Alexander Dunai was born in 1968 in
Lviv/Lemberg,Ukraine. In 1992 he graduated from the Lviv State
University with
a degree in History after which he worked for the government sponsored
International Center for Education,Science and Culture in Lviv where he
first
came into contact with foreign visitors.
Since 1996 he has worked as a professional
genealogy
researcher. Among his contributions to Jewish genealogists is his
discovery and
translation of the official KGB martyrs' lists for Galician Jewish
victims of
WWII.
Due to consistently high performance reviews
by his
research clients he was invited by JewishGen to be their official
liason for
the Western Ukraine ShtetlShlepper program. He has been a JewishGen
partner in
this project since 1998.
Since 1997 he has combined his professional
interest
in genealogy and his knowledge of Jewish life in East Central Europe to
guide
genealogists and others in their quest to connect historically with
their
ancestors and the life that was once there. His research and routes
tours have
taken him throughout Ukraine, Poland, Belarus, Slovakia, Romania and
Hungary.
Alex is fluent in
English,Russian,Polish,Ukrainian.
His research for clients has taken him to the plethora of archives and
institutions throughout that region. His particular areas of expertise
are in:
regional and city archives, museums, civil registry offices, etc. He
has
experience of work in the archives of Poland, Romania and Slovakia; and
specializes in the Jewish genealogical research in the archives of
Ukraine.
He works as a consultant for an attorneys
company in
Lviv. His success has been due to his knowledge of the labrythian
archival
systems in Ukraine, and his ability to negotiate entry to work there
even under
the most extraordinary of circumstances.
Research
in the Transcarpathian Region of Ukraine
This talk is a short description of the complicated history of Transcarpathia and its impact on the archival holdings and archival research. The following will be discussed:
Description of
the
Transcarpathian archives possessing records of Jewish genealogical
interest.
Kinds of archives possessing the records:
What's necessary in order to
prepare for the research.
Town names;numerous renaming
of towns and complications caused by that.
Attitude of the archival
workers and officials to the researchers and foreign visitors: a
mixture of
"mysterious Russian soul" and Slavic enterprise.
Regional archives of the
Transcarpathian Province(Zakarpatska Oblast)- top secret archival base
in
Ukraine. Basic records known to be possessed by the archives.
Dealing with the director of
the archive-Mykhailo Vasylyovich Delegan; promises and reality.
Travel in the
Transcarpathia: where to stay, where to eat, how to get around.
Communication
problems."Kiev time" and "local time".
Frojimovics, Kinga
Kinga
Frojimovics is a historian and an archivist. She
submitted her Ph.D. dissertation to Bar-Ilan University (Ramat Gan,
Israel) in
2002. Her field of research is the history of the Jews in Hungary in
the
nineteenth and in the twentieth centuries. Dr. Frojimovics focuses on
the
history of the three religious trends, the Orthodox, the Neolog, and
the Status
Quo Ante. She has co-edited with József Schweitzer the Jewish Communities in Hungary. April, 1944: Data from a
Census
Organized by the Central Council of Hungarian Jews on the Order of
German
Authorities. Part I. (Budapest, 1994, Hungarian), and wrote
together with Géza
Komoróczy
[ed.], Viktória Pusztai, and
Andrea Strbik a
monograph entitled Jewish
Budapest: Memories, services, history (Budapest,
1999). She is
also the co-editor of the MAKOR,
the Series of the Hungarian Jewish Archives. Her next book, The
Catalog of the Jewish Registers in Hungary
(Budapest, 2003,
Hungarian), is in press.
The archival sources can
be divided into three groups according to their origins:
a)
documents
that were generated by the operation of Jewish organizations
b)
documents
prepared by state agencies
c)
documents
of individuals
From the point of view of
genealogy, the most important sources that have been generated by
Jewish
organizations are the registers of births, marriages, and deaths. The
largest
collection of “original” registers in Hungary is kept in the Hungarian
Jewish
Archives. “Original” registers were prepared by and kept in Jewish
communities.
The “originals” differ from the “copies,” which were prepared by the
Jewish
communities for the state authorities, in that they contain Hebrew
names and
dates. The lists of the members/and or the taxpayers of Jewish
communities and
the documents of various religious associations are also crucial
sources of
information.
Among the documents prepared
by state organs, the most valuable ones from the point of view of
genealogical
research are the censuses surveying the Jewish population of the
country,
individual counties, or settlements taken for various purposes at
various
times. The last such censuses are connected to the Holocaust. There
are, for
example, quite a few lists of names of ghettoized Jews in various
settlements
in the Hungarian Jewish Archives.
The documents of various
families and individuals also contain valuable information for
genealogical
research not only for the family in question, since in many cases, they
contain
items such as lists of classmates or fellow sport club members.
