Ancestral Discoveries: IAJGS

Showing posts with label IAJGS. Show all posts

Monday, January 6, 2025

Thank You, and You, and You

Coming out of COVID, I really fell behind on posting on my blog, including for such things as thank yous. Having been raised by my mother to tell people thank you, I have felt very guilty about this. So I'm going to catch up on my thank yous from 2022 and 2023 and include them with those from 2024.

First I want to thank all those groups that invited me to be a genealogy speaker. I am honored that you felt that I had information worth sharing with your members and attendees, and I appreciate you having chosen me.

I was mostly able to maintain my genealogy volunteer work. It's very rewarding being able to give back to a field so near and dear to me. My health definitely was a factor in my level of involvement, but since so much was (and still is!) remote, I kept plugging along. So a big thank you to the people I worked with at the Gresham FamilySearch Center, Jewish Genealogical Society of Oregon, Genealogical Forum of Oregon in general and the African American Special Interest Group in particular, San Francisco Bay Area Jewish Genealogical Society, and (new for me last year) Geneabloggers.

Last on my list but most decidedly not least, thank you to the readers of my blog. It's rewarding to know that people find it worth spending their time reading my comments and reflections on this incredibly engrossing pastime that we share. I particularly appreciate when you write to me, online and offline, with your comments and feedback. I hope you find this year's posts interesting as well.

Graphic created by WiR Pixs.

Sunday, January 3, 2021

Thank You, Thank You, Thank You

As I look back on the past year, I want to thank all of those who were part of my genealogy world, particularly as our world in general changed so much. First I would like to say thank you to those conferences and societies that chose me to be a speaker. I am honored to have been part of their educational programs during the year.

And because 2020 was the pandemic year, some groups that chose me as a speaker had to cancel or significantly rearrange their events, and I didn't end up giving presentations to them after all. I still am proud that they chose me for their original plans.

Thanks go also to the genealogical societies for which I volunteered during the past year. I continue to serve on the board of the San Francisco Bay Area Jewish Genealogical Society and also have responsibility for editing the quarterly journal ZichronNote, programming, and publicity. I am the very active coordinator of the African American Special Interest Group (AA SIG) of the Genealogical Forum of Oregon. And I am still involved with the Jewish Genealogical Society of Oregon, although I moved from board member to vice president, and then to president when the previous president had to step down for health reasons. If it weren't for genealogical societies, many people would have even more difficulties accomplishing their research. I am happy to be associated with thriving groups filled with other energetic volunteers.

And as my blog continues to plug along, I very much appreciate my readers. Your comments, both online and offline, let me know that you find it worthwhile to spend some of your time reading my commentaries about our shared hobby.

I learn something from everyone I interact with, and I'm glad I leanred with all of you during 2020. The adventure of 2021 will probably keep us on our toes, but at least we have genealogy to keep us sane at the same time.

Saturday, January 11, 2020

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: Accentuate the Positive Geneameme 2019

I always have fun with lists of questions for Saturday Night Genealogy Fun, but I have to admit I've never heard of the word "geneameme" before.

Here is your assignment, should you decide to accept it (you ARE reading this, so I assume that you really want to play along; cue the Mission: Impossible! music!):

(1) Jill Ball reconstituted her "Accentuate the Positive Geneameme 2019" on 30 December 2019 and invited readers to participate.

(2) This week, let's contribute our answers to her questions about our genealogy accomplishments in 2019. Copy the questions below and add your own responses.

(3) Share your responses on your own blog, in comments on this blog, or on Facebook. Please leave a comment on this post so readers can find your post, and please let Jill know about your efforts by e-mailing her at jillballau@gmail.com.

Here are mine.

1. An elusive ancestor I found was:

I did not discover the names of any unknown ancestors in 2019.

2. A great newspaper article I found was:

I found several interesting newspaper articles about my cousin Sam Brainin on Newspapers.com, including one about a bad car accident he was in as a child.

3. A geneajourney I took was:

I took three geneajourneys, to RootsTech, the Ohio Genealogical Society conference, and the IAJGS International Conference on Jewish Genealogy.

4. I located an important record:

Yes! I found the passenger list for my great-great-grandmother Ruchel Dwoire (Jaffe) Brainin immigrating to the Untied States with four of her children.

5. A newly found family member shared:

A cousin I discovered through a DNA match shared lots of information on his branch of the family, plus a photograph of my great-great-grandparents Gershon Itzhak Nowicki and Dube (Yelsky) Nowicki from about 1915, while they were still in Russia.

6. A geneasurprise I received was:

When I posted a family photograph that I love but didn't know who was in it, one of my cousins recognized her grandmother and grandaunt, which was totally unexpected. Plus the photo is probably of her father's bris!

7. My 2019 social media post that I was particularly proud of was:

I am glad I took the time to write up all my family connections in "Now That's What I Call a Blended Family!" It takes a genealogist to keep track of a family as complicated as mine.

8. I made a new genimate who:

I've gotten to be friends with someone who comes regularly to the African American Special Interest Group at the Genealogical Forum of Oregon. We're even working toether on a few genealogy projects.

9. A new piece of technology or skill I mastered was:

Well, not quite mastered, but for the first time I was the speaker for a Webinar, and I did all the computer stuff for it.

10. I joined:

Well, I rejoined the Jewish Genealogical Society of Oregon.

11. A genealogy education session or event from which I learnt something new was:

I always learn something from every conference and Webinar, but one of the standouts last year was Judy Baston's presentation on the Vilna Ghetto Library, which I attended at the IAJGS conference. It was fascinating to see the kinds of documentation that have survived.

12. A blog post that taught me something new was:

Jennifer Mendelsohn's "No, You Don't Really Have 7,900 4th Cousins: Some DNA Basics for Those with Jewish Heritage" has incredibly useful information on how to work around the overabundance of matches that endogamy produces.

13. A DNA discovery I made was:

For the first time, a DNA match connected me with someone on the Jewish side of my family I was able to place in my family tree immediately but didn't know already.

14. I taught a genimate how to:

I did 25 presentations at conferences and genealogical societies, in addition to my volunteer work at the Gresham Family History Center and "Helping Hands" sessions for the Jewish Genealogical Society of Oregon. I think I taught several "genimates" how to do a lot of things.

15. A brick wall I demolished was:

I had been looking for my great-great-grandmother's arrival into this country for about 20 years (see #4).

16. A great site I visited was:

"Old Photographs of African Americans" is a site that displays unidentified photographs for free. People have been able to find their relatives' photos, which is wonderful.

17. A new genealogy/history book I enjoyed was:

I found a copy of London: Then and Now by Diane Burstein at a thrift store, and it was a bargain.

