Google Your Family Tree – Unlock the Hidden Power of Google

Google Your Family Tree

On Saturday, March 21, at 2 p.m., in the McNally Amphitheatre at the Fordham University Law School at Lincoln Center (at 140 West 62nd Street, Manhattan), technical guru and professional genealogist Dan Lynch will present a lecture on unlocking the hidden power of the Google search engine, based on the material in his new book, GOOGLE YOUR FAMILY TREE. Copies of this book, highly-praised by reviewers, will be available for purchase. Details about it are at: http://googleyourfamilytree.com/index.html

Dan’s PowerPoint presentation will include examples from his own Irish research and provide tips for use in genealogy, history, and additional fields. He is a former vice president of business development for Ancestry, Inc. Dan Lynch now runs Mattatuck Consulting, a firm specializing in Internet marketing solutions. He is a frequent lecturer at local and national genealogy conferences.

This program is free and open to all. There is a suggested donation of $3.00 for refreshments.

For more information on this program, visit: http://www.irishnyhistory.org/announ.htm

IAJGS AWARDS STERN GRANT TO ITALIAN GENEALOGICAL GROUP

For Immediate Release

IGG Will Create Online Brooklyn Brides Index for 1910-1930

NEW YORK CITY – October 16, 2008 – The International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies (IAJGS) has awarded the 2008 Rabbi Malcolm H. Stern Grant to the Italian Genealogical Group (IGG). The $2,500 grant will be used to create, computerize, and place online an index to the names of women who got married in Brooklyn from 1910 through 1930.

The IGG provides free access to the public to online databases it creates from print and card indexes. The databases serve as indexes to 19^th- and 20^th-century birth, marriage, and death records and naturalization records for New York City’s five boroughs, Long Island’s Nassau and Suffolk counties, and some counties in northern New York State. Every name listed in the print and card indexes is included in the databases.

Nominated by the Jewish Genealogical Society of Long Island, the IGG was chosen by the Rabbi Malcolm H. Stern Grant Committee from among the nominations submitted by the IAJGS’s member societies. The committee submitted its recommendation to the IAJGS’s Board of Directors for its consideration and approval. The nomination was subsequently voted on and approved at the IAJGS membership meeting at this year’s IAJGS Annual International Conference on Jewish Genealogy.

According to IAJGS, “The grant will make it possible for the IGG to create and computerize a Brooklyn Brides Index for 1910-1930 from original records on 268 rolls of film from the Family History Library. There is currently no such index available for this period – a period of massive Jewish immigration. The Jewish genealogy community has greatly benefited from the 12,000,000 records computerized by earlier IGG projects, and it is most appropriate to support the 1910-1930 Brooklyn Brides project, one that will surely allow many researchers to identify the descendants of female relatives who have to date been untraceable.” This marks the first time that the IGG will create a database from the records themselves rather than from an existing index.

More than 500 volunteers from local genealogy groups-and individuals in Canada, Ireland, and England who learned about the IGG’s projects through the Internet-compile the databases under the leadership and supervision of the IGG’s Project Coordinator John Martino. The IGG first participated in an indexing project in 1999 when it partnered with New York City’s Jewish Genealogical Society to create a database of Kings County (Brooklyn, New York) naturalizations.

The grant honors Rabbi Malcolm Henry Stern (1915-1994), widely considered to be “the dean of American Jewish genealogy,” and his efforts to increase the availability of resources for Jewish genealogical research. The intention of the Stern Grant is to encourage institutions to pursue projects, activities, and acquisitions that provide new or enhanced resources to benefit Jewish genealogists.