Jewish
Naming Customs in Hungary from the Turn of the Twentieth Century
Until the Holocaust
My aim is to describe the
fundamentally different naming customs of the Neology and the Orthodoxy
in
Hungary from the turn of the twentieth century until the Holocaust. The
differences can be seen not only in family names and in first names,
which is
quite well researched, but also in the Hebrew/Yiddish names. My
analysis is
based on the names in the registers of births of four important Jewish
communities: the Orthodox Jewish communities of Eger and Paks, and the
Neolog
Jewish communities of Kecskemét and Zalaszentgrót.
From the perspective of the
history of Jews in Hungary, the period I am concerned with can be
divided into
two sub-periods. The first- the second half of the era of the
Austro-Hungarian
Monarchy – was a period of assimilation promoted by the liberal
Hungarian
political elite. For example, a massive wave of name-magyarization
characterized this period. In the second period, after the First World
War, a
Conservative-Christian political elite rose to power in Hungary.
Against the
previous assimilation-promoting policy, they adopted a nationalist,
exclusive
policy towards the religious and/or ethnic minorities of Hungary. I
shall
analyze the names accumulated in the four registers of births between
1880-1910
and between 1920-1940.
The simultaneous examination
of Jewish first, family, and Hebrew names enables us to analyze complex
historical processes within Jewish society. While the first and family
names
inform us about the relationship between Jews and surrounding society,
the
Hebrew names show the different relationship of the Jews belonging to
the two
major religious trends to the Jewish traditions.
Gyémánt,
Ladislau
Ladislau Gyémánt is Deputy Dean
of the Faculty of
European Studies of the “Babeş-Bolyai” University in Cluj,
Romania, where he
also received the Ph.D. in history in 1982. He is also Senior Fellow
Researcher
at the Institute of History of the Romanian Academy in Cluj and
Director of the
“Dr. Moshe Carmilly” Institute for Hebrew and Jewish History in Cluj.
He was
previously Professor of Jewish History and European History at
“Babes-Bolyai”
University. Dr. Gyémánt specializes in Central-European
history of the XVIIIth
to XIXth centuries, the history of Transylvania, the history of the
Jews in
Romania, Jewish genealogy, and the history of European integration. He
is the
author of 19 books and 90 studies. He was Editor of the annual review Studia Judaica, I-X, Cluj-Napoca,
1991-2001, Editor of the series of books Bibliotheca
Judaica, I-VII, 1994-2000; and Editor for Romania of the review “Avotaynu”. Dr. Gyémánt is a member of
JGS New York and of APG.
The Historical and Demographic Background
of Jewish Family History Research in Romania
Fruitful
Jewish genealogical research in Romania is impossible without an
adequate
knowledge of the historical and demographical background of Jewish life
in this
multicultural, multiethnic and multiconfessional area. The beginnings
of the
Jewish presence, the evolution of the Jewish society, the juridical
status of
the Jews in different periods of the medieval and modern history of
Romania are
factors which determined and influenced the genesis and transformations
of the
system of registration of vital events – the main resource for the
family
history researcher. The number of the Jewish population in different
time
frames and in different historical provinces of nowadays Romania (Transylvania, Wallachia, Moldova), the
proportion between urban and rural Jewish population, the processes of
immigration and emigration offer essential starting points for the
researcher
which permit him to know what to search, where and with which
perspectives of
success. The premises of a successful family history research from the
point of
view of the knowledge and preparation of the researcher for his task,
and the
main problems the researcher confronts in the field – these are the
main
questions this talk will address based upon the practical experiences
of the
author.
Wellisch,
Henry
Henry
Wellisch began in 1981 to research his family background, has
concentrated his
research on the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and was able to trace his
family back
into the middle of the 18th century. He
has published numerous articles, lectured on various genealogical
subjects at
several IAJGS conferences, genealogical societies and special meetings
and was
the president of the Jewish Genealogical Society of Canada (Toronto)
from 1993
to 1998.
The main focus of this
presentation will be on those parts of the Austro-Hungarian Empire with
important Jewish populations. In the Austrian part were the provinces
of
Galicia, Bukovina, Bohemia, and Moravia; and in Austria itself, the
city of
Vienna. In the Hungarian section the
areas of Slovakia, Carpatho-Ukraine, Transylvania, the Burgenland and
the
Hungarian heartland will be covered.
Since the empire consisted of two autonomous states, there were
important differences between the two parts. This is reflected in the
registration of births, marriages and deaths, in censuses, and in many
other
respects. Conventional resources such as BMD records found at the
different
archives and at the FHL will be discussed, but other sources, such as
censuses,
registers of inhabitants, city directories, tax lists, military and
other
records will be included in the presentation.
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