Gathering the Berech Collective

So starting this whole adventure of digging into the past is really fun but at the same time, bewildering. The first part is easy... gathering names and dates and such is really fun as the people gather together and the branches of the tree begin to sprout.


Piecing it together is cool too but I'm only one person with my limited memory of the stories and family paths. I'm hoping to achieve from this blog to get everyone's memories in one place. I'm not surprised at how the information is so different from each person. I really don't want to have to email or call each individual to update them or pick their brains, after all I want to provide each person a through account of my findings. Also... if together we post to one location, we can read each other remarks without having to forward each email or voicemail.

I'm asking you please...... please.... participate in this adventure. It's not just for me but for everyone! I want us to be closer as a family and share our commonality, for us and our children. To those of you who are spouses, I hope you are willing to let your "Berech" know what is going on!

You should be able to post remarks or comments to each of my blogs to tell your story or idea or suggested path I should try. At the same time our kids can read how it all comes together and makes a collective family. I will notify each of you whenever I make a post so that you will know when I have new information. I have A LOT of information right now. I should have started this blog a month ago.

My Mother in Law got me started. She's been digging into the past for over a year now and she has found the most amazing things. She offered to me the use of her software if I wanted to do a little digging myself. I was intrigued and once I started I found myself staying up until midnight and 1 AM just looking at old archives. I would find someone and it would make me ask... Well what's the story with that, and I could not go to sleep.

The US has a lot of information that is available to the public online. The census is the easiest to find and really interesting. The census' are available to view up to 1930. Census' are not released for public viewing until they are 72 years old. So I won't get so see the 1940 census until 2012. And the 1890 census was destroyed in a fire. So I will take this moment to suggest to everyone who has not filled out their census at this time... take 10 minutes and fill it out. Except for Jimmy, you might need and hour or so, but no worries... they give you lots of pages for everyone! ;o)

Other information that is available online are records of birth, death, and marriages. The US military has their records available and the Immigration Collection, Ship manifests, directories Newspapers and Periodicals like "Stars and Stripes".

A lot of other countries are online too such and the UK, Ireland, Scotland, Germany, Italy, Australia Canada and more. Unfortunately not ALL of the countries are on board... Russia being one. BUT.... Minsk is no longer a part of the USSR but in the country of Belarus. I don't see that it is available but I haven't really had a chance to research that far yet. I've been focusing on the present day and the last 2 generations.

This being said. I will stop here. I am going to start composing the information that I have already found and hope to include photo copies of the documents (if there are any) showing what it is I'm talking about.

Underneath this note should be a box where you can type in a note. Please give it a try so that I know you are on board... I will hound you until you do!

To post a comment........

• There should be a comment box located below this "blog" or correspondence. Click in the box and start typing.
• If there is not a "comment box" then there should be a "comment link"  (near the bottom right) click on that and the comment box should appear.
• To post the comment click the "post comment" box.
• At this point you will need to type in the encrypted letters (the funny looking ones) in the box below. This is for security purposes and cuts down on spam. I am leaving this blog open for all comments and hopefully we won't get unwanted spam postings. We'll see. I may have to change it if it becomes a problem
• Then click "post comment"

If you have problems with this, email me (denverfacepainter@yahoo.com). I'm new at this too but I'm sure we can muddle through together.

Thanks!