International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies (IAJGS) P.O. Box 1094, Agoura Hills, CA 91376 www.iajgs.org
	August 3, 2003 The International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies (IAJGS) is pleased to announce that the Jewish Genealogical Society of Montreal has been named as its 2003 Award winner for Outstanding Project. The award was presented to Stanley Diamond, president of the JGS of Montreal, on July 24th in Washington, D.C., during the 23rd IAJGS International Conference on Jewish Genealogy. The award was given to the JGS of Montreal recognizing their exceptional efforts in indexing Jewish vital records from Montreal and Quebec. (click image to see award plaque) Daniel Schlyter presenting award to Stanley Diamond, Ruth Diamond and Alan Greenberg In 1943, the Drouin Genealogical Institute microfilmed all available vital record registers of Quebec including the Jewish registers of Montreal, Quebec City and Sherbrooke, and Civil Records of Montreal, Lachine, Outremont and Westmount in which there are entries identified as Jewish. Quebec is the only jurisdiction in North America where the vital records were kept on a confessional or religious basis thus making the indexing of solely Jewish records possible. Indexing the 1841-1942 Jewish vital records of Quebec in the Drouin collection was a four-year project of the Jewish Genealogical Society of Montreal. The database contains more than 75,000 entries, principally births and marriages as well as approximately 4,300 deaths. The project involved not only the photocopying of thousands of index pages - where they existed - and subsequent data entry, but also a frame-by-frame examination of all the records to create indices where there were none, entering given names where they were not recorded in the indices, verifying that names in the indices corresponded with those in the records, and adding actual dates of birth for delayed registrations. The project was led by JGS-Montreal President Stanley Diamond and owes its success to the tireless data entry work by Ruth Peerlkamp Diamond and the database and search engine development by JGS-Montreal vice-president Alan Greenberg. The International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies (IAJGS) includes 75 national and local societies on six continents, with 10,000+ individual members who are actively researching their Jewish roots. Annually, since 1998, it has recognized excellence in the field of Jewish genealogy through the presentation of outstanding achievement awards. Hal Bookbinder, IAJGS President Bookbinder1@earthlink.net