2013, 33th IAJGS International Conference on Jewish Genealogy, BOSTON, AUGUST 4-9

Related to: General Bessarabia, 

AUGUST 4, 9:30am - 10:45am - Jewish Life in Bessarabia Through the Lens of the Shtetl Kaushany. Speaker Yefim Kogan, Chestnut Hill, MA

The shtetl Kaushany is a place where my parents and their parents lived for more than 200 years. It is a typical 'mestechko', a small town in the Bessarabian province of the Russian Empire. Between the World Wars it was part of Romania; after World War II it was included in the Soviet Union and currently it is in the Republic of Moldova. This presentation includes historical and genealogical research as well as cultural, professional and political descriptions of Jewish life in Kaushany. Before World War II, only 1,875 Jews lived in Kaushany, which represented 35% of the total population. The town had all the traditional Jewish organizations: synagogues, a cemetery, Khevra-Kadisha and Talmud-Torah, Mikve and Heder, Zionist organizations, a nursing home, and a Jewish Women Society. Today there are no Jews left in Kaushany. Who will remember all who lived in town, perished during the Holocaust? I will.
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AUGUST 4, 1:30pm - 5:00pm - SHARE Fair

This is a reinvisioned Special Interest Group (SIG) and Birds of a Feather (BOF) Fair now known as the SHARE Fair (SIGs & BOFs, Historical Societies, Archives, Repositories, Eminent Jewish Genealogical Societies). As its acronym suggests, this fair will have exhibits not only by many SIGs and BOFs, but by local genealogical societies and repositories such as the American Jewish Historical Society, New England Historical Genealogical Society, Boston Public library maps collection, Documenting Old Maine Jewry, and the Jewish Genealogical Society of Connecticut with the Godfrey Library. The fair will give conference participants the opportunity to become acquainted with these organizations and what they offer to genealogists. http://www.iajgs2013.org/share_fair.cfm

AUGUST 5, 10:30am - 12:30pm - Computer Workshop (PC): Genealogical Research for Bessarabian (Moldovan) Jews. Yefim Kogan, Chestnut Hill, MA

Participants of the workshop will explore the Bessarabia SIG website and learn how successfully search for the records in Romania/Moldova databases and at the Bessarabia website. The session will be hands on experience for the beginners as well as for intermediate researchers to learn methods of finding information about people born or lived in Bessarabia, and about towns and shteitlakh which now belong to Moldova or Ukraine. The presenter will describe techniques of how to search for Bessarabian records and information outside of Romania/Moldova database at JewishGen, for example, how to find people from Bessarabia in the Lithuania and Byelorussian databases, or outside of JewishGen. We will explore reach collection of KehilaLinks websites and websites that are not part of JewishGen.

AUGUST 7, 8:15am - 9:30am - Bessarabia SIG Meeting.

The meeting is open to anyone with roots or interest in the region historically known as Bessarabia, an area now comprising the Republic of Moldova and parts of Ukraine. At the end of the 19th century and before the War, Bessarabia had significant Jewish population. The Bessarabia SIG was organized at the end of 2011 to help people in their Bessarabian genealogical research. Yefim Kogan, the SIG coordinator and the project leaders will present to the members about multiple projects started at Bessarabia SIG. They also will talk about future projects and how best to server Bessarabian researchers.
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Following people with present progress reports of many Bessarabia projects:
- Harvey Kabaker, Silver Spring, MD;
- Brooke Schreier Ganz, Los Angeles, California;
- Bob Wascou, Sacramento, California;
- Ala Gamulka, Toronto, Ontario, Canada;
- Yefim Kogan, Chestnut Hill, MA.

AUGUST 7, 9:45am - 11:00am - No One Remembers Alone: Tracing Three Missing Members of a Bessarabian Family. Speaker Patricia Klindienst, Guilford, CT

Three examples of how to use disparate sources to find missing family. First, a mother who died in childbirth in 1888 and could not be found using her married name is discovered by linking her son's LDS marriage record to her daughter's naturalization petition. Second, a man's portrait on a postcard inscribed in Yiddish was saved for eighty years though no one remembers who he was. With no last name, no address or date, he was identified using a Yizkor book and a ship manifest, reconnecting family divided among Bessarabia, Argentina, and New York. Third, the only one of four siblings who never got out of Bessarabia seemed lost forever till she was found in a handwritten ledger of a Philadelphia immigrant bank and her Evacuee Card from her deportation to Siberia. These discoveries would have been impossible without the help of volunteers from all over the world.

AUGUST 7, 11:15am - 12:30am - Kishinev - My Native Town: History of Jews and Genealogy. Speaker Yefim Kogan, Chestnut Hill, MA

50,000 Jews lived in Kishinev in 1900, which was 46% of the total population. Kishinev was the 5th largest city by Jewish Population in the Russian Empire after Warsaw, Odessa, Lodz and Vilna. Reach Jewish history of the town goes back at least 300 years. At that time Kishinev was part of Moldova Principality under Ottoman Empire control. What is known about Jewish life in that town in 18th and 19th centuries? Moldovan State Archive in Kishinev and archives in Saint Petersburg, Russia have large collections of documents and materials on Jewish history and culture in Bessarabia and Kishinev. The presenter will introduce many different sets of records and collections, from birth, death, marriage records, revision lists, school documents, records, cemetery registry and more. Question will be answered during the session of where researchers can find records on Kishinev at JewishGen.org and outside JewishGen.
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AUGUST 7, 12:30pm - 2:00am - Bessarabia SIG Luncheon: From a Virtual to an Actual Experience in Bessarabia . Moderator Ala Gamulka, Toronto, Canada

We immerse ourselves in seeking ancestral information from Bessarabia- where and how they lived. We scrutinize every scrap of information and our sleuthing sometimes provides bits of gold dust. All this often without leaving our own homes. What is it to actually visit there? Or to walk the same streets or visit synagogues? HEAR FROM A PANEL OF MEMBERS WHO HAVE GONE THERE, SOME ON THEIR OWN AND SOME WITH GUIDES. Learn how they prepared for their trip and what insights they can offer, how they interacted with different entities and how they managed to communicate. EACH MEMBER OF THE PANEL WILL HAVE A DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVE.
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Panelists:
- J. Michael Burke, Portland, OR, travelled to Baimaclia, Moldova
- Elise Simon Goodman, NY, travelled to Kishinev, Beltsy, Ataki
- Marla Raucher Osborn, Paris, France, travelled to Soroka, Moldova
- Jay Sage, Newton, MA, travelled to Kishinev

BANQUET