Upcoming Monthly Meetings
Virtual Meetings Via Zoom
Times may vary each month
Times may vary each month
December 13, 2020: Guest speaker, Jennifer Mendelsohn, will present "Think Like a Reporter To Avoid Genealogy Mistakes"
Time: 1:00 p.m. Pacific Standard Time
Members: To RSVP, click here. Members can register for any meeting at any time.
Non-members: Registration will open on November 16. To RSVP starting November 16, click here. To become a member, click here. To attend a specific presentation, we ask that you make a donation by clicking here.
"Think Like a Reporter To Avoid Genealogy Mistakes"
This talk will cover how more than two decades of journalism experience has helped me as a genealogist, both to zero in on reliable information and not to be duped by unreliable information. We’ll talk about using the “Law and Order” method (follow the “dun duns!”) to track down information and how relying on simple principles like Occam’s Razor – that the most likely scenario is the least complicated – and logic grids can help you get further. We’ll go over pitfalls like not blindly using Ancestry hints, assessing the credibility of sources, not being wedded to spelling, (hello, wildcard searches!) and why genealogy is like playing Concentration: you always have to remember the cards you’ve seen and turned over.
Bio of Jennifer Mendelsohn:
Jennifer Mendelsohn is a seasoned journalist and ghostwriter whose work has appeared in numerous local and national publications including The New York Times, The Washington Post, Time, People, Slate, and USA Today.
A native Long Islander now based in Baltimore, Mendelsohn serves on the board of the Jewish Genealogy Society of Maryland and is the administrator of Facebook’s Jewish genetic genealogy group. A member of the Association of Professional Genealogists, she is the creator of the movement known as #resistancegenealogy, a project that uses genealogical and historical records to fight disinformation and honor America’s immigrant past. Her work has received international media attention, including being featured on CNN.com, The New Yorker, and The Washington Post.
Time: 1:00 p.m. Pacific Standard Time
Members: To RSVP, click here. Members can register for any meeting at any time.
Non-members: Registration will open on November 16. To RSVP starting November 16, click here. To become a member, click here. To attend a specific presentation, we ask that you make a donation by clicking here.
"Think Like a Reporter To Avoid Genealogy Mistakes"
This talk will cover how more than two decades of journalism experience has helped me as a genealogist, both to zero in on reliable information and not to be duped by unreliable information. We’ll talk about using the “Law and Order” method (follow the “dun duns!”) to track down information and how relying on simple principles like Occam’s Razor – that the most likely scenario is the least complicated – and logic grids can help you get further. We’ll go over pitfalls like not blindly using Ancestry hints, assessing the credibility of sources, not being wedded to spelling, (hello, wildcard searches!) and why genealogy is like playing Concentration: you always have to remember the cards you’ve seen and turned over.
Bio of Jennifer Mendelsohn:
Jennifer Mendelsohn is a seasoned journalist and ghostwriter whose work has appeared in numerous local and national publications including The New York Times, The Washington Post, Time, People, Slate, and USA Today.
A native Long Islander now based in Baltimore, Mendelsohn serves on the board of the Jewish Genealogy Society of Maryland and is the administrator of Facebook’s Jewish genetic genealogy group. A member of the Association of Professional Genealogists, she is the creator of the movement known as #resistancegenealogy, a project that uses genealogical and historical records to fight disinformation and honor America’s immigrant past. Her work has received international media attention, including being featured on CNN.com, The New Yorker, and The Washington Post.
January 17, 2021: Guest speaker, Daniel Horowitz, will present "Location, Location, Location: Where Your Relatives Were"
Time: 1:00 p.m. Pacific Standard Time
Members: To RSVP, click here. Members can register for any meeting at any time.
Non-members: Registration will open on December 21. To RSVP starting December 21, click here. To become a member, click here. To attend a specific presentation, we ask that you make a donation by clicking here.
" Location, Location, Location: Where Your Relatives Were"
You know what they say: location is everything. Maps, addresses, and places are some of the key points of genealogy research. Analyzing your facts and recognizing when the places you’ve recorded were misspelled, incomplete, or totally wrong can give your research a huge boost — paving the way for you to discover how, where, and why your ancestors lived and worked where they did. By using the correct tools and websites, you’ll find new clues and gain extraordinary insights... but only if you follow the right path. In this lecture, Daniel will show you the way.
Bio of Daniel Horowitz:
Daniel is the Expert Genealogist from MyHeritage. He speaks at genealogy conferences around the world. He has been dedicated to genealogy since 1986. He was the teacher and the study guide editor of the family history project “Searching for My Roots” in Venezuela for 15 years. Daniel is involved in several crowdsource digitization and transcription projects and holds a board level position at the Israel Genealogy Research Association (IGRA)
Time: 1:00 p.m. Pacific Standard Time
Members: To RSVP, click here. Members can register for any meeting at any time.
Non-members: Registration will open on December 21. To RSVP starting December 21, click here. To become a member, click here. To attend a specific presentation, we ask that you make a donation by clicking here.
" Location, Location, Location: Where Your Relatives Were"
You know what they say: location is everything. Maps, addresses, and places are some of the key points of genealogy research. Analyzing your facts and recognizing when the places you’ve recorded were misspelled, incomplete, or totally wrong can give your research a huge boost — paving the way for you to discover how, where, and why your ancestors lived and worked where they did. By using the correct tools and websites, you’ll find new clues and gain extraordinary insights... but only if you follow the right path. In this lecture, Daniel will show you the way.
