How did you get involved with Jewish Gen?
When I started to work in genealogy , 10 years ago, I was contacted by them by whom were you contacted and I worked few years from them here in Romania or, more dangerous, in Republic of Moldova , especially, for cemeteries pictures and genealogy tours.
Are you jewish?
No, I am not jewish, but I have a lot of jewish friends over the world. I have them as guests. I have helped them a lot and they have helped me too. It is a very special relation, and full of respect.
Do you understand the way of jewish life was in Romania?
I grew up with a question in my mind. “To whom belongs that jewish cemetery nearby my house in the village where I was born. Of course my mother told me that it belongs to a different nation, but I was not able to understand more then. but now it is total different, after my documentation, trips and my friendship with jewish people who lived or still live in Romania. Also I have been in touch with a lot of documents and with witnesses of that time. It was an Amazing time for any part of Romania where Jewish people lived.
How much do you think as to accuracy of the jewish people reporting to the records?
We start to organize the archive here around 1850 and any action have been registration in the papers. Of course you need some skills to decrypt these information. Depends a lot by how much was organized the archive, in some parts of Romania the records is very accurate in some part the records are very mixed and very unorganizable but the information are fine. Certainly there are some documents that could tell much more about jewish family tree and life but them are not open to public yet.Also the accuracy of the project depends a lot by initial information provided by each client.
Would you think about putting together an index online with all jewish names index?
Good question. This is not very simply this could be a large project that means time and a lot of resources. I have worked some lists and now are ready to be put on web. First we need a lot of photocopies , then to index them and then to make the lists and put on web. Soon me and my team will provide these lists on internet.
If I know that my ancestor came from a particular town, but his name does not appear on records?
We must be very careful with the initial information. This could be happened because some people can mix the name of the towns or to use the old names or something like that. But if the client is 100 % sure that his ancestor was born, married or died in certain place is impossible do not find the certificate. This depends of the skills of the genealogist. Meanwhile something could happened- to change the name of the town, the name of the surname to be written wrong, to change the administration and the certificate to be recorded to another city or village hall (usually nearby) aso. It is important to identify the right place because in Romania there are a lot of places with the same name, also during the time there were different administration (Russian, Hungarian, German etc.), which could change the organization or even the names or surnames.
Is there any way to make a family tree with connections?
Yes. Depends the information that you have and ones that you can get from the first records. As you go back as harder is because the missing on the records and also because the poor of information on them. I draw up a lot of family trees with connections especially when they lived in the certain region not far away one by one.
How can I get records of before 1800's?
Very hard. We have some documents issued before 1800 and usually not BMD records. But if you search in the others documents you can find out something about your family especially if they had properties. On that time only important people were in the papers.
Is there a place in records where there is a list of the names from graves?
Not in the archives ( very few) but each important cemetery has such lists. Unfortunately most of them have been distroyied. But in the important cities we can find such lists. I have some of them too.
How about these places where the graves fall apart or people take them apart?
Hard to say. I saw a lot of jewish cemeteries and most of them are in very bad condition especially in Republic of Moldova. I have a big archive with tombstones and I consider that I have gave a hand to conserve such outdoor museums. There are few projects which have as task to take pictures to each tomb. In this way we can keep the tombs forever.
Name: Head of RomGen (Genealogy Bureau)
Company name: www.romgen.com (Uplift Genealogy Services)
E-mail: romgenealogy@gmail.com
Phone: +40730540512
