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Interested in doing research to learn more about my ancestors, I only know about 2 generations back. How can I dig deeper ? Any service or organization that does this ?
Where is your family from? When did they arrive in the U.S.?
There are commercial companies that help. but you should look at Jewishgenealogy dot com for assistance with your quest.
Lots of helpful information as well as groups doing particular locations. translations of memory books from the alte heim, etcYou may also wish you try yadvashem.org
If you had relatives who were murdered by the germans, someone might have submitted a memorial page which might include parents or children or other relatives of the victim. I have gleaned much information that way.Try jewishgen. org
They have amazing stuff! You might even find someone else researching your family. I connected with my great grandfather’s brother’s descendants, the only relatives with our last name as all the other generations either had only girls or were murdered by the germans, or both! I found my ancestors birth and marriage recorcds from Cracow in 1800! Hatzlachah!Try also jewishgen .org
Try the website of http://www.ancestry .com
While it is possible to hire a professional genealogist, first do as much as you can on your own.
First of all, get a large piece of paper (or cut open the sides of a paper bag). Then write down everything you know about your father’s side on one piece of paper and then your mother’s side on the back – or on another piece of paper.
Now try to interview anybody in the family older than you – especially previous generations. As you talk to them, you are going to write on the piece of paper. So why do you need a piece of paper instead of the internet or a computer? Very simple. As you are talking to them, they will tell you interesting stories, or maybe the name of the city where your family came from or the phone number of a relative you might want to talk to or something else unexpected and you can write that in the margins. Computers don’t let you write in the margins. Ask them for addresses and phone numbers of other relatives.
The next thing to do is a DNA test. Spitting in that test tube might help you find some more relatives.
It is entirely possible that somebody else in the extended family may have made a family tree that includes you
Once you have done as much as you can on your own, then you can try the internet or hire someone to do that for you. And while the pro’s can go pretty far back, the question is what are you trying to accomplish by knowing your ancestors names? You will learn far more about things that matter by interviewing relatives.
Baptisms are performed in Mormon temples with members immersing themselves in a baptismal pool as proxies for others. The names used in the ceremonies are drawn from a church-run genealogical database. Its original purpose was to gather genealogical records in order to perform religious ordinances for the dead. When it comes to online genealogy, the two major for-profit players are Ancestry.com and MyHeritage. Ancestry.com got a major head start over MyHeritage, but it mostly focused on gathering historical records while MyHeritage put an emphasis on building and matching family trees. But now it’s also starting to amass a wider range of historical records. Today, MyHeritage announced a major multi-year partnership with the largest nonprofit player in the space, the Mormon church-sponsored FamilySearch. As someone who is interested in Jewish genealogy, my question is how can any Orthodox Jew, use these sites which are owned by the church and openly states that on their sites. Has any one asked a Rabbi what to do about this situation?
@truebt
“the question is what are you trying to accomplish by knowing your ancestors names? You will learn far more about things that matter by interviewing relatives.”Genealogy involves far more than finding out your ancestors’ names. It can record where they lived, what trade they plied, Marriages, divorces, births, deaths, dates, criminal and armed forces records, etc.
I found out that a great-great grandfather’s 5 and 6th children were actually twins (born two days apart) and their mother died shortly after birth, he remarried and I am descended from the second wife. Both wive’s had the same name, so when I heard family stories growing up, I never learned their were two wives, or the great-great uncle and great-great aunt were twins.
I also had been told the family came to America from City X, whereas recorded records show City X was the seat of regional government where passports were issued (and appeared as place of origin on ship’s manifest), in fact they came from Town Y…30 miles away. I visited Town Y in the 1980s and was able locate the gravestones of my Triple Great Grandparents. Family stories would have never led my to this town, and previous searches for information in City X bore no fruit.How can I use so-called Jewish genealogy sites that are all owned by the church for this purpose? Read the following; Mormons have been criticized in recent years for the practice of posthumously baptizing thousands of deceased Jews (among them Holocaust victims) and those of other faiths. The wrongful posthumous baptism of Jewish dead continues, despite repeated denials by the disingenuous Mormon leadership. In their missionary zeal, Mormons continue their wrongful baptism of Jews, attempting to convince people (dead or alive) from other religions to convert. Jewish leaders have called the practice arrogant and said it is disrespectful to the dead, especially Holocaust victims.
https://www.jewishgen .org/infofiles/ldsagree.htmllink disabled
How can I use so-called Jewish genealogy sites that are all owned by the church for this purpose? Read the following; Mormons have been criticized in recent years for the practice of posthumously baptizing thousands of deceased Jews (among them Holocaust victims) and those of other faiths. The wrongful posthumous baptism of Jewish dead continues, despite repeated denials by the disingenuous Mormon leadership. In their missionary zeal, Mormons continue their wrongful baptism of Jews, attempting to convince people (dead or alive) from other religions to convert. Jewish leaders have called the practice arrogant and said it is disrespectful to the dead, especially Holocaust victims.
https://www.jewishgen. org/infofiles/ldsagree.htmlYou can hire a genealogist, but what fun would that be. That’s like buying a 10,000 piece puzzle (or ikea furniture) and hiring someone to put it together for you. Think of the sleepless nights you can spend rubbing your eyes in front of your computer trying to figure out why your great great aunt’s sister had a different last name (answer: it wasn’t a sister, it was a cousin or boarder). Your kids will appreciate your willingness to endure three straight months of sleep deprived crankiness when you inform them that they absolutely should care that their distant ancestor was the town shochet (“no, come back here right now, i’m talking to you, do you realize our family had the privilege of always having some form of protein in the cholent? what do mean ‘so what’?”)
What you find useful may depend on what part of the world you are interested in. Ancestry[.com] has many databases of all types of historical documents (birth and death records, old censuses, ship manifests, etc). It also allows users to build and share family trees and attach documents from various databases. As you build a family tree, you may find that a distant relative (or relative of a relative) did some work that can fill in sections of your tree, which you can then use to finding more information.
I would read up on the privacy issues for any ancestry building website especially if you will be providing information about living people.
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