14TH SUMMER SEMINAR ON JEWISH GENEALOGY HOTEL WASHINGTON JUNE 25-29 in Washington, D.C. Notes by Frank R. Kegan of Palm Desert, CA (Husband of GFS Glynne - Gay Lynne Kegan) The conference activities began with a talk by Harold Rhode on "The Importance of Genealogy in the Bible and Jewish Tradition." Saturday at 5PM, since the sun was still up no microphone was allowed, nor was note-taking or tape recording. The talk highlighted that genealogy and lines of descent have always been an essential element in Judaism, from the Exodus from Egypt, when all the descendants of Aaron were designated the Priests and the members of the tribe of Levy designated their assistants in religious hierarchy. After the destruction of the Second Temple and Jerusalem by the Romans the decision was made to deal with this catastrophe by ordering the survivors to write their family trees and thus re-establish the continuity of Jewish tradition. Similarly, now after the Holocaust, genealogy has taken on an additional significance as a means to defeat the aim of the Nazi War of Extermination Against the Jews. Sunday at Noon I attended the Beginners Workshop with Sallyann Amdur Sack which turned out to be a two hour introduction to the genealogical resources available in Washington and the people in the D.C. group personally involved in preparing optimal access to these resources for the convention. Also at noon was the report and then discussion of the Worldwide Cemetery Research Project with Arline Sachs. Some massive additions from various places were added to that database. From other comments I heard, two trends are developing with cemetery records information. The genealogists are working hard to made accessible all information on computer database, while the private companies and individuals associated with cemeteries and their maintenance as seeing this information as a source of revenue. As budgets of public agencies get strained worldwide, the ready cash available from interested genealogists seems to be causing a wide range of commercial reactions and professional jealousies. At 2:30 Rita Krakower Margolis gave an overview of the Seminar At 3:30 there was an orientation to the research materials available at the Holocaust Memorial with Chief Archivist Henry D. Mayer, Assistant Director of the Registry of Holocaust Survivors Sarah Ogilivie, and Library Technician William Connelly. During the week we were in D.C., Gay Lynne and I made three trips to do research at the Holocaust Memorial. There genealogical resources are quite extensive we obtained maps and photos from their computer system and photo archive which they copy for free, as well as access to microfilm of the Soviet Extraordinary Commission on Nazi War Crimes which is all in Russian but contains extensive first person testimony of events in the USSR. The Conference formally opened at 7:30 Sunday evening with the Welcome by Rita Krakower Margolis, Seminar Co-ordinator and Diane Goldman, President of JGS of Greater Washington. The special nature of this national conference in our nation's capital at this extraordinary time when the normally secretive Eastern Europeans are opening their archives more than ever before in history was demonstrated in the 8:00 lecture by Laima Tautvaisaite, Director of the Lithuanian State Historical Archives, who began her talk by presenting the group with the gift of a complete inventory of that archives holdings (which Gary Mokotoff said will need to be translated, checked and then will published). Her talk went on to describe "Resources and Techniques for Doing Jewish Genealogical Research in the Lithuanian State Historical Archives." For the rest of the conference it was possible to arrange private sessions with her to discuss individual inquiries. Gay Lynne is arranging to receive about 30 documents of her Hoffenberg ancestors from Lithuania. The evening ended with a rooftop reception in honor of Gary Mokotoff for his service to the Association of Jewish Genealogy Societies. with a view of the White House at night nearby, dessert and beverages highlighted by the opportunity to interact with most of the people at the conference, check out the names and towns upon their Seminar Badges, and generally network and connect. Monday was the day for the Vendor Exhibits, genealogical services, display materials including a magnificent enlarged, framed facsimile of a Passenger Arrival Record, software programs, AOL trial subscription disks, translation services, and the like. The Conference Seminars didn't begin until 7PM giving the morning to Orientation and research at the Library of Congress or National Archives where our group was a major influx giving the staff an opportunity to practice their skills. Gay Lynne and I took off bright and early for the Geography and Map section which was quite empty that morning since most of the conference people were at the Orientation. We were able to make 11x17 copies of detailed Russian maps (in Cyrillic characters) from 1865, 1899, and 1920 (for my town of Novoslatopol they were all identical). I asked for a map of the territory