Gary Mokotoff (born April 26, 1937) is an author, lecturer, and

Jewish genealogy Jewish genealogy is the study of Jewish families and the tracing of their lineages and history. The Pentateuchal equivalent for "genealogies" is "toledot" (generations). In later Hebrew, as in Aramaic, the term and its derivatives "yiḥus" and ...

researcher. Mokotoff is the publisher of '' AVOTAYNU, the International Review of Jewish Genealogy,'' and is the former President of the International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies (IAJGS). He is the creator of the

JewishGen JewishGen is a non-profit organization founded in 1987 as an international electronic resource for Jewish genealogy. In 2003, JewishGen became an affiliate of the Museum of Jewish Heritage – A Living Memorial to the Holocaust in New York C ...

's Jewish Genealogical Family Finder and the Jewish Genealogical People Finder. He co-authored the Daitch–Mokotoff Soundex system. Mokotoff is co-author of '' Where We Once Walked: A Guide to the Jewish Communities Destroyed in the Holocaust.''

Early life

Mokotoff was born in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

to parents Sylvia Mokotoff (née Friedberg) and Jack Mokotoff. He grew up on the Lower East Side of

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

, spending his teenage years in

Queens Queens is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Queens County, in the U.S. state of New York. Located on Long Island, it is the largest New York City borough by area. It is bordered by the borough of Brooklyn at the western tip of Long ...

. His grandparents were Jewish immigrants from Russia-Poland.

Career

Computer career

Mokotoff joined the IBM Applied Programming Department in 1959, working on developing systems software for the yet-to-be-announced

IBM 1401 The IBM 1401 is a variable-wordlength decimal computer that was announced by IBM on October 5, 1959. The first member of the highly successful IBM 1400 series, it was aimed at replacing unit record equipment for processing data stored on pu ...

. He is the author of SPS-1, SPS-2 IBM 1401 Symbolic Programming System, coauthor of 1401 Autocoder and participated in the 1401 Fortran II compiler project. In 1965, Mokotoff was drafted into the

U.S. Army The United States Army (USA) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.Article II, section 2, cl ...

and spent his entire two-year career in the data processing department at

Fort Dix Army Air Base A fortification is a military construction or building designed for the defense of territories in warfare, and is also used to establish rule in a region during peacetime. The term is derived from Latin ''fortis'' ("strong") and ''facere'' ...

in Fort Dix,

New Jersey New Jersey is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York; on the east, southeast, and south by the Atlantic Ocean; on the west by the Delaware ...

. He led the team that installed the first computer at Fort Dix (an IBM 1401). For his efforts, he received a Certificate of Achievement from the Commanding General of the base. When he left the Army, he had achieved the rank of Specialist Fifth Class. In 1967, he returned to IBM. In 1968, Mokotoff left IBM to form his own software company with partner Stanley F. Smillie. The company catered primarily to the retail industry. In the 1980s, the company, Data Universal Corp, developed a software system called Riva which it installed in early computer systems at such national retail chains as

The Children's Place The Children's Place Inc. is a specialty retailer of children’s apparel and accessories headquartered in New Jersey. It also markets apparel under the Children's Place, Place, Baby Place, and Gymboree brand names. As of October 31, 2015, it ...

, Linens N Things and

Bed, Bath & Beyond Bed Bath & Beyond Inc. is an American chain of domestic merchandise retail stores. The chain operates many stores in the United States, Canada, Mexico, and Puerto Rico. Bed Bath & Beyond was founded in 1971. It is counted among the Fortune ...

. In 1985, he assisted the American Gathering of Jewish Holocaust Survivors and their Descendants to computerize the National Registry of Jewish Holocaust Survivors. This database is now located at the

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) is the United States' official memorial to the Holocaust. Adjacent to the National Mall in Washington, D.C., the USHMM provides for the documentation, study, and interpretation of Holocaust hi ...

