Tag: genealogy

The Forgotten ‘Fusgeyers’ from Romania

Curious about your Jewish ancestors from Romania? Read Jill Culiner’s ‘Finding Home: In the Footsteps of the Jewish Fusgeyers’ Between about 1900 and 1914, multitudes of impoverished Jewish refugees sold their meagre possessions, joined into large groups for protection, and trekked hundreds of miles out of Romania on foot. The exodus of the Jewish “Fusgeyers” — Yiddish…

180 million pages of Holocaust records at International Tracing Service

From Canadian Jewish News, November 2015 Containing some 180 million pages of Holocaust-related documents, the vast archives of the International Tracing Service (ITS) of the Red Cross in Bad Arolson, Germany, was subject to strict German privacy laws until 2007, when an 11-country international commission decided to open it up to public access. Today copies…

Judische Familienforschung, Part 3

COMMUNICATIONS OF THE SOCIETY FOR JEWISH FAMILY RESEARCH Contents of the Journal of the “Judische Familien Forschung,”Part 3 * * * Part 1, December 1924 to March 1929 Part 2, June 1929 to June 1933 Part 3, 1934 to 1938 (below) * * * Year 10 – Issue Nr. 35 – 1934 University History and Jewish Family…

Judische Familienforschung, Part 2

COMMUNICATIONS OF THE SOCIETY FOR JEWISH FAMILY RESEARCH Contents of the Journal of the “Judische Familien Forschung,”part 2 Part 1, December 1924 to March 1929  Part 2, June 1929 to June 1933 (below) Part 3, 1934 to 1938 * * *  Year 5 – Issue Nr. 18 – June 1929 The Family Schwarzschild in Frankfurt am…

Judische Familienforschung: World’s first Jewish genealogy society?

by Henry Wellisch In the early 1920s Dr. Arthur Czellitzer, a Berlin ophthalmologist, founded the Gesellschaft fur Judische Familien Forschung, the “Society for Jewish Family Research.” It is now recognized as the world’s first society dedicated to Jewish genealogy in the modern era. The society had regular meetings in Berlin and published a newsletter entitled, Mitteilunngen…

The oldest family tree in the world

From the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, October 24, 2004 You may not find Dr. Neil Rosenstein’s new book listed on national best-seller lists, but the noted genealogist — with his tongue halfway in his cheek — compares it to the popular thriller “The Da Vinci Code.” Both books, the noted American genealogist and surgeon said, deal in…

Street directory of Toronto’s “Ward” — 1913

Photo: Section of the Ward, ca 1910s, from Louisa & Albert Streets at lower left, the Armouries at centre, and the old University Avenue Synagogue seen from the back (it faced onto University Ave., midway between Queen and Dundas) The neighbourhood known as “the Ward” was one of the most colourful areas in the city’s…

Toronto’s Jewish ‘Unknown Soldier’ from WWI

◊ An item in the Toronto Star from 1936 explains a certain inscription on a tombstone found at the Pape Avenue Cemetery, Toronto’s oldest Jewish cemetery. George Sorblum, Toronto’s “unknown soldier,” died in 1919 but his family only learned what happened to him in 2007.   * * *  From the Toronto Star, November 7, 1936 Some…

Two views of Bristol house, 1911 & 2014

Angell and Janey Lester (nee Alexander) were living in this house at 4 Radnor Rd., Bristol, in 1911 when this photo was taken. Janey is standing outside the house holding her infant son, Lionel Lester, with her four-year-old daughter, Ida, standing in front. Janey’s younger sister, twelve-year-old Dora Alexander, stands beside them in the dark…