by Ditsa Keren

Reconnect With Lost Relatives Through Family History Research With IAJGS

Reconnect With Lost Relatives Through Family History Research With IAJGS

The International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies (IAJGS) is an umbrella organization for approximately 95 Jewish genealogical societies around the world. Coming towards the end of his second term as IAJGS president, I caught Kenneth Bravo to discuss the family history research process and the amazing capabilities that are now available thanks to technology.

Please describe what IAJGS is all about?

Our job is to help the leadership in these societies to manage their operations. We have large, medium, and small societies with various skill levels, depending on who’s involved. We provide them with advice and tools that help them attract new members, provide services for their members, etc.

Every year, we host an annual conference on Jewish genealogy. I call it the smorgasbord of Jewish genealogy. There’s certainly more than you can consume. Whatever topic you are interested in, we will probably have one or two or even more of the leading experts in the world available to give you advice and help you along this journey.

In the last couple of years, we had to do that virtually. We’ll be doing it again at the beginning of August 2021, and hopefully, by next year we’ll be back to meet in person.

What are the fundamental steps one should take when launching a family history research?

I always tell people to start in their home country. Many people are keen to fly over the ocean and start researching in the origin country. Before you do that, you need to know exactly where your family came from. Too many people know their family came from Russia, for example, but don’t know the name of the town, village, or shtetl that their family came from.

Talk to your oldest relatives and their siblings first. Start building the story based on what they tell you. Then, look for records to back up the facts. Once you’ve established the research you can do in your home country, you can go and explore the records in the origin country. If you can narrow down the search area when looking for records abroad, that’s really helpful.

Researching in a country where you don’t speak the language is difficult, especially if you don’t know where those records might be. That would be the time to hire a professional researcher in that particular area who can guide you through the process. Be sure to get references before you give anybody any money, and give them a budget so you don’t get a huge bill at the end.

Jews have been wandering across the world for centuries. How do you overcome that when researching Jewish ancestry?

When I started doing this in 1974, there were no personal computers and no internet. It’s a different world today. There are many online databases you can search from your living room and find records that not many years ago could only be sent by airmail. You had to write letters and send checks to get hold of those records, if at all.

The beauty of the world today, the blessing and the curse, is that we can communicate with anyone, anywhere in the world. If language is an issue, you can communicate in writing and use things like Google Translate or other translation programs. Sometimes idioms don’t translate very well, but there are ways to overcome that. The only limiting factor I find today is time zones. When I started doing this I had to use those airmail letters, but I think those days are pretty well passed.

What’s your take on platforms like Ancestry, MyHeritage, etc.?

The short answer is, use them. Sites like Ancestry, FamilySearch and MyHeritage, are adding millions of records per week. There’s always more in there so you have to keep checking. If you looked once and couldn’t find anything, my suggestion is to go back six months later and look again.

I knew that my maternal grandparents were from Belarus. I knew that in late 1941, the Nazis got to their town and killed everyone, but I was never able to find any reference to that. I looked on the Yad Vashem website many times and couldn’t find it. One day I went back there, and suddenly all these names started to pop up.

Apparently, a new Page of Testimony was added to their records. Having been in medical school in Moscow when the Nazis invaded her hometown, this woman survived the war, but she could not communicate with her family in the United States because of the iron curtain. That led me back to that son of the woman who had submitted the Page of Testimony, who told me that my mother’s first cousin was in the states.

My mother passed away several years ago and the rest of my family never knew this woman existed. This story comes to show that you can always find something new. Just keep looking and don’t give up.

How can DNA testing enhance the family research process?

I think of DNA as a scientific overlay over traditional research. To make sense of it, you have to first understand your family tree. Without the underlying research, you wouldn’t be able to fit people in.

For example, women traditionally change their name at marriage. You get through several generations where daughters get married and change their names. Then suddenly, you see a name in your DNA matches that makes absolutely no sense to you unless you know who that person is, and how they are related to you.

DNA can validate your research findings and even expand your knowledge, but you need some context in order to make sense of it. Bringing those various tools together will get you the best results.

With so many different options, how should one choose their DNA test provider?

You want to be tested by the company that has most of your relatives in it, however, you won’t know that until you’ve taken the test. If you’re missing a family member because they’ve been tested on another platform, you may never find out about each other.

Recently, I have been suggesting to people to upload their results to GEDmatch so their results are visible across the various platforms. Of course, many of the companies allow you to upload your results from Company A to Company B, so that’s another way to go about it.

Secondly, you want to be looking at as large a database as you can. The way to do that is either by testing with multiple companies or putting together some commonplace like GEDmatch where you can look at results across companies and see the overall picture.

Isn’t that a violation of privacy?

That is a debatable question. Personally, I don’t believe they’re violating privacy. If a person submits their DNA and permits a company to put the results out there, it’s their choice.

If you and I were to share DNA and I’m putting out your data, that is something else. There’s no way I could get permission from every one of my cousins, with whom I may share 1% of DNA.

As a retired attorney, I will tell you that science very often gets ahead of the law. My position is very simple, it’s my DNA, and if I want to put it out there, that’s up to me. What are some interesting insights you’ve gained from your research?

I learned from my father about a relative who had a famous seafood restaurant in San Francisco. Somewhere in the 1920s, he remembered somebody coming to visit my grandparents in a chauffeur-driven car. At that time, that was a really big deal and it stuck in his memory.

I’ve researched that family and knew a lot about it, so when I tested my DNA and started getting back matches for people I had researched, I knew exactly how they fit in with this family in San Francisco. My DNA showed me that they were actually my relatives. It confirmed something that I thought was probable, but now I had scientific evidence to prove it.

Genealogy is a lot like a big crosswords puzzle: If you get that big answer going across, it will help you get the ones going down. Putting together your family tree is very much like that. You find somebody that leads you to somebody else and all of a sudden, a bigger picture is revealed.

How do people react when you contact them saying you’re related?

I’ve been doing this since the mid-70s. Some people I found were extremely interested and wanted to talk while others couldn’t care less about genealogy or family. The same is true when you’re doing DNA research. Most companies let you email the person with whom you have a match.

What I find frustrating is that very often you don’t hear back from them, or you do but they know nothing about their family. I think some people just test their DNA because they want to see the pie chart. They want to see what percentage they are of one ethnicity or another. I’m much more interested in the part where you can actually trace your relatives and connect with them.

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About Author
Ditsa Keren
Ditsa Keren

Ditsa Keren is a technology blogger and entrepreneur with a strong passion for biology, ecology and the environment. In recent years, Ditsa has been specializing in technical and scientific writing, covering topics like biotechnology, algae cultivation, nutrition, and women's health.

Ditsa Keren is a technology blogger and entrepreneur with a strong passion for biology, ecology and the environment. In recent years, Ditsa has been specializing in technical and scientific writing, covering topics like biotechnology, algae cultivation, nutrition, and women's health.