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Frequently Asked Questions
Copyright © 2007-2014    Jon Seligman.  All Rights Reserved.
F.A.Q.
1) What is this site about?
This site is about us.  It is about trying to understand our family's past as part of our present lives.  It is about trying to bring together families that lived to small Jewish Litvak communities and are today dispersed across the world, it is about people with a unique but unified culture finding a myriad ways to confront and adjust to modernity.  Our ancestors were probably all traditional Jews, but today we are secular, religious, ultra-orthodox, converts, assimilated, Zionist, anti-Zionist and inhabit at least ten countries.  All however can trace their ancestry back to a few Shtetls.  This site is about those who left those villages for a better life elsewhere, about those who stayed, about those who perished in the Holocaust and about us, their descendents.  More information and views on this can be found by clicking here.

2) Code of Privacy (or why do I need a password).
Unfortunately the world is full of people willing to use personal information for all sorts of nasty deeds, especially though the crime of identity theft..  As the aim of this site to trace our family's past the dissemination of data is what is important.  To ensure security and privacy, only data concerning deceased relatives can be shown publicly.  In the family tree that forms part of this site, information relating to living family is protected and is available with a password provided to you after I know you are bona-fide. 

In general the password is only given to members of the Fleishman, Gillis, Joffe, Lederman, Sandman, Seligman, Swartzman and Yachad families. The procedure on how to obtain the password is noted on the homepage of the family tree. For fuller information on the privacy configuration of the family tree, go here.

3) Why do some links and menus not work?
I update this site in my limited spare time. It is a site under construction which I have released to the world  somewhat  prematurely. This is beacause your input is part of that construction.  So please bear with me, help me update the site and do come back to see what is new and updated.

4) Uploading data.
Data, original documents, photographs, census data, birth certificates, actually anything is the raw material of genealogical research.  At this preliminary stage the data will have to be sent to me by email to be uploaded.  Later on I hope to be able to provide FTP capabilities.

5) What is the goblet in the heading?
The Kiddush Cup is almost the only item that has survived the wanderings of my close family.  You can read about it here.

6) Copyright.
Data and images have been collected from a variety of sources. This is a non-commercial, private, family website without the means to check the copyright for all the displayed media.  There is most probably some unintentional infringement of copyright.  Should you feel your copyright rights have been violated please inform me and the media item concerned will be immediately removed from the site.

7) Family Trees and GEDCOM
GEDCOM (GEnealogical Data COMmunication) is a universally recognised format used to collate and transfer genealogical data.  The family tree gathered, that forms the backbone for this site, was constructed using Dorotree software which is specifically designed for Jewish genealogy.  Thus Hebrew names and information can be listed beside the English, and the Jewish calendar dates can be presented.  The family tree presently presented on a platform provided by Webtrees.
A Home for the Fleishman, Gillis, Joffe, Lederman, Sandman, Seligman, Swartzman and Yachad Families