Genealogy career

The Forward ''The Forward'' ( yi, פֿאָרווערטס, Forverts), formerly known as ''The Jewish Daily Forward'', is an American news media organization for a Jewish American audience. Founded in 1897 as a Yiddish-language daily socialist newspaper, ...

calls Mokotoff an "all-around makher (Yiddish for mover and shaker) in the Jewish genealogical world." Mokotoff became involved in genealogy in 1979 to prove, successfully, that all persons named Mokotoff/Mokotov/Mokotow have a common ancestor. In 1980, he joined the Jewish Genealogical Society Inc (New York) and the following year became a member of its Board of Directors. During his tenure on the Board, he used his computer background to develop some of the earliest databases for Jewish genealogy including the Jewish Genealogical Family Finder (now called JewishGen Family Finder), a database used by more than 100,000 Jewish genealogists. Recognizing that there were many spelling variants of Eastern European Jewish surnames, even though they sounded similar, Mokotoff collaborated with Randy Daitch to create the Daitch–Mokotoff Soundex, system which provides a phonetic alternative to searching databases of names. In 1984, Mokotoff and Sallyann Amdur Sack formed a company, Avotaynu, Inc, which publishes ''

Avotaynu Magazine ''Avotaynu: The International Review of Jewish Genealogy'' is a magazine that focuses on Jewish genealogy and family history published by Avotaynu Inc. (New Haven, Connecticut). It was established in 1985. An index to the first 24 volumes is avail ...

.'' This journal has been published quarterly since 1985. In 1991, the company expanded its effort into book publishing with '' Where We Once Walked: A Guide to the Jewish Communities Destroyed in the Holocaust,'' a

gazetteer A gazetteer is a geographical index or directory used in conjunction with a map or atlas.Aurousseau, 61. It typically contains information concerning the geographical makeup, social statistics and physical features of a country, region, or con ...

which lists more than 23,000 towns in Central and

Eastern Europe Eastern Europe is a subregion of the European continent. As a largely ambiguous term, it has a wide range of geopolitical, geographical, ethnic, cultural, and socio-economic connotations. The vast majority of the region is covered by Russia, whic ...

with large Jewish communities prior to

the Holocaust The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; ...

. Originally published in 1991, with a revised edition in 2002, ''Judaica Librarianship'' calls ''Where Once We Walked'', "the de facto print gazetteer of the

shtetlekh A shtetl or shtetel (; yi, שטעטל, translit=shtetl (singular); שטעטלעך, romanized: ''shtetlekh'' (plural)) is a Yiddish term for the small towns with predominantly Ashkenazi Jewish populations which existed in Eastern Europe before ...

of the

Pale of Settlement The Pale of Settlement (russian: Черта́ осе́длости, '; yi, דער תּחום-המושבֿ, '; he, תְּחוּם הַמּוֹשָב, ') was a western region of the Russian Empire with varying borders that existed from 1791 to 19 ...

." The book won the 1991 "Best Reference Book Award" of the

Association of Jewish Libraries The Association of Jewish Libraries (AJL) is an international organization dedicated to the production, collection, organization and dissemination of Judaic resources and library/media/information service. AJL has members in the United States, Can ...

. Since then, Avotaynu has published more than 70 books, five of which have won awards. In 2003, the Association of Jewish Libraries gave Avotaynu Inc its "Body of Work Award." This award has been given only five times in the past 20 years. In 1987, at the request of Rabbi Malcolm H. Stern and Sallyann Amdur Sack, Mokotoff founded the

International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies The International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies, Inc. (IAJGS) is an independent non-profit umbrella organization coordinating the activities and annual conference of 84 Jewish genealogical societies worldwide. History The IAJGS wa ...

, the international organization of Jewish genealogical societies all over the world. In 1990, Mokotoff became a member of the Board of Directors of the Federation of Genealogical Societies (FGS). He served on the Board, with some interruption, for 15 years. In 2002, he served four years on the Board of the

Association of Professional Genealogists The Association of Professional Genealogists is an organization that promotes professional and business ethics in the field of genealogical research. Organized in 1979, its offices are in Colorado Colorado (, other variants) is a state in ...

. In 2001, Mokotoff created the weekly e-zine of Jewish genealogy, called ''Nu? What’s New?''

Leadership

* 1981-1995: Board Member, Jewish Genealogical Society of New York. Also: Treasurer 1985-1989 * 1986-1989: Member, Advisory Committee, Douglas E. Goldman Genealogy Center,

Beit Hatfutsot ANU - Museum of the Jewish People, formerly the Nahum Goldmann Museum of the Jewish Diaspora, is located in Tel Aviv Tel Aviv-Yafo ( he, תֵּל־אָבִיב-יָפוֹ, translit=Tēl-ʾĀvīv-Yāfō ; ar, تَلّ أَبِيب – � ...

