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Good morning fellow list members. The following message was posted
today on JewishGen:
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Thank you Moshe Steinberg for identifying the Ourroots.ca website. As he
described, it is a fully searchable collection of local history publications
(usually produced within Can. universities) which have been scanned page by
page. It seems to have a lot of content about Western Canada.
I cannot tell the breadth of the database, but I am commenting on
its use to JewishGen after having spent about one hour at the site.
I searched this site using some fairly standard words (Jewish, Yiddish,
Israel, etc.) Very few of the documents include these words either in the
title fields, or even in the full text search fields.
However. However there are some gems for us. I mention two and focus on the
second.
"Aaron Hart 1724-1800" - in French - is a study about one of the first Jews
to live in Canada, in Quebec. But like many records, it is in French, as
are its searchable words. I found it by searching the subject headings which
are generously done in English and French.
Now the gem.
Written in 1985 for an Albertan Ukrainian pioneer village, "Galicia and
Bukovina: a research handbook about Western Ukraine, late 19th and 20th
century" published in 1990, is fully searchable and printable!
A 200+ page scholarly work about Galicia and its gubernias is referred to a
number of times online. Particular maps drawn for the handbook showing
Galician administrative changes have been online for quite awhile.
<http://www.halgal.com/maps_halgal.html>http://www.halgal.com/maps_halgal.html
The author is John-Paul Himka, a professor of History (or as he himself
says "anti-history") at the University of Alberta. He has co-authored a
short pamphlet on Ukrainian genealogy as well as numerous articles for
encyclopaedia about Ukrainian matters.
Amazon indicated this book and others by him:
"Socialism in Galicia: Emergence of Polish Social Democracy and Ukrainian
Radicalism (1860-1890)"
He wrote this handbook as a contract labour of love in 1985. The Alberta
government published it in 1990 as an Occasional Paper in a history series
about Alberta. I have not yet ascertained if it is still in print. I doubt
it, knowing the history of Alberta politics.
This link is to the table of contents:
<http://www.ourroots.ca/e/toc.asp?key=jewish&ID=1563>http://www.ourroots.ca/e/toc.asp?key=jewish&ID=1563
The handbook has more than 600 bibliographic references to the social
literature and history of the Ukraine as it came to exist out of its
Ruthenian and Galician past. While having little content directly related
to Galician Jews, it is rich in material about Galicia. The references
cited appear to be mostly in Ukrainian, and will be useful to speakers
of that language.
I consider very important Himka's overviews of collections of actual
Ukrainian-Galician materials such as newspapers in various libraries
such University of Toronto and Harvard.
I was very taken by his modest but obviously well-informed style. After
only two hours browsing ,I am excited by discovering this handbook to be
online. As I have learnt at JewishGen, understanding the social and
historical context of my ancestors is important to understanding them and
their emigration.
When I determine its print availability (from Prof. Himka) I'll inform the
list.
Barry Spinner
<mailto:bspinner_at_cogeco.ca>bspinner_at_cogeco.ca
___________________________________
Merle Kastner
Montreal, Canada
<mailto:merlek_at_videotron.ca>merlek_at_videotron.ca
Researching:
KASTNER & OSTFELD (Radauti, Fratauti, Bukovina)
NATHANSON & MENDELSSOHN (Piatra Neamt, Falticeni, Negulesti, Romania)
GARBARSKI & DENENBERG/DYNABURSKI (Sejny/Suwalki gubernia area, Poland)
KUSSNER (Bendery/Tighina, Moldova; Philadelphia, PA)
SCZUCZYNSKI & MILLER (Lida & Vilnius, Lithuania/Belarus; Philadelphia, PA.)
ALTMAN (USA, Belchatow, Poland)
LEVITT & KISHELEVETZ (New York, Lodz, Poland)
FUCHS/FOX (Dubno, Poland)
SINGER ("Zitrisk"/Starry Chartoriysk, Ukraine)
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Received on 2004-03-02 16:17:42
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