A special thank you to our latest Lifetime Member!  Carolyn Javitch

cleveland.com

Updated: Oct. 18, 2023, 2:14 pm - Published: Oct. 16, 2023, 12:26 pm

By Steven Litt, cleveland.com

CLEVELAND, Ohio — The library at the Western Reserve Historical Society library remains closed after a fire late last month left archival materials in the basement damaged by water and other parts of the four-story brick building affected by smoke and soot.

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October 2023 Research Tip of the Month

TOPIC: NAMES IN TRANSLITERATION: Why might I suspect that this is my ancestor?

Vol. VI, No. 10 – October 2023

Contributor: Elise Norman Cundiff, JGSC Member

Transliteration is a more complex task than translation. It involves rendering records from both another language and another writing system into a different language and system (example: Russian/Cyrillic letters into English/Roman letters). If you throw in the likelihood that the translator is a native speaker of a third language, with its own unique customs (such as adding endings to names to indicate sex or marital status), it can become even more challenging to determine if a record is that of the person you seek.

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JGS Cleveland posts the zoom recording and handout of any program if permitted by the speaker. Check the Member section of the website for details within a few days after a program for the post. The recording and handout for Hal Bookbinder’s “Why did our Jewish Ancestors Leave a Great Place Like the Pale? is now available HERE. You can also watch Hal’s JewishGen presentation of “The Ships of Our Ancestors” on YouTube.

September 2023 Research Tip of the Month

TOPIC: Simple Merging Not Working on Ancestry tree

Vol. VI, No. 9 – September, 2023

Contributor: Susan Greenberg, JGSC Member

I keep 10 trees, instead of one large tree on Ancestry. One day I opened one of my trees and was shocked that this small tree, with only 110 people listed, had grown by about 25 more individuals! When looking at a tree on Ancestry, one can obviously find duplicate names added. This can happen easily when accepting hints, no matter how careful. To remedy this issue, Ancestry has a feature to merge people with the same name, same parents, so you do not lose any facts...

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August 2023 Research Tip of the Month

Vol. VI, No. 8 - August, 2023 by Marlene Englander (JGSC member & frequent research tip author)

TOPIC: City Directories, Part II

A recent column described what City Directories can do. After decades of primarily doing genealogy research on what is quick, easy, and on the internet, I decided to take a step back and work on a project just using City Directories.

While results from searches on various genealogy databases might include information from City Directories, what else might I find if I went “page by page,” which you can now also do online?

Here are some questions I hoped these directories could help me answer...

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July 2023 Research Tip of the Month

Vol. VI, No. 7 - July, 2023 by Marlene Englander (JGSC member & frequent research tip author)

TOPIC: City Directories, Part I: What ChatGPT Has to Say

Have you tried using ChatGPT yet? Were you successful? Were your results accurate? My experience has been mixed so I thought it would be fun to try it again. I asked ChatGPT “How can I use City Directories to find information about my Jewish family?” Here’s what it said:

“City directories can be a valuable resource for finding information about your Jewish family. Here are some steps you can take to use city directories effectively...

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EPISODE 52: GENEALOGIST DANIEL HOROWITZ

Check out this podcast produced by the CLEVELAND SCHMOOZE!

This week, we are talking to Daniel Horowitz, a genealogy expert at MyHeritage. He lives in Israel but was recently in town as a speaker for the Jewish Genealogy Society of Cleveland's 40th anniversary kick-off event. We recorded this conversation with Daniel Horowitz at the Orange Branch of the Cuyahoga County Public Library.

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June 2023 Research Tip of the Month

TOPIC: Why I Love Genealogy

Vol. VI, No. 6 - June, 2023

Contributor: Feige Stern (JGSC board member & frequent Research Tip author)

Why do I love genealogy? Let me count the ways……

When I began my genealogy journey 25 years ago, it was in an effort to learn more about my grandparents and their families. My father had just died and I felt a huge sense of the loss of my best source of information.

In the days before the internet made genealogy so much easier, I drove to the Kirtland Family History Center to search the records available, and ordered promising ones that had to be shipped from Salt Lake City. When each arrived, they notified me by postcard and I’d drive back to Kirtland.

I also spent time at other archives including...

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Researcher examines Jewish communities in small Ohio towns

Charita M. Goshay

The Repository

May 23, 2023

Steubenville, OH once included a community of more than 1,000 Jewish people.  Chillicothe and New Philadelphia also had thriving Jewish communities. Researcher and Lancaster-native Austin David Reid is exploring the history of Ohio's Jewish communities in 16 small towns across the state. Check out the Canton Repository's coverage of his research, and learn more about these Jewish communities and why many have disappeared.