Trouble in Paradise – as I said, it’s the little things

Posted on September 8, 2024 by Janette Silverman

Maybe the little things aren’t so little after all! Remember that one little error in your genealogical research that sends you down a rabbit hole of errors? Hopefully, we all catch those quickly enough so that the correct person, date, or place of origin is found. Most of the time those errors in findings are the result of legitimate assumptions or due to family stories and misconceptions. For example, recently, I came across a hand-drawn tree dating back almost 100 years. Mary Jones, who created the tree, had drawn it starting with her great-grandparents and took her family back to the mid-1800s. She had linked her great-grandmother to a family with the same surname, but it was not her family. The family was convinced that this tree was correct, it was only when I found records of Mary’s parents and grandparents that I discovered the error in Mary’s tree. It was easy enough to resolve once the error was identified. This is true in a lot of areas. We may start with an assumption that all is correct, and then stumble on proof that all is not right. Where is the error? What will it take to fix it?

Well, the little thing I am focused on today is not Mary’s tree but an issue with my eBook. Unfortunately, unlike the print book, there is no way to check if it’s ok before it’s up on websites for sale. A draft of the print book is accessible for approval before being sent to all these distribution sites, but I can’t see the eBook until it’s up and ready for sale. For some weird reason, only the first 3 pages are there – Amazon indicates that it’s only 3 pages long, but Barnes and Noble says their Nook version of the eBook is 330 pages. I ordered both. Weirdly, there are only pages of each that download into their appropriate applications. I’m sure it, once again, is something little needing to be resolved.

Hopefully my eBook issues will soon be resolved, and those who purchased it will be able to erase it from their device(s) and download it again.

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It’s the Little Things!

Posted on September 6, 2024 by Janette Silverman

Yesterday I was out walking just at dawn – it was close to 90 degrees Fahrenheit at 5:30 AM. The sun wasn’t up, but the sky was getting light. I don’t like to walk earlier because I’d prefer not to encounter an animal like a coyote which abound around here. I also want to see to make sure I’m not stepping on or near a snake – so many things to watch out for. Walking any later means that the sun will make its broiling presence known, and I want to avoid that too. So there I am walking, so hot and early, no birds are out chirping. They obviously have more sense than I do. And then a rain drop hits my nose. Not water from an irrigation system, just one drop. The ground remained dry. Of course it did, more often than not, rain evaporates here before it gets anywhere near the ground. This was just an errant drop.

Several weeks ago, my book was released, but we had a problem with the eBook. As I said, it’s the little things. I really wanted it available before August genealogy conferences were underway, but there was a problem. We knew it wasn’t a content problem – it was a font problem, and we kept getting error messages. My incredible designer couldn’t find where a ttf could have possibly been embedded in the text, and yet, the error message was there. Not to worry, the hard copy (paperback) was available on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and through 39,000 other distributors. I wanted an eBook though, too. I know the ease of traveling with many books electronically, and also the challenges of reading print sometimes. Finally, today, the eBook is available! Today it’s slowly rolling out in electronic form on various sites. ISBN for hard copy is 979-8990674400, eBook ISBN is 979-8990674417 – if you read it, I’d love to hear what you think!

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Hiding Just Out of Sight

Posted on September 4, 2024 by Janette Silverman

Sometimes, no matter how carefully you think you are looking, surprises pop up. Every day except for rainy or snowy days, I take an early morning walk. I usually walk the same way with some variations. The other day, someone stopped me while I was walking to see an unusual bird. While I was fumbling with my phone to open my camera, of course it flew away. I stood where I was for a few minutes, looking to see if I could find it and when I didn’t, I resumed my walk, but slower.

This time, I saw what had been hidden before – an old wooden shed and some pieces or rusting equipment. I wish I knew what these were used for and when, but in the absence of documentation, I can invent my own scenario.

Today I was looking through some old emails, searching for attachments on a particular subject. I remember saving the attachments when I got them, but I have no idea where I put them. I finally found the emails dating to 2013 and 2014 and this time I put them in a clearly marked folder. What I noticed as I was opening each one, was an email from 2011 from a current client. I wondered what she had written to me about years before I started working on her research. The content of the email really surprised me. This woman, N, had written to A, one of my partner’s cousins. N wanted to know if Sora S. on her family tree was the same as Sora S. on A’s tree. A introduced N to me and said I would have the answer because I had more of the family’s records. The two Soras were not the same. Today though when I opened the trees in question, I discovered the families were connected.

