[Genealib] IAJGS AWARDS STERN GRANT TO ITALIAN GENEALOGICAL GROUP

[Joy Rich]

For Immediate Release

IAJGS AWARDS STERN GRANT TO ITALIAN GENEALOGICAL GROUP
IGG Will Create Online Brooklyn Brides Index for 1910-1930

NEW YORK CITY - October 16, 2008 - The International Association of Jewish Genealogical
Societies (IAJGS) has awarded the 2008 Rabbi Malcolm H. Stern Grant to the Italian
Genealogical Group (IGG). The $2,500 grant will be used to create, computerize, and place
online an index to the names of women who got married in Brooklyn from 1910 through 1930.

The IGG provides free access to the public to online databases it creates from print and
card indexes. The databases serve as indexes to 19th- and 20th-century birth, marriage,
and death records and naturalization records for New York City's five boroughs, Long
Island's Nassau and Suffolk counties, and some counties in northern New York State. Every
name listed in the print and card indexes is included in the databases.

Nominated by the Jewish Genealogical Society of Long Island, the IGG was chosen by the
Rabbi Malcolm H. Stern Grant Committee from among the nominations submitted by the IAJGS's
member societies. The committee submitted its recommendation to the IAJGS's Board of
Directors for its consideration and approval. The nomination was subsequently voted on and
approved at the IAJGS membership meeting at this year's IAJGS Annual International
Conference on Jewish Genealogy.

According to IAJGS, "The grant will make it possible for the IGG to create and computerize
a Brooklyn Brides Index for 1910-1930 from original records on 268 rolls of film from the
Family History Library. There is currently no such index available for this period - a
period of massive Jewish immigration. The Jewish genealogy community has greatly benefited
from the 12,000,000 records computerized by earlier IGG projects, and it is most
appropriate to support the 1910-1930 Brooklyn Brides project, one that will surely allow
many researchers to identify the descendants of female relatives who have to date been
untraceable." This marks the first time that the IGG will create a database from the
records themselves rather than from an existing index.

More than 500 volunteers from local genealogy groups-and individuals in Canada, Ireland,
and England who learned about the IGG's projects through the Internet-compile the
databases under the leadership and supervision of the IGG's Project Coordinator John
Martino. The IGG first participated in an indexing project in 1999 when it partnered with
New York City's Jewish Genealogical Society to create a database of Kings County
(Brooklyn, New York) naturalizations.

The grant honors Rabbi Malcolm Henry Stern (1915-1994), widely considered to be "the dean
of American Jewish genealogy," and his efforts to increase the availability of resources
for Jewish genealogical research. The intention of the Stern Grant is to encourage
institutions to pursue projects, activities, and acquisitions that provide new or enhanced
resources to benefit Jewish genealogists.

About IAJGS: The International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies is an
independent, non-profit umbrella organization that coordinates the activities of more than
seventy-five national and local Jewish genealogical societies around the world. The IAJGS
was formed in the late 1980s to provide a common voice for issues of significance to its
members, to advance our genealogical avocation, and to coordinate items such as the Annual
International Conference on Jewish Genealogy. http://www.iajgs.org

About IGG: The Italian Genealogical Group, based in Long Island, New York, is dedicated to
furthering Italian family history and genealogy. The databases it creates include every
name listed in the indexes, without regard to nationality or religion. Volunteers from the
IGG and other genealogy organizations in the New York area have been transcribing and
indexing record collections held at local and regional archives. http://www.italiangen.org

Eileen Polakoff, Chairperson
2008 Rabbi Malcolm H. Stern Grant Committee

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