18. It was exciting to finally meet:

Like Randy, I also can't think of someone new and exciting I met in 2019. I'm sure there was someone, but my memory is blanking.

19. I am excited for 2020 because:

I am really looking forward to working more on figuring out who my paternal great-grandfather Mr. X was.

20. Another positive I would like to share is:

I'm always excited about a new year of opportunities to learn about and share genealogy!

Tuesday, December 31, 2019

A Very Grateful Thank You

As we prepare to welcome the new year, it seems an appropriate time to thank all those in the genealogy world with whom I have worked during the past year. My world has been enriched because of them. First I would like to thank those societies that hosted me as a speaker during the year. I am proud that they chose me to be part of their educational programs.

Genealogical Forum of Oregon
Sweet Home Genealogical Society
Oregon Genealogical Society
Ohio Genealogical Society
International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies
Jewish Genealogical Society of Cleveland
Klamath Basin Genealogical Society
Jewish Genealogical Society of Oregon
Milwaukie Family History Center
Sacramento Public Library
Mt. Diablo Genealogical Society
Jewish Genealogical Society of Greater Orlando

Another big thank you goes to those societies with which I am involved on a regular basis as a volunteer. I serve on the boards of the San Francisco Bay Area Jewish Genealogical Society and the Jewish Genealogical Society of Oregon, and I am the coordinator of the African American Special Interest Group (AA SIG) at the Genealogical Forum of Oregon (GFO). I am so happy to spend time with other individuals who are interested in the vitality of today's genealogical societies and work hard to keep them alive and thriving.

A special thank you goes out to Harold Hinds, another volunteer at GFO, who provides tremendous help and support for me with the AA SIG. Without his advice and guidance, the group would not be in as good shape as it is.

I was fortunate enough this past year to connect with cousins I did not know previously. I am especially grateful to them for their willingness to share family information and photos, which has helped my research into our shared families.

And since this is a blog, some of my most heartfelt thanks go to my readers. I appreciate every comment that is sent to me and that you find my writing a worthwhile expenditure of your time.

I have learned something from everyone this past year. I look forward to another year of learning and enjoying this obsessive hobby we all enjoy.

Happy new year!

Sunday, August 4, 2019

IAJGS Cleveland: Wrapping Up and Heading Home

By the time Thursday rolled around at this year's IAJGS conference, the temperatures in Cleveland had taken a serious dip, and it didn't get over 79° for the rest of my visit. I wasn't quite happy enough to go dancing in the streets, because that would have gotten me overheated again, but it was a great relief.

The first session on Thursday was my third and final presentation of the conference. My talk about finding the maiden names in your family is one of my most popular, and the room was pretty full. Near the end of the talk, one of the suggestions I make as to why people change their names is to gain an inheritance. A gentleman in attendance actually had an example of that from his own family, where the man writing the will included a provision requiring potential heirs to change their name to his if they wanted the bequest. I asked him to contact me after the conference, because I would love to have an image of that will to include for the future.

Since none of the topics in the second time slot really grabbed my interest, I headed back to the Resource Room to see what other goodies I could find. Along with being able to use ProQuest databases, several genealogical societies provide access to resources that are normally behind password-protected member areas. I took advantage of the opportunity to obtain copies of several society journals/newsletters that I didn't have. I left with a loaded flash drive and a satisfied smile.

Thursday was also my last volunteer mentoring session. I was surprised and happy to see that someone who had been in my maiden names session actually followed through on her statement that she would see me later. I helped her with several questions and then stayed an extra hour to be available, because for a while there was a back-up of people wanting assistance.

I did drag myself away for Alex Denysenko's talk about "Alternative Sources for Jewish Genealogy." Even though he was approaching the idea from a Russian/Ukrainian perspective, it turned out that a lot of his "alternative" sources are the same types we use here in the United States, such as land records, passports and visas, voter registration lists, school records, and newspapers (hooray for newspapers!). Some that were different were notary records (common in many locations in Europe), work registrations, Judenrat records, Extraordinary Commission records (unique to the former Soviet Union, I believe), land distribution in Poland, and debtors' lists.

The last session I attended on Thursday was Jane Neff Rollins' discussion of "Translation Tips for Foreign-language Documents." Jane and I were both members of a short-lived APG special interest group for translators, and I definitely wanted to see her presentation and show support. She provided a lot of good resources and discussed the pros and cons of using volunteer translators, trying to do it yourself, and paying for a professional.

Friday is the short day of the conference, with the "afterthought" sessions. I've been scheduled in the last time slot, and I know what it's like to look at an empty room, so I make an effort to find talks to go to on the last day. I lucked out and again was able to attend a talk that will be presented later this year for the San Francisco Bay Area Jewish Genealogical Society. Robinn Magid, an SFBAJGS member and the chair of next year's conference in San Diego, spoke about "American Jewish Family Clubs and Family Circles." The impression I got was that most of these didn't have lots of documentation, but some of them are goldmines of genealogy information. I know my family members used to get together, but I don't know if it was a formal "family club." I doubt there's any paperwork to find, unfortunately.

And then I couldn't resist the siren call of the Resource Room and went back one more time to see what else I could discover. This time I visited a different genealogical society's site and found several pieces of information about family members in its member area. Another successful foray!

I had allowed some free time after the conference ended in case I found someone to talk with before I left for home. I ran into a man who had gone to two of my talks, and we had a lively discussion about families and research for about an hour before he headed off to find lunch and then drive to Fort Wayne, Indiana for even more genealogy. And as a coda to the conference, when my airport shuttle arrived, I was amazed to discover that the two people with whom I was riding recognized me because they had also gone to my presentations, each of them a different one. So we talked even more about genealogy the entire way to Hopkins, barely letting the driver get a word in edgewise to ask us which airlines we were flying on.

I really love going to these conferences. As the SFBAJGS president likes to say, who wouldn't want to be stuck in a hotel for a week with 1,000 other people equally obsessed about genealogy? I can hardly wait until next year's conference, especially since I don't have to go east of the Rockies. It isn't Cleveland's fault, but San Diego will probably have weather more to my liking. And I won't even have to change time zones!

Wednesday, July 31, 2019

IAJGS Cleveland: Tuesday and Wednesday

The best news about the IAJGS conference is that the temperature here in Cleveland has dropped quite a bit. Today, for example, the high was only 79°, and there was even a breeze! As I walk back and forth between my hotel and the conference hotel, I really appreciate that.

