Researchers Using Genealogy to Reunite Families, Save Lives

Jewish genealogy, once neglected as an area of study, is gaining increasing attention as archives that were long believed to be lost have recently opened to scholars.

The possibility of travel to countries in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union “and the sudden access to this material, has opened the eyes of people who never dreamed of visiting these places or seeing these documents,” said Miriam Weiner, one of the leading Jewish genealogists in the United States.

“It has put to bed the myth that these documents were all destroyed and these towns were all wiped off the map,” she said. “Certainly there was vast destruction, but we’re finding many collections of documents that survived.”

The expanding interest in Jewish genealogy was reflected in the recent gathering here of 650 people from around the world for the 14th annual conference of the Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies. There are 58 societies worldwide.

Weiner was one of several speakers who discussed how Jewish genealogy is being aided by emerging new sources of information about pre-Holocaust European and Soviet Jews.

Among the new sources revealed at the conference were 19th century military records from Ukraine and Belarus, an 1824 census of Romanian Jews, newly catalogued holdings of the Jewish Historical Institute in Warsaw and a collection of 1 million pre-1905 police records held in Moscow, most focusing upon the Czar’s Jewish subjects.

Although Eastern European archivists are increasingly willing to share their resources, genealogists caution interested researchers.

Patricia Earnes, a National Archives official, said some of the archivists “are very helpful” to visiting scholars, “but others have decided that these are rich Americans and we can set our price depending on what they can pay.” Some archivists allow access in exchange for hard Western currency.

Weiner has experienced other difficulties. At one place, she found that some books “had been treated with a chemical to kill little bugs that is nauseating and causes a rash to develop on your hands.”

Still, her voice resonates with excitement as she describes her discoveries – – among them, her grandmother’s birth certificate from Priluki, a cache of about 50 confiscated Torah scrolls from Kiev and map made by a local school teacher in Korolovka, detailing the entire pre-war Jewish community, house by house.

“As time passes, more and more Jews remember the stories they heard about their families in the Old Country and want to know more about their family heritage,” said Gary Motokoff, who just retired as president of the genealogical association.

“Genealogy is a way for them to connect with their Jewishness,” he said.

Over the years, the field of Jewish genealogy has become highly specialized.

Nancy Arbeiter, a Boston-based genealogist, has been besieged by requests from Russian immigrants to America seeking long-lost relatives separated by 70 years of history.

David Chapin, a geophysicist from Texas, is working with others on a book memorializing Jews in the Ukrainian district of Letichev, an important area in the history of the Chasidic movement.

Some researchers see in genealogy tools to save lives.

Stanley Diamond, of Montreal, a carrier of the rare genetic disease thalassemia, a chronic anemia, is using genealogical research techniques to find distant relatives and others with the disease to warn them that it is always fatal to the offspring of two carriers.

“Who knows? Maybe I can save a life,” he said.

Genealogist Eileen Polakoff also was attempting to save a life several years ago when she researched the genealogy of Jay Fainberg of New Jersey. He has leukemia and needed a bone marrow transplant from someone with a matching type, such as a relative.

After years of searching, a match was found for the much-weakened Feinberg, Polakoff announced at the genealogy conference.

“Months from now, when he’s healthy, we’re going to do the donor’s genealogy and figure out how they’re related,” she said.