About IAJGS: The International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies is an independent, non-profit umbrella organization that coordinates the activities of more than seventy-five national and local Jewish genealogical societies around the world. The IAJGS was formed in the late 1980s to provide a common voice for issues of significance to its members, to advance our genealogical avocation, and to coordinate items such as the Annual International Conference on Jewish Genealogy. http://www.iajgs.org

About IGG: The Italian Genealogical Group, based in Long Island, New York, is dedicated to furthering Italian family history and genealogy. The databases it creates include every name listed in the indexes, without regard to nationality or religion. Volunteers from the IGG and other genealogy organizations in the New York area have been transcribing and indexing record collections held at local and regional archives. http://www.italiangen.org

Eileen Polakoff, Chairperson

2008 Rabbi Malcolm H. Stern Grant Committee

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Researching Genealogical Resources in Ireland Long-Distance

SAVE THE DATE!!

SUNDAY, September 28, 2008, 1:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m
Fordham Law School Auditorium
140 West 62nd Street, Manhattan

In their only New York City area appearance, two internationally-acclaimed experts on genealogical research in Ireland—Dr. William Roulston, Research Director of Ulster Historical Foundation in Belfast, and Dr. Brian Trainor, the Foundation’s retired Research Director and the former Director of the Public Records Office of Northern Ireland—will present an information-packed afternoon on researching genealogical resources in Ireland long-distance. The seminar is open to members of the New York Irish History Roundtable and the public.

Drs. Roulston and Trainor will give four lectures that focus on genealogical resources in a variety of repositories in the thirty-two counties of Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. They will introduce us to many of the lesser-known resources. The afternoon will begin with a general introductory lecture, followed by specialized talks. The lectures are “Introduction to Irish and Scots-Irish Family History Research,” “The Three Cs: Church Registers, Census Records and Civil Registration Records,” “Gravestone Inscriptions,” and “Not Always at the Bottom of the Pile.” Time will be allotted for questions after each lecture.

The seminar will take place on SUNDAY, September 28th, 1:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m., in the McNally Amphitheatre of Fordham Law School at Lincoln Center, 140 W. 62nd Street, between Amsterdam and Columbus avenues. Take the A, B, C, D, or 1 subway line to 59th Street-Columbus Circle. The price of admission is $15 for members and $20 for non-members.

Ulster Historical Foundation, established in 1956, is one of the principal genealogical research agencies in Ireland and a leading publisher of quality historical, educational, and genealogical books.

Controversy Within Irish Government About Fees Charged by Online Genealogical Service

In an article published in The Irish Times on March 13th, 2008, it appears that there is a controversy within the Irish government about the fees that the Irish Family History Foundation is charging for access to databases containing Irish genealogical records.

Fine Gael spokeswoman for Arts, Sports and Tourism, Olivia Mitchell, stated that “The gathering and digitalisation of the parish records was done at public expense and it was always envisaged that this kind of public information should be made freely available to the public.”

To read the complete article, go to: http://www.cigo.ie/IrishTimes13March2008.html

The fees being charged for each viewed record was initially set at 10 Euros, but it was temporarily lowered to 5 Euros in order to attract attention within the genealogical community. It definitely has attracted attention, but not all of the attention has been favorable. A search of the Irish-oriented genealogical mailing lists hosted by Rootsweb reveals quite a few gripes about the services being offered by IFHF, and the total costs involved in trying to gather meaningful genealogical data from the service provider.

Lower East Side Tenement Museum Readies Irish Immigrant Apartment for June 12th Opening

(Courtesy of the Lower East Side Tenement Museum)

The Lower East Side Tenement Museum is getting ready to unveil a new apartment later this spring, and for the first time, an Irish immigrant family’s living conditions in the late 1860s will be featured.

On June 12 the Museum will unveil its first restored apartment since 2002. The new tour tells the story of the Moores, immigrants from Ireland, and explores themes such as public health and sanitation on the Lower East Side.

Uninhabited for the past 50 years, this apartment on the 4th floor of the tenement building will become the 1869 home of the Moore family. To recreate the 1860s, walls have to be moved, doors must be replaced and windows covered. Check the Tenement Museum’s webpage next month to see their progress.

Coincidentally, this very same Moore Family were parishioners at Saint Patrick’s Old Cathedral, where the New York Irish History Roundtable held several very popular tours back in 2006, and where the Roundtable co-sponsored an Irish language Mass this past March 14th to celebrate the Feast of Saint Patrick.