The Germany where our ancestors lived is not the Germany of today. Its boundaries have changed several times. Before its unification in 1871 it was more a concept than a state, composed of dozens of kingdoms, duchies and principalities large and small. Each of these states had its own laws and attitudes toward Jews.
To do research in “Germany” one must know which places belonged to which state at a given time, the legal status of Jews there, and the records that they kept. Germany has an enormous wealth of records pertaining to Jews, especially after 1800, but there are no simple, global rules for using them.
This talk will work backwards from today’s Germany to the early 19th century. It will focus on key historical events, their impact on Jewish life and the way records were kept.
About the Speaker:
Roger Lustig is a genealogical researcher based in Princeton, NJ. Since 2002 he has specialized in the Jewish families of Prussian Poland, especially Upper Silesia and West Prussia. He has done research in archives in the US, Germany and Poland.
As research coordinator for the JewishGen GerSIG (German Special Interest Group) he is developing databases, including NALDEX (Name-Adoption List index), Württemberg Family Registers and the Hessen-Gatermann database. He has also contributed over 25,000 Prussian records to the JRI-Poland database.
He has given presentations at 13 IAJGS conferences, scholarly conferences in Germany and Poland, and various genealogical societies in the US and Canada.
He moderates the GerSIG group on Facebook, and is one of 4 admins of the Tracing the Tribe group-one of the largest Jewish genealogy groups on Facebook.
31 май 2022