My Tuesday began slowly. I hadn't been that enamored of any of the sessions in the first time slot, and I somehow just didn't manage to make it to even one. Next, I wanted to go to Banai Feldstein's class on "Lesser Known Online Resources", but right before I was about to walk into the room, someone called out to me that she had something important for me. It turned out that all she wanted to do was to introduce me to a new person in a local genealogical society, but by the time that had happened, I turned around and the room with Banai's session was already overflowing with people. There was no way I was going to get in there. I'm lucky that she (finally!) uploaded a handout to the conference site, so at least I have that now.

For lunch the Jewish genealogy bloggers got together. We introduced ourselves, talked about our blogs, and generally had a great time hanging out with each other. The only bad thing was that we were arranged in a not very comfortable fashion on some random seats in an open area. Next year the blogger get-together coordinator said she just might break down and try to get us on the schedule for a regular room.

We look like a friendly bunch, don't we?

After lunch, I heard Jane Neff Rollins speak about the Clarion agricultural colony in Sanpete County, Utah in the early 1900's. She used the colony as a way to demonstrate things to think about during research and reasons not to get into a research rut. It was an interesting but sad story about the colony. Most of the research suggestions she made were ones that I use regularly, but there were a couple I could think about more.

Then came my second presentation of the conference, apparently the only methods session that was scheduled. I talked about why everyone should use source citations in their research, even when it's just your own database on your computer that you don't intend to share with anyone, and the various style guides available to help you construct those citations. One of the points I emphasized was that if you already are familiar with a style guide, such as from college research or professional work, you will be much more likely to start doing citations if you just use that rather than force yourself to learn an entirely new style, such as one that is heavily pushed in some circles. I consider it far more important to get the citations done, and that's more likely to happen if people feel they can use a tool they already know than try to convince them to do the citations in a style they will have to learn from scratch and therefore will put off doing. Not only did it seem that attendees enjoyed the talk, one person came up at the end and specifically thanked me for my approach. I have to admit, I felt pretty good about that.

My last learning opportunity of the day was Judy Baston's talk about "Documenting the Vilna Ghetto Library." She is scheduled to give that presentation to the SFBAJGS later this year, but I won't be able to attend now that I live in Oregon, so I jumped at the chance to hear her. It was fascinating to hear the history of the library and learn what documents existed in the Lithuanian archives regarding the library and its patrons. I am constantly amazed to discover what types of material have survived and are available for researchers.

The last event of the day, however, was SFBAJGS attendees meeting up for our new tradition. We try to get a photo of members at the conference to share online. I think this time we have a total of about 18 members here. We didn't manage to get everyone into one photo, but most of us have been captured for posterity.

Wednesday started with bouncing from one session to another. In the first one, the speaker was pretty much reading from his handout, and that's never exciting, so I snuck out the back and went to Jennifer Mendelsohn's talk, "Think Like a Reporter." While mostly a revisiting of several successful genealogy searches she has made, she did give several morsels of advice about how to approach research, not to rely on unsubstantiated information, and all-around good ideas. Plus she is a very entertaining speaker! So it was a lot of fun.

I went from there to the Resource Center, because Wednesday and Thursday at an IAJGS conference mean we have access to all the ProQuest databases, including the historical newspapers. Woo hoo! I found several little nuggets in newspapers, including the Minneapolis Tribune and the Chicago Tribune. I was very happy with my new discoveries.

I had another group lunch on Wednesday. This time it was for people who have finished or are currently going through the ProGen (Professional Genealogy) study group, which is set up for people who want to learn about how to be a good professional genealogist. Getting together is good for networking and just to talk with other people who have similar interests. Half a dozen of us had an enjoyable (and not horribly overpriced) lunch at the Hilton restaurant and got to know each other.

After lunch was another disappointing talk. The speaker had very fractured English and poor spelling on his PowerPoint slides, plus the talk didn't really flow and was kind of like random thoughts strung together. Plus, with a talk focused on an online site with records, he never included the URL. And instead of lasting for an hour and fifteen minutes, the talk petered out at barely half an hour. Oh, well, I had plenty of time to check my e-mail before the next session!

The next presenter wasn't very dynamic but was more on point with her subject. I learned about the types of holdings that the Western Reserve Historical Society has, with an emphasis on Jewish records, of course. One of the most interesting to me was the collection of records from the Bellefaire orphanage. I remember helping someone research his family members who had been in the orphanage for some years. At the time, I didn't know about the collection at the historical society. Now I want to go back and find out who that research was for to see if these records might be of interest to him.

And the last item on my agenda for the day wasn't even for me, but for the SFBAJGS Webmistress. As usual at the conferences, Banai Feldstein had scheduled a meeting for JGS Webmasters. I try to go because Barbara doesn't usually attend the conferences. This meeting didn't have any great revelations, but I covered the bases.

Now to rest up for Thursday and my last talk!

Monday, July 29, 2019

IAJGS International Conference on Jewish Genealogy in Cleveland, Ohio

So here I am in lovely Cleveland, Ohio. I think it hit 89° today, with something like 90% humidity. I really, really hate weather like this. Then why have I come to Cleveland in July? For genealogy, obviously!

Yesterday (Sunday) was the first day of this year's IAJGS International Conference on Jewish Genealogy. It is the 39th conference, although it hasn't been held every year. Even though it is Cleveland in July, I can deal with that more than I could the expense of last year's conference in Warsaw, so I'm glad I am able to attend.

I unfortunately had a late start on Sunday, so I missed both of the morning sessions, which was very disappointing. I had particularly been looking forward to hearing Vivian Kahn's talk about Hungarian Jewish immigration into Cleveland, especially since both sides of her family lived there. I did have an enjoyable time walking through the exhibitor hall, visiting vendors and many research groups that had tables for the afternoon. The highlight of the day was the keynote address by Daniel Goldmark, Director of the Center for Popular Music Studies at Case Western Reserve University. His presentation was about Jews in popular music, ranging from Sophie Tucker and Al Jolson to the Beastie Boys, Gene Simmons, and more. He sometimes regretted playing snippets of songs, as most people in the audience started singing along almost immediately. It might not have been the most genealogically oriented keynote I've heard at a conference, but it sure was fun!

I wrapped up the day with a meeting of Jewish genealogical society newsletter and journal editors. I always try to schedule one for the conferences I attend. This year we had six people representing five societies (and two people were unable to attend but spoke to me about the meeting). As usual, it was a combination of networking, brainstorming, and kvetching. There's still one society that does print only, with no electronic version of their publication.

Monday began with the first of my three presentations. I was so happy that the first session of the day began at 9:15, instead of 7:30, as it was at one conference! The topic was "Jewish Genealogy: How Is This Research Different from All Other Research?" Rather than being an introduction to genealogy, it focuses on the aspects of Jewish research that are unique and different from researching other groups. About 50 people were in attendance, which was nice to see. One of the attendees was a lovely woman who has been researching her family for 40 years but only recently discovered she has a Jewish line. She and several others told me at the end that the talk was very helpful and informative, which I am always gratified to hear.