Sora on N’s tree had several siblings. Her sister Khaya married Moshe who is my partner’s great-great-grandfather! Moshe is A’s great-great-granduncle.

The relationships were hiding just out of sight. The lesson? Keep looking. Review records previously seen, do it again and again – no telling what you’ll find.

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Disappointment – a Learning Experience

Posted on August 31, 2024 by Janette Silverman

It’s impossible to know before you turn down a road not previously traveled what you will find.

As genealogists we all (ok I’m projecting here) explore new-found resources sometimes resulting in glorious, undescribably exciting results and other times with disappointment. Occasionally that disappointment is tinged with a sense of accomplishment – the search in the database worked. It just didn’t have what you hoped for. Such was my experience this past week. I went searching for my great-grandmother’s AR-2 (Alien Registration form). She didn’t naturalize until the late 1940s so I was hoping that if I could acquire her AR-2 file, I might learn something new about her.

Eagerly, I searched the files recently moved to NARA and came up with the file I was sure belonged to her, or maybe to someone else with the same name? There were two women born in “Russia” within a 2-year period, who both lived in New York. The second woman was listed twice – once with an English name and once with a Yiddish name and I was pretty sure it was my ancestor. To be sure though, I ordered both records.

I was pleasantly surprised to receive the digital files 5 days after placing the order (astonishingly quick for a government order). The one for the woman without the Yiddish name was not my great-grandmother. The other file was. Unfortunately it contained no new information. But the files didn’t cost much ($17 each) and it was certainly worth it to see whether I could learn anything else.

After all, there could be an amazing find, like this wonderful field of flowers that popped up one day in Santa Fe – it really wasn’t there the day before

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Summer’s End

Posted on August 27, 2024 by Janette Silverman

This summer has been stupendous and very exhausting. I’ve spoken at 3 weeklong conferences and feel like I’ve been flying across the country non-stop. In reality it hasn’t been non-stop, every place I visited I stay at for a week and there was about a week or so of downtime between each conference. Nevertheless, I was in Salt Lake City, Pittsburgh, and Philadelphia. Being at each conference was energizing – the exhaustion only crept in afterwards.

I didn’t realize through those long years of COVID isolation, how much I missed of in-person gatherings. Most of the talks I do are still virtual, but these in-person conferences do have opportunities that are difficult to find online. Most of all there are those serendipitous meetings with old friends and new.

Even though I’m done with in-person appearances for the summer, it doesn’t mean that I can rest. First, of course, I am working full-time with a magnificent team of researchers at AncestryProGenealogists https://www.progenealogists.com/our-experts and just celebrated my 9th work anniversary. I feel really privileged to be working with so many incredbily talented researchers.

Then I have prep work revising previously delivered presentations, creating new ones, and yes, even doing some of my own research. Up-coming presentations include one in mid-September about a family that settled in Michigan, in November I’ll be doing a session for Yad Vashem on using JewishGen, February finds me speaking to a Boston-bassed presentation on record complexities in Galicia, Austrian Empire. Of course there are more, those were only the ones that came to mind quickly.

My own research included an amazing find this week from a clue at https://larasgenealogy.blogspot.com/ about World Ward II era Alien Registration documents that were moved to NARA. I just had to go and see what this was about. So I searched the index with various surnames of my own ancestors. Most of the names were too common for me to easily identify relatives, but one fairly (I was going to say relatively but I changed my mind) uncommon yielded treasure, and I found what I think will be my great-grandmother’s AR-2 file. I ordered it and now I wait.

Waiting and researching after my book just came out are dangerous – I keep finding new documentation to expand my tree, and wish I knew some of this previously – I would have added it to the book! No, I’m not thinking of a sequel – my next project “Voyage of the Forgotten” is well underway!

The book is available on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and through 39,000 other distributors!

People keep asking me if the cover photo is of my family, and the answer is yes – early 1920s in Brooklyn, New York, just before a Passover seder began!

