The Russian Jew in the United States

This past summer the Museum introduced the first of three sections of a book published in 1905 entitled "The Russian Jew in the United States" (also entitled "The Immigrant Jew in America" in a later 1907 edition.) Now the second section, about the Russian Jews of New York, has been readied for you.

It should be noted that the editor of this book makes a distinction between the three major Jewish populations that have lived in the United States over the past two and a half centuries (i.e. from 1655): The Spanish-Portuguese, the German and the Russian population. Thus, some of you who have limited or no interest in the lives of Russian Jews, but who are interested in the Jews of such regions as Lithuania, Volhynia, Bessarabia, Galicia, Poland or Romania, might be misled by the term "Russian Jew" and disregard this book because you think it doesn't apply to your interest or research. In the case of this book, "Russian Jews" include all Jews that lived within the Russian Empire in 1905.

The Museum then has now put online the second of three sections of this book--the first part was about the Russian Jews of Philadelphia; the third part is of the Jews of Chicago--hopefully this part will be placed online within the next few months. The second part now online is that of the Jews of New York and covers such topics as general aspects of the population, philanthropy, economic and industrial condition, religious activities, educational influences, amusements and social life, politics, health and sanitation and law and litigation.

This section on the Jews of New York is a nice tie-in with the number of articles the Museum has recently presented to you about the immigrant Jews who came to New York during the years of high immigration, i.e. from the late 1880s to 1910. The link to the main exhibition is www.museumoffamilyhistory.com/ija-main.htm. Just click on the word "enter" to view the table of contents.

Thomas Jefferson High School database addition

For those of you who had family in Brooklyn, New York, who lived there between 1924 and 1987, the Museum has a searchable database of more than 46,000 names of graduating Seniors, encompassing more than seventy graduating classes (they graduated two classes a year, in January and June).
You can search by name, school year, even by home address (at least for half of the students).
This is a useful genealogical tool, not to mention and educative one, as one can also browse any of the yearbooks from cover to cover--a virtual "time capsule."

Today another six hundred names have been added, from the graduating class of January 1946.

The link is www.museumoffamilyhistory.com/Jefferson/yearbooksearch.html.

Searching the NYC Area Cemetery Databases

Within the last few years seven searchable databases have been created for Jewish cemeteries within the New York-New Jersey metro area. Since the Museum wishes that everyone has the greatest success when searching these databases, suggestions have been offered on how best to use them. You can find these suggestions and more at www.museumoffamilyhistory.com/erc-scdb.htm .

The first searchable database was created for Mt. Moriah Cemetery in Fairview, New Jersey. Their site can be found at http://www.mountmoriahcemeteryofnewjersey.org/. Then the creation of a series of six databases began: Mt. Hebron Cemetery (http://www.mounthebroncemetery.com/) in Flushing, New York; Mt. Carmel Cemetery (http://www.mountcarmelcemetery.com/) in Ridgewood, New York; Mt. Zion Cemetery (http://www.mountzioncemetery.com/); Mt. Ararat Cemetery in Lindenhurst, New York (http://www.mountararatcemetery.com/. Then a database for Mt. Judah Cemetery in Ridgewood, New York (http://www.mountjudah.com/) was created. The latest database was created for Mt. Lebanon Cemetery (http://www.mountlebanoncemetery.com/), in Glendale, New York. The database of Mt. Carmel increased in 2007 when they took over the management of the nearby Hungarian Cemetery. Subsequently, Mt. Carmel Cemetery took over management of nearby Knollwood Park Cemetery. Hopefully at some time in 2009 the data from Knollwood Park will be online (as part of the Mt. Carmel database.)

In all, there are at least 700,000 burials within the combined databases. Though there are many more area cemeteries that don't have searchable databases than do, they are nevertheless a great tool for finding the location of a loved one's "final resting place."

Please visit the Museum's Cemetery Project at www.museumoffamilyhistory.com/cp-main.htm where you'll find a cemetery directory, cemetery maps and more.

Search Over 10,258,000 Old New York State Historical Newspaper Pages

The Fulton History website is a great source of newspaper articles (from 1817 to 2007) if you're interested in finding material from New York State newspapers--not just the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, but also newspapers from many towns and cities located in upstate New York.

You can see a list of newspapers that are accessible via their database, as well as find answers to frequently asked questions, by using their FAQ Help Index link. The articles will appear in a PDF format, so you need to be able to read PDF on your computer.

Your blogmaster, with great surprise and delight, found a short article about his paternal grandmother (whom he never knew) in a 1929 Utica newspaper, even though his grandmother always lived in Brooklyn. This means one never knows. It's best to conduct a search and hope for the best, as always.

Such newspapers as the Brooklyn Daily Eagle even listed school graduates, at least for the graduating classes of the late twenties and thirties. This didn't just include high school classes, but also middle school.

The key to searching in this database, as well as other such databases, is how you input your search words. If you're looking for information about a Max Cohen from Brooklyn, search as follows: "Max Cohen" "Brooklyn", making sure you use the quotation marks where appropriate, so that all mentions of Max and all mentions of Cohens and all mentions of Brooklyn don't appear with your search results.

Many researchers use ProQuest to search the New York Times archives, and this Fulton History database is almost as good--plus you can use this from the comfort of your own home (and it's free).

The link is www.fultonhistory.com/Fulton.html.