I went to the Belarus Special Interest Group meeting because the well known Miriam Weiner was scheduled to be the presenter. I've never heard her speak before, so I don't know if today was surprising or not, but all she did was show how to use the Routes to Roots site. On the positive side, I did get a copy of a 1937 map of Grodno, which will be helpful for research.

IAJGS offered its mentoring program again this year, where they ask speakers to volunteer some time to help attendees with research questions. The mentoring area is really cramped this year, with a small number of tables and lots of volunteers, but I found a table with two attendees who came up with lots of questions for me. They have several new avenues of research to work on now.

I was able to fit one DNA talk into my schedule. It's the first time I've heard Bennett Greenspan of Family Tree DNA talk. He is an entertaining speaker, even on the (somewhat boring) technical aspects of Y-DNA that were his topic. I'm not sure if what I learned is going to necessarily help me in my research, but I do understand how the matches work much better.

For some local flavor (since I missed Vivian's talk), I next went to a session on the Jewish presence in central Ohio. The presenters discussed Jewish immigration into the area beginning in the 1830's and going through Soviet Jewish immigration late in the 20th century, and showed images of many documents and artifacts held at Ohio History Connection and the Columbus Jewish Historical Society, including a mohel's record book covering 1873 to 1904. Both repositories hold a wide range of items that would be helpful and beneficial to many genealogists researching their families.

Today ended with a get-together of professional genealogists who are at the conference. We introduced ourselves, talked about our research specialties, and did a lot of networking. One of the few (I think there are two?) Jewish Certified Genealogists was actually in attendance. One topic that came up was how it would be beneficial for attendees at the IAJGS conference if there were more sessions on methods and foundational topics, rather than everthing being focused on Jewish genealogical topics. It has been learned over the years that few people who attend IAJGS go to general conferences where they would learn more about those other topics.

My commentary on days 3 and 4 of the conference is here, and that on days 5 and 6 here.

Sunday, December 31, 2017

Sunday, July 30, 2017

IAJGS Conference, Days 5 and 6 and Going Home

The IAJGS conference runs longer than most genealogy conferences, so as you get toward the end you might not have quite as much energy as at the beginning. On Thursday morning, the fifth day, I wanted to go to the Leadership Series session on membership database solutions, as the topic has come up at our board meetings for the past couple of years. I really did. But it was at 7:00 a.m., and I was up until 6:00 a.m. working on that day's presentation.

See, on Wednesday night I was going over the PowerPoint file for my Thursday talk, and then the computer rebelled. It said it couldn't save the file. I tried save as. I tried again to save it directly. The computer was adamant — nope, not happening; sorry, unable to comply. After trying everything in my rather limited arsenal, I finally had to concede defeat. And then I had to reconstruct the presentation from scratch, without the benefit of the graphics that were on my home computer. I tried to remember what the original slides had said and made do with what I could download from Ancestry and other sites. Around 6:00 I was too bleary-eyed to focus, so I gave up and fell asleep.

I knew I wouldn't make it to the database session (I hope they make the information available to societies later), and being awake in time for the 8:15 talk about Jewish settlement in the Caribbean didn't sound realistic, but I thought I had a chance of going to the Professional Genealogists Birds of a Feather get-together at 9:45. I slept through my alarm. So much for that idea.

I finally did wake up, in time to go to Dana Cohen Sprott's session on the "Lost Jews of St. Maarten." She first gave a broad overview of Jewish settlement on several Caribbean islands (after pointing out multiple times that the correct pronunciation has the emphasis on the third, not the second, syllable) and then focused a little more on St. Maarten (where she lives) and on the "dead man found behind the Radio Shack." Apparently a body was discovered behind what was at the time a Radio Shack but what previously was a Jewish burial ground (see page 10 of the "WeekEnder" section of the October 30, 2010 issue of The Daily Herald for more details). Dana has been researching the Jewish presence in the Caribbean for several years. It was an entertaining and informative talk.

For lunch Mark Fearer and I had a very small ProGen get-together (if any other ProGen alumni were at the conference, they didn't own up to it). We had a lively discussion covering many professional genealogy topics, which helped make up for the fact that I missed the BoF meeting.

The first session of the afternoon was the reconstructed presentation, which was about my research on two Colonial Jews, Daniel Joseph of Virginia and Israel Joseph of South Carolina (the first Colonial research I ever did!). I told everyone up front what had happened to the file and apologized for the situation, then gamely went on to give the talk. Lucky for me, everyone was very understanding. My most recent research results (learned only a couple of weeks before the conference) actually ended up running contrary to my original hypothesis, so I opened it up to suggestions from the audience on possible future avenues to pursue. I received some very helpful ideas I'll be looking at, including checking with the American Jewish Archives to see if there might be original research notes from when Rabbi Malcolm Stern wrote his book on First American Jewish Families.

Since Thursday was the last day the ProQuest databases would be available, I bypassed the rest of the afternoon sessions and spent the next two hours looking for articles about family members in newspapers. I was particularly successful with Schumeister cousins appearing in the Minneapolis Star and Tribune collection. I have about 40 articles with lots of information on those relatives. And I have copies of my cousin's and my sister-in-law's doctoral dissertations thanks to ProQuest!

I rounded out the afternoon with a mentor session that someone had even signed up for ahead of time. The same woman who solved a brick wall because of information in my Sunday talk came back for more. She's trying to determine where an ancestor came from. I gave her lots of homework and resources to check out. After that I hung around to enjoy the prebanquet reception (all vegetarian, but probably not kosher) and socialized with several friends before heading back to my room to collapse.

Friday is always the "afterthought" day of the conference. It's only half a day, and a lot of attendees leave late Thursday or early Friday. Given that, I was pleasantly surprised to see a good turnout for my 8:15 talk (someone really had it in for me at this conference with early time slots), which was on immigration and naturalization records. Even the illustrious Hal Bookbinder was there (I think he enjoyed it). The bad news was that the air conditioning appeared to be off, either because the conference organizers had decided to economize or the hotel saw fit to cut it off early. I was not amused.

The same a/c problem reared its ugly head when I tried to enjoy Mark Fearer's talk on Jewish immigration to Texas. While I didn't have a choice about staying in the room for my own talk, I did for Mark's, and sadly I had to abandon it in favor of the resource room, where the air condioning was still going strong. Since I was there, I took advantage of the databases still available and focused on JewishData.com. I found photographs of several tombstones for my friend's family. I also tried to search on the Israel Genealogy Research Association site, but the entire site was down, which was very disappointing.

