[Cz-L] Summary of Bukovina Reunion Group meeting at IAJGS Conference last week

Dear friends,

Here are the minutes of our Bukovina Reunion Group meeting at the
Washington, D.C. Conference of the International Association of Jewish
Genealogical Societies. Glad to meet (and to see again!) so many of our
list members!

Best wishes,

Bruce

Minutes -= Bukovina ³Reunion Group² or ³Birds of a Feather² meeting
August 16, 2011 at the IAJGS Conference, Washington, D.C.

Attendance: 19

The meeting was presided over by Bruce Reisch and Merle Kastner. Minutes
were recorded by Jessie Klein. Merle Kastner took photographs of the
occasion.

Each person in attendance was asked to introduce themselves, and to
mention their family connections to Bukovina, and to which town(s) they
trace their families. Several mentioned having made recent trips to
Czernowitz, Radautz, and Moghilev. Towns of interest that were mentioned
included Czernowitz, Radautz, Nova Selitsa, Buchacz, Sadagora, and Wiznitz.

Bruce Reisch passed around a handout describing recent additions to the
Bukovina Jewish Genealogy website
<http://www.shtetlinks.jewishgen.org/sadgura/ReischToronto.html>.
Attendees were advised to check this page for resources of potential
interest.

The Czernowitz-L discussion group and associated website
<czernowitz.ehpes.com> were also described. Those not already members
were told they were most welcome to join the discussion group. Merle asked
for contributions of photos from list members in attendance.

The Czernowitz cemetery restoration project and the cemetery indexing
project were also discussed. More than half of the cemetery has been
cleared through the efforts of two volunteer organizations as well as the
Czernowitz Jewish Cemetery Restoration Organization. Bruce then
demonstrated a search in the JewishGen Online Worldwide Burial Registry
for all burials within Bukovina for a surname of interest to one attendee.
 Multilingual (Russian, Hebrew, German) volunteers familiar with Excel are
needed to help this project complete the indexing for the Czernowitz
cemetery.

Daniel Horowitz spoke about his use of the LDS microfilm collection of
Jewish records from Czernowitz. It¹s possible to scan and digitize entire
microfilms. Daniel suggested that a project to index the microfilm
records be started. It would greatly facilitate access to these vital
records covering the period 1856-1929. Daniel spoke preliminarily with
Kahlile Mehr about this project. (Mr. Mehr overseas international
microfilming efforts for the LDS library.) Ancestry.com and
FamilySearch.org (the LDS group) have software that can greatly facilitate
any indexing project. It was suggested to partner with one of these
organizations, and then donate the index to the partner organization.

FamilySearch has ongoing efforts to index and digitize many of their
holdings, but Jewish records from Czernowitz would be low on their
priority list due to relatively low level of demand. There are two
questions at the outset: 1. Can digitized copies be obtained firstly of
all indices on microfilm, and secondly of all actual vital records on
microfilm? The LDS library needs to be approached. 2. Can permission be
obtained from LDS (and the Chernivtsi State Archives) to post an online
index to the records, and in the future, digitized images of the records
themselves?

Daniel will approach Todd from FamilySearch in the vendor area at the
IAJGS conference to ask these initial questions. A project leader needs
to be identified to coordinate this project and lead the effort.

The one hour 15 minute meeting had to conclude as another group was
scheduled to use the room. A number of attendees lingered to talk with
each other and follow up on possible family connections. Overall, it was
a very successful meeting and we look forward to the next. Sylvie Gsell
of Paris, a fellow Czernowitz-List member, is one of the organizers of
next year¹s IAJGS conference in Paris and invited all to attend the
meeting next year.

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Received on 2011-08-23 19:40:56