from the Baltic to the Black Sea about 1846, and they came back with an 1846 map of Poland and European Russia which copied completely on one 11x17 page. They also copied for us a huge map of that same area for $1/sq.ft charged to a Visa Card. Copying at the Library of Congress involves a number of things, finding an available copying machine, either Xerox or microfilm or microfiche copier, having whatever it takes for payment. Some take only the Library of Congress copy card which comes from its own machines, costs 40 cents and can have money added to it either by bills ($1, 5,10, or 20) or in some places by Visa Card. Finding the locations of these machines can be a serious expedition in itself and if your timing is bad, a major wait in line. Other places, such as the Map room don't have many machines that take copy cards, they expect either dimes or quarters only. The main library collections are in the Jefferson Blg where books can be called from the stacks upon the first floor, and in the back of Alcove 7 copy machines and machines for copy cards by cash or Visa Card are tucked away. Also on the first floor is the microfilm reading room with City Directories and magazine collections (including Playboy as well as a wide range of News Weeklies, etc.). The Microfilm reading room is not to be confused with the machine-readable collection (as I did for a while) which is only open afternoon. Up from there is the Hebraic Section with the books in Hebrew and some of those on Jewish topics. The Madison blg has the Geography and Map Room in the Basement and most of the available food concessions. In the Madison Blg basement, en route to the tunnel to the Jefferson Blg there is what is called The Coffee Shop. It is actually a very good cafeteria, which in its lunchtime session (the food establishments have a complex set of open hours and closed periods) has a deli counter tucked in a corner where you can make your own sandwiches including excellent cheeses, roast beef and corned beef with rolls, rye bread, etc. which you pay for by weight. In the afternoon there were a number of Birds-Of-A-Feather informal meetings back at the Hotel. Gay Lynne went to the Jewish Gen group and I sat in with the Latvia Interest Group which formed itself up as an ongoing networking operation. My involvement was somewhat limited as it was just in the weeks before the Conference I learned that Novoslatopol was a Jewish Agricultural Colony almost all of whose original colonists came from Ludz, Latvia, and I still have not nailed down that 1846 reference exactly yet. The Conference Seminars began at 7 PM in two locations. One was a discussion of Jewish Genealogy on the Information Superhighway with Bruce Kahn and Arline Sachs., followed by Resources in Israel with Dianna Sommer, Director, Dorot Genealogy Center and Batya Unterschatz, Director Search Bureau for Missing Relatives. I attended the other set, a Panel on Russian, Ukrainian & Bellarussian Genealogical Sources. First spoke Miriam Weiner on "Routes to Roots in the Former Soviet Archives: What Documents Exist and What Can Be Learned from Them." She spoke of the traditional Metrical records of birth, marriage, death, census and the like, The second talk, Beyond the Metricals: Other Genealogical Sources in Russian and Ukrainian Archives, by George Bolotenko of Ottawa Canada was to me the most exciting. He mentioned that the Czarist Police, a reform of Peter the Great emulating the Western regimes like the French, not only kept track of any political activity and criminal action, but also were charged with making note of everything of interest relating to he activities of the people. These records were kept by police agents in all the communities under Czarist control from the late 18th century until the 1917 revolution and their reports were sent back to St. Petersburg or Moscow where they are yet stored and just now are becoming accessible. Thus, even for towns that were destroyed or their archives and records lost from the revolution, civil war or Holocaust, there may yet be records existing in the Czarist Police Archive. So far he has only looked in one Fons or cabinet of records of political activists, that contains one million names of which they estimate 750,000 are Jews. These records can also include exact traced copies of all mail thought of note by the Czarist police either leaving or entering. He gave an example of a letter from London of someone who had escaped and wrote back to his family. The reaction to this information ranged from the traditional view that these archives were just beginning to become accessible and thus it was yet a long way until any real practical genealogical data would be available for specific families, to my own far more enthusiastic sense that this was like hearing for the first time that there exists a place called America. These records would amount to a complete national newspaper morgue complete with police blotter and gossip section, and rather than letters to the editor, letters to and from individuals outside Russia, like our families. George Bolotenko appealed