And that was it! Poof, the conference was over! Then it was just a matter of checking out of the hotel, waiting for the airport shuttle, and flying home. As usual, overall it was a good conference, and I learned lots of new things. There are always some duds, but they were definitely outweighed by the many informative talks, and it was great to see so many of my genealogy friends and colleagues in person. Plus I had the opportunity to participate in the first annual membership recruitment drive of the Antarctica Jewish Genealogical Society! I'm glad I was able to attend this year. I wish I could go to Warsaw in 2018, but I suspect that won't be practical for me, so I'll focus on Cleveland in 2019 instead.

Representatives of the Antarctica Jewish Genealogical Society,
just before the keynote presentation on Sunday, July 23, 2017

My commentary on days 1 and 2 of the conference is here, and that for days 3 and 4 is here.

Thursday, July 27, 2017

IAJGS Conference, Days 3 and 4

It really is amazing how much you can cram into a conference schedule when you try. Between speaker sessions, volunteer activities, and networking, I've been going steadily all day long every day. But oh!, the things I'm learning!

Tuesday began with a Jewish bloggers brown bag breakfast. It's a pleasure to meet people whose words you read in cyberspace and put faces to names. I had a lovely time chatting with Lara Diamond (Lara's Jewnealogy), Emily Garber ([going] The Extra Yad), Israel Pickholtz (All My Foreparents), Ann Rabinowitz (JewishGen blog), Mary-Jane Roth (Memory Keeper's Notebook), Marian Wood (Climbing My Family Tree), and Barbara Zabitz (blog in progress). Then it was off to learn more!

Well, it should have been. In the first session I headed to, the speaker kept his head down and read directly from prepared notes, without looking up at the audience. He also wasn't making any great revelations, so I quickly moved on and instead spent some research time in the resource room. The second session was much better, though. Alexander Beider spoke about the origins of Jews from North Africa. His discussion covered the same types of linguistic and naming clues that he discussed in Monday evening's presentation, indicating origins from multiple locations in Europe and elsewhere.

From there I gave my third presentation of the conference, on where to find and how to access online Jewish historical newspapers. I was really happy to let people know that there are now two free online OCR programs for Yiddish and that Google Translate handles Yiddish. That makes a lot more historical Jewish newspapers much more accessible than they used to be.

On Tuesday IAJGS held a Tech Lunch, where people with technical and computer skills are asked to volunteer their skills in helping IAJGS. It sounds as though there are plans for a Web site redesign and a desire to offer assistance to societies. Something was said about encouraging everyone to be on Facebook also, but I still don't think that's a substitute for a good Web site. Facebook is great for short term, but legacy material is lost.

The afternoon brought some interesting subjects. Nicolas Coiffait has been researching the soldiers in Napoléon's armies and has identified more than 2,000 men he believes are Jewish. He is continuing the research and trying to learn more about each man. Eugenio Alonso spoke on how to research conversos and Anusim in the Caribbean by using documents from the National Historical Archive of Spain, many of which are available online for free. He showed several examples that identified individuals as "judaizing", meaning that they were following Jewish practices. He pointed out that he had even found two documents that specified the judaizers were black. And that was the end of the day for me, because I had to head back to my room to reconstruct a presentation for later in the week (more on that in my next post).

On Wednesday I finally had the opportunity to "sleep in": My first session didn't begin until 8:15! (Hooray!) And I had to be there, because I was the one speaking, on the subject of copyright and how it affects genealogy. Unfortunately, far too many genealogists are still woefully undereducated on this subject, with significant numbers believing that if it's online it's ok to copy. It was gratifying to have one person in the audience who understood already, but it was also good that people asked lots of questions, because that indicated they wanted to learn what they should be doing. I'm very happy that the program committee accepted that talk for the conference.

We had a small but dedicated number who came to the JGS Newsletter Editors meeting. Five people, including me, were there, representing four society publications. Mostly it was another opportunity for networking, but we also did some brainstorming. It's interesting that one group still has only a print publication, with no electronic version.

A session on the Yad Vashem Web site was supposed to show advanced ways to use other record sets besides the central database. It didn't really deliver, but as a sample photograph the speaker used a wedding photo that accompanied a recent article in ZichronNote. The photo is notable because even though it was for a wedding, the bride and groom, and in fact the entire wedding party, were wearing the cloth yellow Stars of David mandated by the German government. Surprisingly, the speaker did not mention that.

Squeezed in between the end of the third morning session and the beginning of the group lunches, most of the SFBAJGS members here met for a quick photo to celebrate being at the conference. While we had almost 50 members last year at the Seattle conference, this year we are a more modest thirteen, ten of whom came for the photo. That isn't too bad!

San Francisco Bay Area Jewish Genealogical Society members in Florida

After lunch, my afternoon was spent at the IAJGS Annual Meeting. I was the representative for my society this year, as the president was at home in California. I've never been to the meeting before, so I wasn't sure what to expect. I should have known — it was a standard bureaucratic meeting, including lots of reports, delays, and minor tiffs. We did accomplish what we needed to, voting on bylaws and the next set of officers, and only ran about 15 minutes overtime. It's unlikely that I'll be attending next year's conference in Warsaw, so someone else will have the pleasure of attending the meeting.

My day ended with one of the best parts of family history: actually getting together with family. I don't come out to the east coast often, so I always try to see family when I'm here. I have cousins who live relatively nearby (75 miles away), in Daytona. They drove out to the hotel, and we had a nice dinner together. I even updated them on the latest research I'm doing on our grandfather. They're as interested as I am in finding out who his biological father was.

My commentary on days 1 and 2 of the conference is here, and that for days 5 and 6 is here.

Monday, July 24, 2017

IAJGS International Conference on Jewish Genealogy in Florida (in July!)

Here I am at the 37th IAJGS International Conference on Jewish Genealogy, in Orlando, Florida. (Who schedules a conference in Orlando in July?) As expected, it's miserably humid, but the air conditioning in the hotel is working perfectly. (Some attendees think it's too cold, but I'm very comfortable.) As I told everyone before the conference started, people in Florida take their air conditioning seriously.

The conference started bright and early Sunday morning. The first session I attended was "Outreach for Societies and Organization Leaders", one of a series of eleven, running through the conference, aimed at genealogical societies. Outreach has been one of the issues lately for my society, so I headed over there. I got some good ideas and a handy worksheet to take home and discuss with my board.

I'm giving five talks here at the conference, the most I've ever been scheduled for. I'm very happy to say that they are spread out over the conference, with only one on a given day. The first one was "Jewish Genealogy: How Is This Research Different from All Other Research?", on Sunday. After two time changes, it ended up at 4:30 in the afternoon (which was much better than the original 7:30!). I'm happy to say it went very well, with several good questions from attendees. One woman found me on Monday to let me know that the talk helped her knock down a brick wall!