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Conference Flurry

Posted on August 10, 2024 by Janette Silverman

I can’t think of how else to describe what happens over the summer in the genealogy community. Of course, there are conferences all year long, but the summer is the time of the year with the most long conferences – most of the genealogy institutes are during the summer, and this year I was one of three speakers in the Ashkenazi Jewish track at the in-person week at GRIP genealogy institute in Pittsburgh. These in-depth institutes (in-person or streaming) are amazing for the amount of information that can be shared and the networking possibilities If you haven’t attended one, you should consider it.

This past week, live, in Salt Lake City, was the annual FEEFHS conference, bringing together an amazing group of researchers to learn and share European research resources and techniques. It was primarily in-person with some researchers live-streaming their talks. Next year FEEFHS will be virtual and the year after in-person – the plan is to be virtual in the odd-numbered years and in-person in the even-numbered years.

Both in-person and virtual conferences have their strengths. Virtual conferences allow people all over the world to participate and provides access to conference offerings to people for whom in-person attendance isn’t always a possibility. For example, in 2023 I was able to attend IAJGS in London in person and still present a couple of sessions virtually to FEEFHS which had both in-person and live stream offerings. All through the year I am privileged to speak virtually at many conferences all over the world which, given my work schedule and costs, would otherwise be impossible.

In just a few days, I travel again, this time to Philadelphia which is the site of the annual IAJGS conference and will see about 800 of us coming together to learn and share. During COVID I missed not getting together in person with all the people I know who are active in the genealogy community. There is something to be said for being up close and personal but, attending all the conferences all over the world in which I’m interested in, is just not feasible.

Over the last couple of years I’ve joined groups that offer monthly or bi-weekly talks and through membership also offer access to their growing library of recorded talks. For me, these are strictly r&r – what better way for a genealogist to relax than listening to other genealogists speak about research and resources!

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A New/Old Project

Posted on August 2, 2024 by Janette Silverman

Years ago I wrote about a project I was starting, investigating the March 1949 sailing of the McCormack line’s SS Marine Jumper from Hamburg to Boston. There were a number of ships in that year and the years following, carrying displaced persons, refugees from World War II to a safe place, to start anew.

Wait, you might say, 1949? Wasn’t WWII over years earlier? I would answer you and tell you that you were correct but the world was seemingly choosing to ignore these refugees, mostly Jews who were homeless and stateless, and living in Displaced Persons Camps because no one would take them in. Sound familiar?

I went to Elementary, Junior High, and High School with children who arrived in the U.S. from Europe in the 1950s. Some of their parents carried the tattoo scars on their forearms – the numbers that would erase their humanity by taking away their names. As I child, I grew to have some probably superficial understanding of what had happened in Europe.

As an adult, I became involved and engaged, developing curricula to teach in Jewish schools about the Shoah, the Holocaust, looking at the horrors by learning about individuals, not huge numbers or percentages – people.

About 15 years ago, a friend, now deceased, told me a story about how she was born in a DP camp, and came to the U.S. before her brother’s 1950 birth. She said she didn’t know where she was born, or if the date she knew as her birthdate really was. She wanted to know – she said she felt that she was somehow lacking a basic history by not knowing when and where she was born.

The details of how I found my friend’s vital details are for another post, but find them I did. I became focused on the other passengers on the ship that brought my friend and her parents to the U.S. I wanted to know who these people, the survivors were – what happened to them after they landed, but more than that, who were they and their families in Europe before the war? What about their lives and the names of their families could be restored to memory?

On March 1949 the SS Marine Jumper left Hamburg. Nine days later, it landed in Boston. Of the 549 people on the ship, 313 were Jews. There were also 76 Roman Catholics, 66 Greek Catholics, 15 Orthodox, 76 Protestants, and Baptists. I wanted to know about the Jews. I examined the manifests and looked at the destinations of each passenger, creating 138 family groups or single people traveling alone. At this point, with the exception of 11 people, I have found 127 families after their arrival and traced them back to their homes prior to the war, sometimes extending the families back by several generations. I have more to do and more to find out before I am ready to start writing.

I have the background information and now with my book Stories They Never Told Us in print, I am ready to embark on the next steps – more in-depth research, organizing my data, and writing about the 313 Jews who survived the war and arrived in the U.S. on 12 March 1949.

