JewishGen has announced its summer update to the JOWBR (JewishGen’s Online Worldwide Burial Registry) database. The update is being done in 2 parts.  You can access the database here and see a complete listing of cemeteries in the database here . JewishGen recommends that if you’re new to the database, you first  go to its screencast page  and take a look at the first two explanatory screencasts. ​More from JewishGen:  This update, adds approximately 560,000 new records and 4

JewishGen has updated its Memorials & Plaques Database, which includes the data from memorial plaques and Yizkor lists from synagogues and other memorials and lists. The database can be accessed here .  Approximately 4,300 records and 4,000 photos from 29 new organizations/memorials were added from Algeria, Colombia, France, Israel, Morocco, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Tunisia, Ukraine, and 7 states in the US; Connecticut, Maryland, Missouri, Montana, New Hampshire, New York,

Added to our website's list of Research Resources in the Members Only section is a link and more information on a searchable database of Polish children who signed a "Declaration of Admiration and Friendship for the United States." Children of all religions participated, including Jews with Ukrainian, Polish, and Czech children's names.

During June's JGSTB meeting, Curt B. Witcher, of Fort Wayne’s Allen County Public Library Genealogy Center gave an overview of its available resources to enhance  Jewish genealogical research. You can find his handout here .

Following the JGSTB's May 18 presentation on Jewish Genealogy and Artificial Intelligence, two files have been added to the Members Only  section of our website. The files, one with links and prompts from the presentation, and the other about what each of five AI programs can help you with in your genealogy work, can be found under Files. Not yet a member? Join here  to take advantage of those and other documents from presentations, as well as a comprehensive list of hyperlin

Georgia Governor Brian Kemp signed Senate Bill 100 into law, allowing Georgia-born adoptees over the age of 18 to secure copies of their original birth certificates from the state’s Office of Vital Records. The law takes effect on July 1. Read more here .

FamilySearch has expanded its online archives with over 47 million new records from 32 countries, including 12 million government and church records from Colombia, 8 million social security and death records from France, and 8 million civil registration records from the Philippines. Other countries with significant record additions include Brazil, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Ireland, Peru and Uruguay. Read more here .

Following a request from the Simon Wiesenthal Center,  the Argentinian National Archives has  made available digitally a series of 1,850 declassified documents including information on Nazi criminals in Argentina. This information details pieces of information on prominent Nazi criminals who escaped to Argentina following World War II, including Adolf Eichmann, Erich Priebke and Josef Mengele. While much of the information had been previously released by former Argentinian Pr

The Israel Genealogy Research Association added seven new databases and updated another, adding over 42,000 new records, many of them with images, in April. Those new databases: ​ 1760-1763 Jewish Names in Jerusalem – (images available)​ 1918 Magen David Adom – (images available) Founders Nahalal – (images available) Immigration 1946 – update (images available) Fallen Soldiers from the War of Independence 1948 – partial list (images available) Prisoners of War in Egypt & Jord

Jewish Genealogical Society of Tampa Bay’s Sharon Stern is one of this year’s recipients of the Jewish Federation of Florida’s Gulf Coast Women of Distinction Awards. ​The Sonia Miller Women of Distinction Awards returned after a five-year hiatus with a ceremony on May 4.   ​The Women of Distinction honorees “embody the values of compassion, leadership, and unwavering commitment to Jewish life,” a Federation release said. “These outstanding individuals have dedicated themselv

From FamilySearch: While FamilySearch has billions of digitized historical records available to browse, only a small portion of them are indexed and searchable. However, with the aid of artificial intelligence and handwriting recognition technology, now over 1 billion more historical records can be searched. Full-Text Search is a powerful new tool that allows you to search unindexed record collections. By returning search results in minutes or even seconds, this tool is helpi

From JewishGen: ​The April upload of 115,275 birth, marriage, death, census, and other records covering the years 1806 through 1916, from many towns, including Priluki, Smela, Mezhirich, Orlovets, Zbrizh, Ladizhin, Yampol, Kopaygorod, multiple towns in Chernigov guberniya, and many others. Explore the details of these documents and the towns they represent in our monthly records spreadsheet at  http://tinyurl.com/ywk456pn . Included in this batch, besides the usual categories

Added to Research Resources in the JGSTB's Members Only  section: Link and more information about the master search engine for websites that have been collating information about individuals arrested and in some cases, put to death by the Soviets. If you're not yet a member or you want to renew your membership, click here .

The division will offer courses running the gamut from Jewish genealogy to history to culture. Courses will be available for a variety of skill-levels, and course lengths will range from single-class explorations to more in depth multipart courses that span many weeks. All courses will be offered online, live with the instructor, allowing for a high level of interactivity with your instructor and fellow students. Each class will be recorded and available to registrants for a

Jewishstonesusa.org  is a special collection of 'recovered' grave markers that had been stolen from Lviv Jewish cemeteries during the German occupation of WWII and repurposed, usually as building materials for the occupying forces. Most in this collection were recovered from under a street southwest of the city center in 2018 by volunteers, by hand and with machinery, but others were recovered from nearby locations and elsewhere in the city in a number of smaller efforts betw

Reclaim the Records won access to a once-inaccessible database, the Beneficiary Identification Records Locator Subsystem (BIRLS), which includes people who served in the US military and received veterans' benefits in the twentieth century. The organizaiton created its own search engine that gives basic information and an automated way to file a Freedom of Information Act request for the records. Read more  here . Start your search  here .