Talks by Mark Fearer, on immigration laws and documentation, and Banai Lynn Feldstein, on her new Crowd Sourced Indexing, rounded out the afternoon for me. Then, before the evening keynote, I attended the IAJGS presidents' reception for the first time, standing in for the real SFBAJGS president, who had decided he didn't want to go to Florida in July. It was great to network with everyone, but I was very surprised to discover that the light snacks provided were not kosher and that there was no kosher option for observant attendees. That seemed to be a significant oversight (or blunder, depending on your perspective).

The keynote was great. Robert Watson of Lynn University gave an entertaining, informative talk about Alexander Hamilton and his relationship to Jews and the American Revolution. Apparently Hamilton has been a favorite historical subject of Watson's for some years, and now I know a lot more about the "bastard orphaned son of a whore and a drunken Scotsman." Since I have not seen the musical Hamilton, I learned on Sunday that Hamilton was taken in by the Jewish community of Nevis after he was orphaned for the second (or was it third?) time. There he learned to speak Hebrew, to add to the seven languages he already knew. Apparently Hamilton, who was incredibly intelligent and a prodigy when he was young, wrote a significant number of George Washington's speeches and letters, including many of the latter sent to Jewish congregations around the United States. Watson was a wonderful speaker; it was easy to see why he was twice named Teacher of the Year by students at Lynn.

Monday started out far too early (7:00 a.m.!) at a breakfast hosted by FamilySearch, which is working on finding and digitizing ever more records. The meeting was held to reach out to researchers in the Jewish genealogical community to help identify records of interest. I'm hoping something can be worked out for records from the Jewish Cuban community.

I tried going to some talks in the morning, but I abandoned one after the speaker spent the first 15 minutes talking about personal reminiscences rather than the stated topic, and another when the speaker used words of one syllable and enunciated everything as though he were talking to kindergarteners. (I know, I'm so fussy.) Then I headed off to the IAJGS Media Lunch, where several bloggers, tweeters, and others discussed ways to help publicize next year's IAJGS conference in Warsaw, how Jewish genealogical societies can take advantage of social media, and how International Jewish Genealogy Month can be updated to become a more effective outreach tool.

In the afternoon I learned about finding Israeli burial data from Daniel Horowitz, then went to a talk purported to be about one thing but that actually ended up promoting a Web site. That was . . . disappointing. I left early and spent the rest of the afternoon in the new "mentoring" area, helping people who came by looking for research advice.

The evening wrapped up with two presentations. Dr. Alexander Beider, who is well known in Jewish genealogy for the many books he has written on Jewish names, spoke about the historical, linguistic, and onomastic facts supporting the commonly accepted theory that Eastern European Jews migrated there from Western Europe. That talk was followed by Dr. Harry Ostrer discussing the genetic evidence that supports the same theory. It was quite an interesting evening, and I think I'm going to somehow find the money to buy Dr. Beider's book about Yiddish dialects. Once a language geek, always a language geek.

My commentary on days 3 and 4 of the conference is here, and that for days 5 and 6 is here.

Tuesday, March 28, 2017

I'll Be Busy at This Year's IAJGS Conference!

I feel a little overwhelmed — but in a good way. The program committee for this year's IAJGS International Conference on Jewish Genealogy recently sent messages to speakers who had submitted talks, letting us know which were accepted. I had five — FIVE! — talks accepted. Wow! I've never had that happen before!

This year's conference will take place from July 23–28 at the Walt Disney World Swan Resort in Lake Buena Vista, Florida. I admit that I'm not crazy about Florida in July, but I'm counting on the air conditioning to be working at its best.

So what will I be talking about at the conference? It was nice of the committee to distribute my talks so I have only one on a given day.

Sunday, July 23
Jewish Genealogy: How Is This Research Different from All Other Research?

Tuesday, July 25
Using Online Historical Jewish Newspapers for Genealogical Research

Wednesday, July 26
Online Doesn’t Mean Free: Copyright Issues for Genealogy

Thursday, July 27
Isaac Joseph of South Carolina and Daniel Joseph of Virginia

Friday, July 28
Immigration and Naturalization Records

It appears that I will be the representative for the San Francisco Bay Area Jewish Genealogical Society at the conference (in fact, it looks like I will be the only board member in attendance). So I'll be at the presidents' meeting on Sunday evening, and I'll need to go to the IAJGS annual business meeting on Wednesday afternoon.

In addition to those commitments, there will be a meeting of Jewish genealogy society newsletter and journal editors at the conference, which I should be at, since I'm the one who submitted it for the schedule.

Of course, I'm going to want to attend many of the other presentations at the conference.

Oh, and I have several family members who live in Florida, some of whom are actually close to Orlando — oops, Lake Buena Vista.

Yeah, I'm going to be busy at the conference . . . .

Saturday, January 7, 2017

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: What Are Your Genealogy Goals for 2017?

It's the beginning of a new year, so for this week's Saturday Night Genealogy Fun Randy Seaver has us thinking about what we want to accomplish during the year:

Your mission, should you decide to accept it (cue the Mission: Impossible music):

1) What goals do you have for your genealogy research, education, and writing during 2017?

2) Tell us about it in a blog post on your own blog, in a comment to this blog post, or in a comment on Facebook or Google+ in response to this post.

These are my goals:

Personal Research

• Find the son my aunt gave up for adoption in 1945, find his descendants, or at least find out what happened to him. My aunt is 91 years old, and we're running out of time to let her know.

• Determine who the biological father of my grandfather was. I think I'm close, but I need to find some living descendants and see if they're willing to take DNA tests to confirm my hypothesis.

• Catch up on entering all the information I found in 2016 into my family tree database, including citations.

• Make sure I have uploaded the DNA results of all the family members who have tested to all possible databases. Spend more time with the DNA databases looking for matches and contacting close matches to share information. Work more with chromosome mapping; try the Lazarus tool on FTDNA.

• Share all the photos I've been scanning with family members from the appropriate lines and ask for help with identification of as-yet unlabeled photos.

• Look for a group that is planning to pool money for research in the Khmelnytskyi, Ukraine archive and join up, with the aim of finding documents on my Gorodetsky, Kardish, and Schneiderman relatives from Kamianets Podilskyi.

• Stay in better touch with cousins with whom I have already made contact.

• Figure out how to do some sort of research in Punjab remotely, so I can make progress on my stepsons' grandfather's family lines.

