
