Jewish Records-Indexing-Poland and Beta Thalassemia

Presenter: Stanley Diamond

McGill and Harvard Business School graduate Stanley Diamond became very involved in genealogical and medical research due to his nephew’s chronic anemia.

His research demonstrated that this medical problem was in fact a genetic issue due to the beta thalassemia trait – never before seen in Ashkenazi Jews. He created a searchable database (Jewish Records-Indexing-Poland) to help trace family roots; this genealogical resource is now approaching 6 million names from more than 550 towns in Poland. Dr. Diamond’s work has been honoured as a model for other genealogical indexing projects and it is internationally recognized as a major advance in the search for family histories. He is the founding president of the Jewish Genealogical Society of Montreal.