• Get back to working on Irish research, so I can make progress on my stepsons' grandmother's family, my half-sister's mother's family, and my friend's O'Gara family from County Roscommon and County Sligo.

• Any time I take a trip, check to see what research I might be able to do in the area while I'm there.

Education

• Go to the Ventura County Genealogical Society's family history event for Black History Month. I am the featured speaker, teaching two classes in the afternoon, plus I have volunteered to help with general genealogy questions in the morning.

• Attend the Forensic Genealogy Institute in San Antonio, Texas in March. I'm registered for three days of classes with Judy Russell, the Legal Genealogist! (Be still, my heart!)

• Attend the annual Sacramento African American Family History Seminar in March, where I will be teaching about Freedmen's Bureau records and also taking the opportunity to attend other classes.

• Attend Genealogy Jamboree in Burbank in June. I'm teaching one class, but that gives me three days to go to a lot of other classes and learn more cool genealogy stuff.

• Attend (probably) the IAJGS International Conference on Jewish Genealogy in Orlando, Florida in July. (No, you are not the only one wondering why anyone would schedule a conference in Florida in July.) I plan to attend, but it depends on whether I have a talk accepted and therefore can justify the expense of flying cross-country. It appears I no longer have any relatives living close by Orlando, so I might have to (shudder!) pay for a hotel room.

• Attend the Northwest Genealogy Conference in August in Arlington, Washington, if I have a talk accepted.

• Attend the Federation of Genealogical Societies annual conference over Labor Day weekend, this year in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. I won a free registration, or I wouldn't be able to go.

• Watch Webinars from Florida State Genealogical Society, Illinois State Genealogical Society, Legacy Family Tree, Minnesota Genealogical Society, North Carolina Genealogical Society, Southern California Genealogical Society, and Wisconsin State Genealogical Society, and whatever other ones I hear about. I average about two per week.

• Attend local genealogy presentations, primarily at the African American Genealogical Society of Northern California, California Genealogical Society, East Bay Genealogical Society, San Francisco Bay Area Jewish Genealogical Society, and Oakland FamilySearch Library.

• Make presentations at local genealogical societies and FamilySearch Centers and Libraries. So far I'm scheduled for 16 talks, but I usually average about two dozen each year.

Writing

• Stick to my average of about three to four posts per week on my blog. (I'm not anywhere near as prolific as Randy. I don't know how he does it.) I regularly post for Wordless Wednesday, Treasure Chest Thursday, and Saturday Night Genealogy Fun, plus additions to the Wikipedia newspaper archives page and opportunities to help with genealogy-oriented projects. Beyond that, I write about family stories, research discoveries, the journals I edit, and things I find interesting in the world of genealogy.

• I want to update and expand my article on the research I did on my Cuban cousins.

• I have a translation project and two transcription projects I'm working on that I need to devote more time to.

• Write some book reviews that I'm behind on.

• Finish creating a name index for a book about Niceville and Valparaiso, Florida.

All of this should keep me off the streets and out of trouble!

Friday, August 19, 2016

A Declaration of Intention — from Cuba

I have written before about the research I am doing on my Cuban cousins, the branch of my family that immigrated to Cuba from Eastern Europe before coming to the United States. My presentation at the recent IAJGS International Conference on Jewish Genealogy was about my research.

Besides learning more about my cousins and adding to that part of my family tree, one of the goals I had set for myself was to obtain actual documents from Cuba about my relatives. That turned out to be a much more difficult process than I had imagined, but so far I have two birth certificates, one marriage certificate, and something that seems to be the equivalent of a U.S. Declaration of Intention, the first step to naturalization. This gave me some wonderful information about Max's life.

-- >< -- >< -- >< -- >< --

REPUBLIC OF CUBA

CIVIL REGISTRATION

SAN MIGUEL DEL PADRÓN

SWORN LETTER OF INTENTION OF CITIZENSHIP

Arianne Martinez Remedios, Registrar, State of San Miguel del Padrón.

I certify that I saw Book 12, Page 75[?], of the Citizenship Section of Civil Registration; the record appears which is copied verbatim here and which states:

MORDUCHE SZOHERMAN

In San Miguel del Padrón, Havana province, at 3:00 p.m., on September 10, 1937, before His Honor Luis de la Paz Cervera, Municipal Judge, Head of Civil Registration, and Manuel de Lazaro Sixto, Secretary, appeares Morduche Szocherman, native of Polesie, Poland, 25 years old, single, businessman and resident of this neighborhood, First and Gabriel, Rosalia Division. Verified his appearance asking to register in the Civil Registration his reununciation of Polish nationality and sworn intention of becoming a Cuban citizen, as described in the sixth article, fifth subsection, second heading of the Constitutional Law of this Republic, and under oath declares that he was born in Polesie, Poland on January 6, 1912, being legally recorded at that time as the legitimate son of Chaniania and Reyzel, of the same nationality and residents of Poland. That he is single and has no children. That he does not provide a birth certificate because he does not currently have it, but in accord with Presidential Directive 1859 of the year 1908 has written to the archive where it is located with the approximate dates. That he arrived in Cuba on the steamship Orbita on December 24, 1932 and since that date has resided in the Republic with no interruption. That he formally renounces his Polish citizenship and swears to his intention of becoming a Cuban citizen, to observe and comply with the Constitutional Law of this Republic, the laws that govern and governed the same. Witnessing this information and this act are Marcos Torriente Torriente, native of Pedro Betancourt, Matanzas, married, and Ismael Hernández Torriente, native of Matanzas, single, both of legal age, employed and residents of 11 Rastro, Havana, which they swear to under oath and being warned of the penalties with which the Law punishes the crimes of perjury, swear it is correct. His Honor the Judge, by merit of the oath and the information received from the witnesses, has accepted the renunciation of Polish citizenship and sworn intention to become a Cuban citizen from Morduche Szocherman. Read and found to conform to the present act, sealed and signed by the petitioner and the witnesses after His Honor the Judge, who certifies.

Appears the legible signature of His Honor the Judge, the petitioner and witnesses, and stamp.

At the request of the interested party, this is issued on April 12, 2016.

Arianne Martinez Remedios
Civil Registrar

-- >< -- >< -- >< -- >< --

This has given me a lot of material to work with. I knew Max's parents' names already, but I now have a birth date (which I may never be able to verify), his date of arrival in Cuba, the ship he traveled on, even which Havana neighborhood he was living in. He must have known the witnesses; maybe they worked with or for him. Plenty of new leads to follow!

I am disappointed, of course, that this is a typed transcription of the original and not a copy, but that's the way they do business in Cuba. I'm still not sure whether they even have photocopiers there.