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The birth of a book

Posted on August 1, 2024 by Janette Silverman

For many years, I have been researching my family. I definitely did not do this alone – I’ve had many partners in this endeavor – relatives, friends, colleagues. I have created stories based on my research experiences and the successes, failures, and errors I’ve made along the way. I don’t know, at this point, how many presentations I’ve done at conferences, meetings, and other venues, in person and virtually, in North America, Europe, Australia, and Israel. Years ago, my father started asking me when the stories would become a book. I generally replied that if he wanted a book, he should write one. He didn’t. I did.

Many of us have boxes of unlabeled photos that are precious. Unfortunately, we don’t always know who the people are in the photos! Four of the people in the 1923 photo on the cover of my book figure prominently in my family’s story. The man all the way to the right in the white robe is my great-grandfather, Sam Moldofsky. The woman seated near him, separated by a child, is my great-grandmother, Minnie (Farber) Moldofsky. Directly behind Minnie is her daughter, my aunt Ethel and the man next to her (not the one in front of the door) is my grandfather, Barnet. Sam left Europe in 1906 bound for a new life in the U.S. He left behind Minnie and children – the 4th, my grandfather, was about to make his appearance – he was born while Sam was en route. Four years later, in 1910, Minnie made her way in steerage with her 4 children to join her husband in Brooklyn, New York, where he had settled. He became a furniture varnisher. He died in 1929 when he was 60. Minnie died 15 years later. She married at least once and perhaps twice, after Sam’s death.

Ethel was the keeper of this photo and of so much more. I think she’d be excited at providing part of the inspiration behind this book, which, by the way, is available on Amazon and through many othr distributors. This is the link to Amazon https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DBVX75T8/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3QZVFF8XMFEGW&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.iVmsJRCFxtYLsBLrD2_Y7RlIob7rHZAIsoxGSUmCzLA.w_7wJxhIV6iuJ–wu7zJY5B2Ghn5jXeW2r7ZtQkdb8E&dib_tag=se&keywords=jeanette%20silverman&qid=1722548954&sprefix=janette%20silverman%2Caps%2C166&sr=8-1

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A Genealogist’s Ghosts

Posted on July 28, 2024 by Janette Silverman

I live in a world inhabited by elusive figures. They are always just around the corner. They mock me by remaining out of sight. Secure and safe in their hidden spaces, I hear them talking to me and sometimes shouting at me, things like “what do you mean you haven’t found this,” and “why didn’t you look here yet.” I know these voices are in my head – I have no problem distinguishing internal and external voices, but I must admit that sometimes I get carried away and start vocalizing what my ghostly voices are saying. There’s just so many times I can point to my ears as if I have headphones in and am having a conversation with a living person.

This morning in such a mood, I went on an eight mile hike through an arroyo trail. I wasn minding my own business and trying very hard to keep the voice in my head from being external, when I heard a fairly distant very strange conversation. It was too far off for me to make out the words, and frankly, I honestly couldn’t tell if it was real or if my imagined discussion with my elusive relative was getting the better of me. Of course, it could have just been that I needed to stop and have some water, or walk faster and get home for food. Either one, I was convinced, would have this sort of effect. To my relief these ghosts weren’t ghosts at all, but some humans playing a game with a dog, deep into the arroyo, hidden by the walls. Just as I was passing them from above, the dog decided it had enough and went running up the pretty steep arroyo walls after two dogs being walked on the path near me. The runaway dog’s human companions tried hard to follow their dog and the last I heard from them, they were pleading with him to return to them below – they couldn’t scale the walls.

That’s what I mean. Sometimes the ghosts have to stop pleading and teasing, demanding and even threatening. Some of those walls of discovery simply cannot be scaled.

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Baby Steps and then a Giant Leap

Posted on June 24, 2024 by Janette Silverman

Like many of you, I get diverted, go off on a tangent, get distracted. It happens. Eleven years ago I wrote my dissertation “In Living Memory.” I always knew that I would use that as the basis for a book. I started re-writing. I got distracted. After all, my dissertation and now my book, are based on my own genealogical research and my journey as a researcher. Although my dissertation, and now my book “Stories They Never Told Us” used my family’s history as the vehicle to discuss research strategies and techniques, resources, and yes, even how easy it is to get off-track and follow red-herrings! Tonight, after many drafts, and revision after revision, I finally approved a draft and now am waiting for a copy of my book. Once again, I will go over it page by page and this time, hopefully, find no errors. The book will be available for sale on August 1, 2024. Stay tuned for ordering information!

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