Thank you to everyone who has shown support for the channel over the years! Here are a bunch of the links mentioned throughout the video. Professional Genealogist Reacts channel - ru-vid.com/show-UCODHGlY9tjtexr_pzG8Usgg Donate to Alex Krakovsky's project - www.gofundme.com/f/sb9fr-scanners-for-the-ukrainian-archives Ukraine Archives Wikimedia page - uk.wikisource.org/wiki/%D0%90%D1%80%D1%85%D1%96%D0%B2%D0%B8 Statements from the Sephardic Genealogical Society - www.sephardic.world/news Articles by David Mendoza - blogs.timesofisrael.com/author/david-mendoza/ David Mendoza's Website - sephardicgenealogy.com/
Quick question. Do you by chance help people who are not RU-vidrs with questions on their DNA tests? I've done two different DNA tests and got completely different results and I'm confused
Hi! Portuguese citizen (and amateur genealogist) here. Regarding Abramovich, his citizenship was not revoked yet, but it may be, depending on the result of the ongoing investigation. The citizenship law has not been amended yet, not only because the Abramovich/Litvak case is recent, but also because we had an election recently and the new Parliament just went into session, meaning no laws could be amended until a few days ago. I agree with David Mendoza that allowing for the genealogy to be "verified" by non-genealogists and non-Sephardi was a mistake, but I understand why: the Portuguese government didn't want to pass an image of mistrusting the applicants, so they just decided to accept that all parts would be working on good faith. (I also think they, naïvely, never thought getting a Portuguese passport would become a marketable goods.) Also, besides the (alleged) guilt of Rabbi Litvak, lawyer João Almeida Garrett and a few more suspects, I think the Portuguese National Security Service is at fault. The law does not automatically grant citizenship to proven descendants of distant Portuguese Jews; besides a clean criminal record, the applicants must also be cleared by the National Security Service. Well, even if Roman Abramovich genealogy was 100% legit, my opinion is that his application should have been rejected anyway: his suspicious links to Vladimir Putin should be enough. (Note that, while he was a foreigner, there was no need for Portuguese intelligence officials to *prove* he had skeletons in his closet - suspicion was enough. Just as a country may deny you a visa, just because, it makes even more sense to deny citizenship to someone suspicious.) On the short term, the consequences for well-intended applicants is that getting their process reviewed will at least take twice as much time, and even before the law is changed, the rejection rate will increase. That's because, after Rabbi Litvak was arrested, the Jewish Community of Porto declared that it no longer wanted to be a part in the process, meaning now only the Community of Lisbon is available. On top of that, after the Abramovich scandal, I think the people down in Lisbon will take less risks, rejecting more genealogies if they're not sure, just in case...
Adendum: I just read one of the articles you linked. Someone should have suspected earlier: contrary to my expectations, a whopping 89% of citizenships granted had their genealogy "verified" by the synagogue of Porto, with just 11% from Lisbon's synagogue... That disproportion should, by itself, have raised a red flag: something fishy was incentivising applicants to submit their genealogy in Porto, not Lisbon (despite Lisbon's Jewish community being much bigger).
I like having the occasional update video on what's happening in the genealogy world. I like history and I'm a bit nosy, so I enjoy it when you do deep dive on a subject.
I like the react the react videos, but I am definitely in the in-depth genealogy/history camp. The RU-vidr genealogy series is my favorite 😍 I’m so glad I rediscovered your channel in my preparation for the Genealogy RU-vidrs panel discussion at RootsTech!
Good to see a new post from you, & good to hear about Alex Krakovsky's dedication to such an important endeavor - Love all your vids & looking forward to checking out the new channel ✌🏼
I like all your videos... Subscribed to the new channel... And would like to see in depth video's of searching in the dutch archives and your take on that...
Definitely a subject I can discuss! I know my current tutorial on the Amsterdam Archives (Gemeente Amsterdam Stadsarchief) is out of date because they completely redid the website, and word is they are going to be updating the website AGAIN!
Good luck with the digital archives and with getting to a safe place!!!!! That is the most important mission. 🙏🤞 Lots of new people in the neighborhood and train stations are speaking Russian. Refugees came from Syria and now the Ukraine. We are not going to build a wall. 'Been there done that.' Everybody (except genealogists & friends ) seems to once again, forget that we are all related. Talk about 'shooting yourself in the foot!' It is kind of interesting to see so-called enemies flee to the same place or pretend to just be on vacation. Sometimes it works but not always. After a few years, the grown kids of both are in High School, with lots of inherited animosities. These divisions happen over and over, as if we are a big one-celled animal. 😐 New channel, cool! Something more about Life is always good. 🤷🏻♀️....... Emojis of GV😀👍(Tell that guy to get out of there.)