for a community effort to establish connections with those in charge of these archives who need computers and assistance databasing this continent of newly available genealogical and historical resources. He also mentioned that in Czarist Russia, there were no copy machines and all copies of official documents people required had to be handmade by a notary. He read some of the entries a Notaries logbook which described the person requesting the copy with address and family information, described what was being copied, why it was copied and an abstract of what was in the document copied. On Tuesday we did research at the Holocaust Memorial (and took the tour). Gay Lynne was working on a microfilm of the Extraordinary Commission trying to find information about Chudnov where her father's ancestors are from. None of the staffpeople who read Russian were in that day, but eventually she found Yale Reisner who was able at least to help her find a page with the name Chudnov in Cyrillic as well as its gabernya. He also was able to help us understand a page of 1827 Nasielsk Polish birth records we had copied at our local LDS library but couldn't decipher even with the book of translation guidelines. That evening the highlight talk was by Yale Reisner "New Frontiers in The Old Country : Genealogical Resources in Poland." Turns out that he is basically the sole Jewish Archivist in Warsaw and most requests end up upon his desk. The records are kept bound in string in wooden cabinets that are deteriorating rapidly. Although the number of officially recognized Jews who survived the Holocaust is quite small, about 10% of the Jewish population survived by buying Aryan papers or having their children hidden or adopted by others. There is about 100,000 Jews still in Poland now, which a functioning Jewish community with Synagogue in Crackow. He also told the stories of various individuals who contact him trying to find out their true identity. They (or their parents or grandparents) had been hidden at the time of the Nazi occupation and all their documents or records destroyed and now they are just finding out and trying to find their long lost heritage and families. It was a very moving talk with great new information which Yale apologized for running long and we were all most grateful for his continuing revelations. On Wednesday the research, Birds-of -a-Feather sessions, Vendor exhibits, research trips to Baltimore, Annapolis, videos all continued. I was involved with a group working on the improvement of Genealogical Databases. The primary reaction I had was to realize how extremely difficult it is to get either a group of Jewish genealogists or a group of computer database people to agree upon much of anything, and a group of both is an example of the ultimate possible challenge to developing any sort of successful agreement about anything. There were book signing sessions with Sallyann Sack, Gary Mokotoff, and Arthur Kurzweil. Also, a talk by George Arnstein called Publish Before You Perish, discussing what is involved in desktop publishing your family history. This talk was followed by a Show and Share Family History Projects session where people were encouraged to display their publications, although no opportunity was available to for any specific comments from those people to the group. As we walked about looking at the work and talking with the people who did them there was much interesting discussion and networking. At 7 PM there was the Conference Banquet with the Malcolm Stern Memorial Lecture by Arthur Kurzweil speaking about "Genealogy as a Spiritual Pilgrimage" a moving talk describing both his own spiritual insights and the importance of genealogical roots in the continuity of Jewish tradition, particularly in light of the catastrophic destruction of the Holocaust. The evening ended with a performance of Klezmer music by Frieda Enoch and the Capital Klezmers. Although the Ballroom was crowded with tables to accommodate as many as possible, a few people yet managed to dance to the music. The final sessions of the Conference began at 9AM on Thursday morning. Gay Lynne and I were held up a few minutes watching the CNN live coverage of the docking of the US Space Shuttle with the Russian Space Station Mir. Then we heard Boris Feldblyum talking on "Reclaiming Our Heritage--The Center for Eastern European Jewish History and Genealogy." where he is attempting to raise funds to establish and maintain a non-profit organization to work on preserving and copying the Jewish Genealogy records available in Eastern Europe rather than relying upon the Mormons to do this work. The Conference ended with sessions looking to the future: Judge Jacob Karno, moderated a discussion upon "Organizing New Jewish Genealogy Societies."; Roundtable Discussion: "Where Do we Go from Here" moderated by Sallyann Sack. "Mormon Family History Library: New Acquisitions" by Gary Mokotoff who also talked on "Association of Jewish Genealogy Societies: State of Affairs Today." The last session was an overview of the 15th Annual Conference, "Next Year in Boston" by Betty Winik.