Saturday, August 13, 2016

IAJGS 2016 — Conference Wrap-up and Looking Ahead

How time flies! It's hard to believe, but the IAJGS 2016 International Conference on Jewish Genealogy is already over. The second half of the conference had several useful sessions, plus we had not one, but two days of ProQuest databases (but more on that later).

Wednesday was a good day for some socializing. One of the sessions I attended was the Professional Jewish Genealogists Birds of a Feather meeting. The professional genealogists at the conference try to get together to talk about what’s going on in our field, how we can help each other, and things along those lines. About a dozen people came, and we had some productive discussions. Then for lunch, three of us at the conference who have participated in the ProGen Study Group (Susan Kaplan, Janice Lovelace, and me) actually went out of the hotel (!) and had lunch together, in a real restaurant, no less. It was an enjoyable break.

From the regular sessions I went to, I was surprised that the one I found most informative was on Newspapers.com. I’ve been to one of the talks before (a thinly veiled sales pitch), but I always want to keep up-to-date on what’s happening with digitized newspapers. I learned that for its new digitization efforts Ancestry has partnered with ProQuest, and this time it’s better for the newspaper publishers than in previous times. Publishers actually get a copy of the digitized papers, which apparently didn’t always happen before. I remember the sad experience I had trying to find the Poughkeepsie Journal online after it was dropped from Fold3. It was digitized by ProQuest, and when the online agreement expired, the Journal didn’t even have a copy of the images of its own paper. With the new agreements that apparently shouldn’t happen to other publishers.

Wednesday was also ProQuest database day in the resource room, which I always look forward to. For several years the conference has been able to arrange access to many ProQuest databases for attendees. Along with about 40 historical newspaper databases, some of which I had not seen at previous conferences — Austin American Statesman, Boston Globe, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, South China Morning Post — there was a database I hadn't heard of before, Records of the Immigration and Naturalization Service. I had a field day! I found files and reports about Jewish, Japanese, Chinese, and Sikh immigration into Ellis Island, oral interviews from 185 people who had immigrated through Ellis Island or worked there, even a series on INS investigations into prostitution and white slavery.

Thursday morning started far too early for my taste. Because my talk was at 7:30, which I wasn’t happy about to begin with, Emily Garber organized a bloggers breakfast for 6:30(!). I actually managed to get there early, which meant I had time for a nice cup of Earl Grey before everyone else arrived, and I was almost awake. It’s nice to see people in person with whom you normally interact only in cyberspace, so it was worthwhile to be there.

I had been joking all conference that I was expecting about five people to show up for my 7:30 talk about the research I have done on my Cuban cousins. I admit, it's a pretty narrow topic. I was so happy to see thirteen people there! My talk went well, although I finished sooner than I had expected, for which I apologized. There were several questions afterward, though, and everyone seemed to enjoy it, so I think it was successful.

After my talk I was finally awake enough to notice that there were signs around saying that we had an additional day of ProQuest database access. Yippee! I was able to download the remaining oral interviews I hadn't had time for on Wednesday, plus find some additional newspaper articles. ProQuest has never given us an extra day before, so this was a great treat.

Judy Russell’s presentation about being an ethical genealogist was straightforward: Her three rules are tell the truth, play nice with others, and don’t tell tales out of school. If you keep those in mind when you’re doing your research, sharing information with others, and posting family info online, everything should pretty much be fine. That seems like a good approach for genealogy to me!

One big negative on Thursday was the session that was really nothing more than a sales pitch for research services. The substantive information was easily shared in less than two minutes; everything else after that was the pitch (in a 75-minute session). Someone not at the conference suggested to me that maybe what we need are to have some presentations clearly labeled as “vendor sessions.”

Friday morning, the last day of the conference, is always a mixed bag. Many attendees leave the conference early, and sessions tend to be small. I’m sure it’s difficult to decide what to schedule for those conditions. A talk about proving the Jewish ancestry of a Catholic family was short on documentation (as in, none was shown) and lasted only 25 minutes. Judy Russell spoke about some situations in which DNA has been used successfully when documentation did not exist. And in the last time slot of the day, Michael Strauss gave an interesting presentation on the life and family of Levi Strauss (who is no relation, as he pointed out). And then everyone began saying their good-byes and drifting away as they headed home.

I caught the end of one additional session on Friday, where two of the organizers of the IAJGS 2017 conference were seeking input on what attendees liked and didn't like this year and what they would like to see next year. I heard some people say they have already decided they don’t plan to attend next year’s conference, which will take place July 23–28 in Orlando, Florida, the first time the conference will be held in the South. While I agree that Florida in July is not exactly my idea of perfect weather conditions, I do hope to be at the conference. Some research areas the organizers plan to emphasize are Jewish life in the South and in Colonial America. Now I have an incentive to push myself to prove that the Daniel Joseph I have been researching in 1760’s Virginia is indeed the brother of Israel Joseph, a big macher in the Jewish community of Charleston, South Carolina. I better get back to work on that research!

Pages

Monday, January 6, 2025

Thank You, and You, and You

Sunday, January 3, 2021

Thank You, Thank You, Thank You

Saturday, January 11, 2020

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: Accentuate the Positive Geneameme 2019

Tuesday, December 31, 2019

A Very Grateful Thank You

Sunday, August 4, 2019

IAJGS Cleveland: Wrapping Up and Heading Home

Wednesday, July 31, 2019

IAJGS Cleveland: Tuesday and Wednesday

Monday, July 29, 2019

IAJGS International Conference on Jewish Genealogy in Cleveland, Ohio

Sunday, December 31, 2017

Top 10 Posts of 2017

Sunday, July 30, 2017

IAJGS Conference, Days 5 and 6 and Going Home

Thursday, July 27, 2017

IAJGS Conference, Days 3 and 4

Monday, July 24, 2017

IAJGS International Conference on Jewish Genealogy in Florida (in July!)

Tuesday, March 28, 2017

I'll Be Busy at This Year's IAJGS Conference!

Saturday, January 7, 2017

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: What Are Your Genealogy Goals for 2017?

Friday, August 19, 2016

A Declaration of Intention — from Cuba

Saturday, August 13, 2016

IAJGS 2016 — Conference Wrap-up and Looking Ahead

Pages

Monday, January 6, 2025

Sunday, January 3, 2021

Saturday, January 11, 2020

Tuesday, December 31, 2019

Sunday, August 4, 2019

Wednesday, July 31, 2019

Monday, July 29, 2019

Sunday, December 31, 2017

Sunday, July 30, 2017

Thursday, July 27, 2017

Monday, July 24, 2017

Tuesday, March 28, 2017

Saturday, January 7, 2017

Friday, August 19, 2016

Saturday, August 13, 2016

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