click on the word "Search" above and use this Web Search Engine for free!
You may search my web site for all documents containing matching words or patterns. To search the Internet, please see below.
There's an almost unbelievable amount of information on the Internet. The challenge is to locate what you need at any given time. To find what you need, you can use a variety of search engines.
*Searching the web, unfortunately, is not a total art, but more like a hit and miss situation. Within the pages of my web site, you will find various 'search engines' that may be of value in your research. A list of search engines that I have tested are currently on the
Genealogyweb page.
This page (under current development) in some cases, have been duplicated in other pages. My goal is ultimately to locate all search information to this one page.
Another point - you can always go to the top of any page and under 'Edit' you can click on 'Find' - and search for a word (or even with just a portion of a word) links or information on my pages.
Internet Searching ...
Argali White & Yellow Pages - the most complete and reliable search for telephone and e-mail directories http://www.argali.com/
Remember to always bookmark those pages you find of interest, and save those pages to your hard drive for you never know if the page or web site will be available on the web tomorrow.
Map Link
How to locate your shtetl
First, check out Shtetl Seeker at www.jewishgen.org The Shtetl Seeker search engine uses Soundex for searching so exact spelling will not be needed to find your town. Shtetl Seeker returns the town coordinates for each successful search. The problem is you must know the modern name for the town.
A more thorough method to locate your shtetl is to go to your local library and ask to see the United States Board on Geographic Names (1970) gazetteer. Look in the several volumes of USBG that cover eastern Europe and the Russian Empire. Be flexible with respect to spelling; a v can be a b; ch can be kh, or can be l, sh can be zh, s can be sh or z, f can be v, g can be h, j can be i, ei can be ay and all vice versa. Vowels are interchangeable, etc. Your known name may be the historical name which is no longer in use. USBGN will likely give under 'see also' the modern name. It is common for many different towns in the Russian Empire to have the same name so it can be important to have a general idea of the location of your town
Once you have the coordinates for your shtetl, write to:
Library of Congress Geography and Map Division (LCGMD) Washington, DC 20540-4761 202 707 6277, 202 707 8555 Fax: 202 707 8531
and ask for photocopies of the maps of your town. There is no cost for the maps, but be prepared to wait about four to eight weeks to receive the maps.
I also have found this source to be of great value in locating and obtaining information about shtetls from various countries around the world. If you don't find the exact name of the village, try using a name of a larger town or city nearby. The site is the Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Nameshttp://www.getty.edu/research/tools/vocabulary/tgn/
Boris Feldblyum's Collection of photographs of many shtetls, villages, cities and areas, around the world, can be found at his home page http://www.bfcollection.net/citylist.html
At his site you can see the photos in the collection and order them directly from the site.
See also my
Genealogy Page
which contains more Map Information including information on how to read a map. This same page contains 'Search Engine information that will help you locate people, addresses including Email addresses and much more.
Professional Researchers
The Special Interest Group for Romanian Jewish Genealogy offers a wonderful informational site about dealing with professional researchers in Eastern European countries at http://www.jewishgen.org/romsig/
If you have an interest in finding images of your ancestral town, consider using Google Search Engine. Google has indexed more than 330 million graphical images in Web pages and those not on Web pages, but on Internet FTP servers.
From Google's main page; click on the Images tab and simply type the name of the home in quotes i.e. "Talnoye" and then press Enter.
General SearchInformation
Don't forget that there is a lot of research material available in books and magazines. You can search my link to Amazon.com, for instance, and here you will find over 180 links to books dealing strictly with Jewish genealogy. I've made it easy for all you need do is click here > Jewish Genealogy
You can also search my web site for all documents containing matching words or patterns.
And, just in case you ever want to go back and look at my original web site, or for that matter, anyone else's site, try the 'WayBack Machine' web site http://www.archive.org/index.html
and click your way down memory lane. This is a great way to see how far my web site has progressed since its inception and you will find plenty of other information in other sites that can help you further your research.
411Web.com - if you need to match an area code with a city (or vice versa) or can't find a Zip code you can use this site and the site also includes a lot more i.e. Yellow Pages, White pages, etc. This site also provides find person, business, maps and reverse telephone searches. www.411web.com
BananaSLUG - with normal searching, there are many web pages that you never have a chance to see. BananaSLUG adds a random word from a category of your choice. This results in pages you probably have overlooked. In this way, you get something new every time. http://www.bananaslug.com
"Use the word genealogy (yes, I know you do that) but in a different way to get better narrowed down results. Examples: (1) Goldberg Genealogy, (2) Russian Genealogy. Goldberg brought up any and all sites relating to Goldberg genealogy, and when I put in Russian Genealogy....wow! what a treasure trove. Even Jewish Gen is among the Russian sites as a link. No more unneeded sites, just genealogical. Some of the sites and/or links may bring you to a subscription site which offers a two-week free trial. Many of the sites do not require a subscription and are *free*".
To avoid getting 19,600 hits you can narrow it down by first putting in: "genealogy castle garden". Using the word "genealogy" eliminates all the unneeded hits. It works quite well with surnames, countries, etc. I used Genealogy Goldberg and only Goldberg related to genealogy showed up. Also when I put in genealogy Russia only Russian genealogy appeared including a reference to JewishGen. My search just now returned 19,600 hits! Not all of these are appropriate, and some are duplicates. Still, there are plenty of links that are very much to the point"
"There are so many things that Google can do to help genealogists. "Search by location" along with many other Google specialized searches are available on one page http://searchforancestors.com/google/searcher.html
Easy Google Genealogy Searcher Click on the "How is this Useful" to learn how each type of Google search can be used for genealogy. Learn the Google tricks to : -Search for surname websites -Search for definitions (even for old-fashioned words) -Google calculator (converts terms found in old wills i.e. rod) -Search by location (current US) for cemeteries, churches by denomination, historical societies, libraries) -Search for images (photos of ancestor, images of documents (wills, military papers), tombstones, ancestral hometown, immigration ship.) And much more." From several posting by Joan Parker on JewishGen
Among the many services offered
by Google are telephone listings. Just go to Google.com and
type your phone number in the search box, such as 555-555-5555. You
might get your address and a map to your location. But not everyone
wants this listing online. You can get a residential listing removed
from Google. Just enter your information in the form at:
http://www.google.com/help/pbremoval.html
With this LingvoSoft smart dictionary software on your computer, you can easily switch between English and Yiddish, for prompt translations of 400,000 words both ways! Download Free Trial now
Zilverline - a 'Reverse Search Engine'. It indexes documents from your local disks and allow you to search through them locally or if you're away from your machine, through a web server on your machine. This is for more knowledgeable computer users. www.zilverline.org/zilverlineweb/space/home
I continue to spend a great deal of time on the Internet but I can't possibly cover every possible site that might prove to be of value to a researcher.
If you know of a site, or come across one that should be mentioned, please submit the information by going to my feedback form or send me an email Jwebindex@gmail.com I will be most appreciative and so will some other researchers.
Vital Search - Worldwide -"There is a moderate cost to subscribe" Please note that *most* of the searches are free. This site is not what one would deem a 'commercial' site. http://www.vitalsearch-worldwide.com/
Please let me know if there is a favorite link of yours that is not included in my site and I will be happy to add it toJewish Web Index Email Jwebindex@gmail.com
Map Link
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