, Tel Aviv, Israel, where he assisted in promoting, worldwide, the family tree database of the Center * 1989-1994: Member, Advisory Committee on Russian-American Genealogical Archival Service (RAGAS), which established the first exchange of genealogical data between the U.S. and Russia * 1989-1995: Founding President, International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies (IAJGS) * 1991-2006: Board Member, Federation of Genealogical Societies (FGS). Also: Treasurer 1995–1998; Vice-President Development 1999–2000 * 1995-2001: Board Member,

Jewish Book Council The Jewish Book Council (Hebrew: ), founded in 1944, is an organization encouraging and contributing to Jewish literature.Association of Jewish Book Publishers * 1996-2002: Board Member,

* 2002-2005: Board Member,

. Also: Treasurer 2002-2005 * 2004–present: Founding Committee Member, International Institute of Jewish Genealogy, Jerusalem, Israel * 2009–present: Member, Board of Governors,

. Also: Board Member 1996-2002; Co-Chair, Board of Governors 2009-2014 Additionally, Mokotoff has acted as a consultant for

Ancestry.com Ancestry.com LLC is an American genealogy company based in Lehi, Utah. The largest for-profit genealogy company in the world, it operates a network of genealogical, historical records, and related genetic genealogy websites. In November 2018, ...

in the area of Jewish genealogical resources and is the author of ''"Where Do I Begin"'' in the Jewish genealogy section of Ancestry.com.

Honors

* 1985: Certified Systems Professional * 1986: Certified Data Processor * 1991: Reference Award from the

* 1993: George E. Williams Award of the

Federation of Genealogical Societies The Federation of Genealogical Societies was a 501(c)(3) non-profit corporation founded in January 1976 and headquartered in Austin, Texas. FGS links hundreds of U.S.-based genealogy Genealogy () is the study of families, family history, a ...

* 1997: David S. Vogels, Jr. Award of the Federation of Genealogical Societies * 1998: Lifetime Achievement Award of the International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies (IAJGS) (first recipient) * 2006: Grahame T. Smallwood Award of the

* 2006: Rabbi Malcolm H. Stern Humanitarian Award of the Federation of Genealogical Societies * 2008: Honorary Life Membership in the

Personal life

Mokotoff married Ruth Mokotoff (née Auerbach) in 1965. They have three children and eight grandchildren. He and his wife were members of

Mensa International Mensa is the largest and oldest high-IQ society in the world. It is a non-profit organisation open to people who score at the 98th percentile or higher on a standardised, supervised IQ or other approved intelligence test. Mensa formally compr ...

Works and publications

* Mokotoff, Gary and Sallyann Amdur Sack, '' Where We Once Walked: A Guide to the Jewish Communities Destroyed in the Holocaust,'' Teaneck, N.J.: Avotaynu. 1991 (first edition). * Mokotoff, Gary, ''How to Document Victims and Locate Survivors of the Holocaust.'' Teaneck, N.J.: Avotaynu. 1995. * Mokotoff, Gary and

Warren Blatt Warren Blatt (born 1962) is an American genealogist and Computer engineering, computer engineer who is the Managing Director of JewishGen, an online source for researching Jewish roots. He is the author/coauthor of a number of books including ''G ...

, ''Getting Started in Jewish Genealogy.'' Bergenfield, N.J..: Avotaynu. 1999. * Mokotoff, Gary and Sallyann Amdur Sack with Alexander Sharon, ''Where Once We Walked: A Guide to the Jewish Communities Destroyed in the Holocaust.'' Bergenfield, N.J.: Avotaynu. 2002 (second, revised edition). * Sack, Sallyann and Gary Mokotoff eds., ''Avotaynu Guide to Jewish Genealogy.'' Bergenfield, N.J.: Avotaynu. 2004. * Mokotoff, Gary ed., ''Every Family has a Story: Tales from the Pages of Avotaynu.'' Bergenfield, N.J.: Avotaynu. 2008. (correct number on book) (LC number that is cataloged) * Mokotoff, Gary, ''Getting Started in Jewish genealogy - 2012 Edition,'' Bergenfield, N.J..: Avotaynu. 2011.

References

External links

Avotaynu

at

{{DEFAULTSORT:Mokotoff, Gary American genealogists 1937 births Living people IBM employees Jewish genealogy Jewish historians