At the Institute’s International Symposium held in Jerusalem in September 2006, it was suggested that standards for Jewish Genealogy should be recommended in three areas:

1. Standards for data entry;
2. Standards for citing evidence and sources;
3. Ethical standards.

1. Data Entry
The renowned Jewish genealogist, Gary Mokotoff embarked upon this project early in 2007 and in summer 2008 produced a Proposed Standard for Names, Dates and Places in a Genealogical Database.

2. Citing Evidence
On consideration, it was decided not to proceed with this project, given the existence of authoritative works on the subject, such as Elizabeth Shown Mills’ Evidence! : Citation & Analysis for the Family Historian (Baltimore, Genealogical Pub. Co., 1997) and several others.

In the fall of 2009, the pioneering Jewish genealogist and author, Arthur Kurzweil assembled an international working group to address this subject. The group hopes to produce its recommendations in a year’s time.

More details of Gary Mokotoff’s proposals can be found under Data Entry on the Sub-Menu of this item (STANDARDS).

More details on the Working Group for Ethical Standards can be found under Ethics on the Sub-Menu of this item (STANDARDS).