Dear JewishGen Community,
Earlier this evening, at the IAJGS International Conference on Jewish Genealogy in Orlando, FL, I announced that JewishGen.org and the Museum of Jewish Heritage - A Living Memorial to the Holocaust have initiated new ignition and signature grant opportunities to support the inception and/or completion of Jewish genealogy projects that expand records available to family historians.
In order to stimulate growth, innovation, and access to records, JewishGen will be offering ignition grants up to $5,000 and signature grants of up to $25,000 for exceptional applications.
The purpose of this initiative is to assist Jewish genealogical and historical societies, and other community based organizations, to undertake and complete research projects which are delayed or cannot be initiated due to lack of funding.
Our goal is to stimulate a variety of new initiatives and creativity which will result in additional records on JewishGen, and to expand this effort beyond our traditional sources of material. All Jewish genealogical and historical societies, as well as any community based organizations, such as a synagogues, schools and libraries are encouraged to apply.These projects can focus on primary or secondary records and are not restricted by any specific geographic location. For example: a synagogue might wish to photograph and index their memorial plaques, Yizkor lists and burial records.
A Jewish genealogical society might wish to index births, marriages, engagements, deaths, etc. from local Jewish newspapers or synagogue bulletins. Or perhaps a group might wish to initiate an indexing project comprised of Jewish vital records from a particular city. Maybe there are projects that we have never even considered!
We are really excited to be able to do this. From the beginning, JewishGen has been the pioneer and the leader of Jewish genealogy. Our databases are unmatched, and we have innovated new tools, new methods, and new concepts which have benefitted thousands of people. This new initiative follows in that tradition, and we look forward to seeing what type of applications come in. Please save the date: the application process opens on August 15.
More detailed information to follow!
Sincerely,
Avraham Groll
Director
JewishGen.org
###
