Painted Woods Mystery: Part Two
Yesterday morning, I called Richard Levine to discuss his photograph of a family group possibly posed at Painted Woods, ND. I featured the photo and the mystery in last week’s column. Levine has known about this photo for only a few months. His cousin Sally showed it to him and...
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Is this Painted Woods, North Dakota?
Photographs and history go hand in hand. Take this photo for instance. It likely represents a bit of North Dakota history.Richard Levine's cousin Sally sent him this photo. Her mother had given it to her. The mother always thought it depicted a group at the Painted Woods settlement in...
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Baptism Battle
The debate over Mormons’ posthumous baptisms of Holocaust victims flared up again last fall when the American Gathering of Holocaust Survivors (AGHS) held a press conference to present its claims the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS church) has violated a 1995 agreement to cease such baptisms.  ...
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Jewish Roots Timeline
1007 BCE David rules over the Tribe of Judah 587 BCE First Temple is destroyed 516 BCE Second Temple is built 167 BCE Antiochus IV bans certain Jewish rites 63 BCE Romans conquer Judea 6 CE Judea becomes a Roman province 70 Second Temple of Jerusalem is destroyed 632 Jews...
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End Notes
Jews often adapted the naming conventions of the local population, so surnames may give you a clue to an ancestor’s origins. Use our chart to decode common suffixes and prefixes. -son, -sohn son of (Ashkenazi) ben- son of (Hebrew) ibn- son of (Arabic) -abi, -abu father of (Hebrew, Arabic) -zadeh...
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Conversos Connections
Resources for learning about Sephardic ancestors forced to convert to Catholicism during the Spanish Inquisition.
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Ties That Bind
Don't let the challenges of Jewish genealogy unravel your roots research. Use these seven strategies to strengthen your connection to your family's past.
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Jewish Genealogy Books
Getting Started in Jewish Genealogy by Gary Mokotoff and Warren Blatt (Avotaynu, $9.95) The Cross and the Pear Tree: A Sephardic Journey by Victor Perera (University of California Press, $15.95) A Dictionary of Jewish Names and Their History by Benzion C. Kaganoff (Jason Aronson Publishers, $24.95)...
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26 Essential Online Jewish Genealogy Resources
You'll find these 26 online Jewish genealogy resources essential to tracing your roots.
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Prominent Jewish-Americans
Louis D. Brandeis (1856-1941): First Jewish US Supreme Court Justice (1916), he assumed leadership of the American Zionist movement in 1914 and is the namesake of Brandeis University (1948) in Massachusetts, largely due to his lifelong commitment to social justice. Emma Lazarus (1849-1887): Poet noted for her sonnet "The...
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AncestorNews: Jewish Genealogy on the Web
Although my family has no Jewish heritage that I'm aware of, my sister recently found a sampler embroidered in Yiddish and Hebrew, tucked behind a family picture. Dated 1891, the sampler presented us with a research challenge: what did the words mean, and how did it get behind our...
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