My mom & her parents were born in the United Kingdom and through her, I’m eligible to get British citizenship. I discovered this while I was at college and at the time the UK was part of the EU so with a British passport, I could live (but more importantly work) in much of Europe. As someone without a job yet the possibilities seemed appealing but without really any discernible/marketable skills it didn’t pan out. I did graduate university with a certification from New York State which with reciprocity could be used in some other U.S. states but ultimately I stayed in New York State.
I like both so I'll just subscribe to both! ☺️ I like the updates. I recently joined some local genealogy groups and have enjoyed hearing about stuff as it comes out. The 1950 US Census on April 1 and Ancestry DNA updates today are two new things, too. My Ancestry admixture changed a LOT (putting it much more in line with my family tree) - looks like they are getting a better handle on Germanic DNA versus elsewhere in N and W European. My Germanic went from 11% to 42% which, given my dad's side is all/mostly from Germany, makes a lot more sense.
The Spanish law of Sefardic naturalization/citizenship is from 1924 and it is recognised in the Spanish Civil Code. The new law of 2015 is actually about "the how" this process works, basically the burocratic paperwork requirements, pay fee, bla bla bla and, yes, eventually swearing loyalty to The King of Spain.
I have been surprised to read (and hear here) that some people are indignant about Portugal's relatively lenient standards for Sephardic "right or return." They were intended to be that way because, realistically speaking, it would be nearly impossible for most descendants of the Jews who were expelled to be able to prove their ancestry five hundred years ago, not just by the "genealogical standard," but by any standard. Stringent standards that require impeccable documentation would undermine the entire purpose of the law, which is essentially to make ammends (in a small way) for what happened, because it would automatically eliminate most potential applicants. How would that be justice? How would that make up for anything? Let's face it, probably the entire population of Latin America, each and every one of the world's practicing and non-practicing cultural Jews, and most contemporary Europeans are descendants of those Sephardic Jews who were expelled. If someone can make even a weak case, they should be accepted! They are undoubtedly are correct, even if they get their facts wrong. It's not a test of faith. It's not a test of virtue. It's not a test of research skills, and it's not a reward for maintaining the Jewish faith for the last five hundred years. It's an apology. Everyone deserves it. So chill out!
Very valuable information! I recently did my DNA via MyHeritage and found I’m 99.2% Aschenzai Jewish which is not surprising. I am surprised I’m .8% CENTRAL ASIAN! I will say it’s a bite confusing to understand those who are matched to me. When I look at their ancestry I do not see any commonality between us.
MyHeritageDNA's trace elements like your Central Asian are not always reliable and I'm pretty sure that all of your ancestors since the 1700s were Ashkenazi Jews. On the other hand, the Central Asian mtDNA haplogroup A-a1b3a1 exists among Ashkenazi Jews.
I wonder if you have ever made videos about Danish archives. They are available for free on the internet and contains church records until 1970, censuses up until 1940 and a lot of other material. Among them are also Jewish records, if you have a special interest in that topic.
I've never made anything about the Danish archives but I also have no experience with them. If I'm able to work on someone's ancestry which traces to Denmark, it sounds like I will have a lot of good stuff to cover. I have a lot of youtubers lined up to have their family tree traced, so maybe one of them has some Danish connections hiding in there!
If I do relative race reactions it will show up on the other channel, although I won't be doing any RR reactions for the time being just because of time constraints. Hopefully I will be able to do them again and when that happens I'll be starting with the Season 9.
EU citizenship is a big one. Here are some blog posts I wrote over the years which discuss some of the advantages throughout - sephardicgenealogy.blogspot.com/p/the-consideration.html
Some of the Jewish Russian oligarchs were able to get Portuguese citizenship which helped them avoid some economic sanctions. Also a young American who moved to Germany after college to play professional football was able to get Italian citizenship through having an Italian ancestor and then got an EU passport which makes it much easier for him to travel back and forth.
It’s so scary that Russia has attacked Ukraine and let alone the great loss of life of innocent Ukrainian civilians including children but simply upending their lives as well as Ukrainian culture and history!