Bio of Daniel Horowitz:
Daniel is the Expert Genealogist from MyHeritage. He speaks at genealogy conferences around the world. He has been dedicated to genealogy since 1986. He was the teacher and the study guide editor of the family history project “Searching for My Roots” in Venezuela for 15 years. Daniel is involved in several crowdsource digitization and transcription projects and holds a board level position at the Israel Genealogy Research Association (IGRA)
February 21, 2021: Guest speaker, Todd Knowles, will present "What's New at FamilySearch"
Time: 1:00 p.m. Pacific Standard Time
Members: To RSVP, click here. Members can register for any meeting at any time.
Non-members: Registration will open on January 25. To RSVP starting January 25, click here. To become a member, click here. To attend a specific presentation, we ask that you make a donation by clicking here.
"What's New at FamilySearch"
FamilySearch is one of the largest genealogical websites and grows more every day. This presentation will show some of the newest features of FamilySearch and how best to utilize them to find your Jewish ancestors..
Bio of Todd Knowles:
W. Todd Knowles is an accredited Genealogist who specializes in English and Jewish research. For the past 20 years he has been a member of the staff at the Family History Library in Salt Lake City, where he currently serves as a Deputy Chief Genealogical Officer. He is past President of the Utah Jewish Genealogy Society (UJGS).
Todd has lectured all over the world and his articles have been widely published. His own genealogical search began at the age of twelve with the desire to find more about his family and grows every day. His quest to find more about his GGGrandfather, a Polish Jew, has led to the creation of the Knowles Collection, six databases that contain the records of the Jewish people. It currently (as of Jan 2020) contains the records of over 1.4 million people.
March 21, 2021: Guest speaker, Hal Bookbinder, will present "Why Did Our Jewish Ancestors Leave a Great Place Like the Pale?"
Time: 1:00 p.m. Pacific Standard Time
Members: To RSVP, click here. Members can register for any meeting at any time.
Non-members: Registration will open on March 1. To RSVP starting March 1, click here. To become a member, click here. To attend a specific presentation, we ask that you make a donation by clicking here.
"Why Did Our Jewish Ancestors Leave a Great Place Like the Pale?"
Jews had lived in Western Russia (the Pale) for centuries. At the turn of the last, two million left. This talk discusses how the Pale came to be, life in it and why the mass migration occurred. It breaks its 120-year history into periods of creation, confinement, repression, enlightenment, pogroms and chaos. There is more to the story than the horrific violence at the turn of the 20th century.
Bio of Hal Bookbinder:
Hal writes and lectures extensively on diverse genealogical topics, including border changes, migration, citizenship and practicing safe computing. He has identified over 4,000 relatives, tracing two lines to the mid-1700s in modern Ukraine. He has served as president of the IAJGS and has been honored with its Lifetime Achievement Award. Hal is a retired information technology director who continues to teach at the university level. He also directs a transition-to-work training program for individuals in addiction recovery. Hal and his family reside in the Los Angeles area. Check out his articles on safe computing at http://www.tinyurl.com/SafeComputingArticles.
Time: 1:00 p.m. Pacific Standard Time
Members: To RSVP, click here. Members can register for any meeting at any time.
Non-members: Registration will open on March 1. To RSVP starting March 1, click here. To become a member, click here. To attend a specific presentation, we ask that you make a donation by clicking here.
"Why Did Our Jewish Ancestors Leave a Great Place Like the Pale?"
Jews had lived in Western Russia (the Pale) for centuries. At the turn of the last, two million left. This talk discusses how the Pale came to be, life in it and why the mass migration occurred. It breaks its 120-year history into periods of creation, confinement, repression, enlightenment, pogroms and chaos. There is more to the story than the horrific violence at the turn of the 20th century.
Bio of Hal Bookbinder:
Hal writes and lectures extensively on diverse genealogical topics, including border changes, migration, citizenship and practicing safe computing. He has identified over 4,000 relatives, tracing two lines to the mid-1700s in modern Ukraine. He has served as president of the IAJGS and has been honored with its Lifetime Achievement Award. Hal is a retired information technology director who continues to teach at the university level. He also directs a transition-to-work training program for individuals in addiction recovery. Hal and his family reside in the Los Angeles area. Check out his articles on safe computing at http://www.tinyurl.com/SafeComputingArticles.
April 18, 2021: Guest speaker, Emily Garber, will present "Town Counsel: Finding Your Ancestor's European Town of Origin"
Time: 1:00 p.m. Pacific Standard Time
Members: To RSVP, click here. Members can register for any meeting at any time.
Non-members: Registration will open on March 29. To RSVP starting March 29, click here. To become a member, click here. To attend a specific presentation, we ask that you make a donation by clicking here.
“Town Counsel: Finding Your Ancestor's European Town of Origin”
One of the most important building blocks of Jewish genealogy research is determining our ancestors’ communities of origin, especially where those places are on today’s maps. Discovering an ancestor’s town of origin (either birthplace or last residence) may be one of our most exciting research findings because it could be the portal to allow us to push our family tree back several generations.
Because records were (and are) often kept at local, municipal level or regional levels, successful genealogical research depends upon knowing our ancestors’ correct communities of residence. One cannot successfully jump the pond to Eastern Europe with one’s research until one has established location information from immigrant ancestors’ and relatives’ records in their adopted countries.
Bio of Emily Garber:
An archaeologist by training (B.A., Vassar College; M.A., University of New Mexico), Emily Garber is a professional genealogy researcher, writer and speaker who specializes in Jewish genealogical research. She has researched both Eastern European and German Jewish communities and immigrants to the United States and Great Britain. She has toured family shtetlach (communities) and explored archives in Ukraine.
After retiring from her 30+ year career in natural resources management, Emily earned a certificate from Boston University's Genealogical Research program. She has spoken at eight International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies conferences and at the National Genealogical Society’s virtual conference. She has presented talks and seminars throughout the United States, and in Israel and Poland. In the summer of 2020, she coordinated the week-long seminar at the Genealogical Research Institute of Pittsburgh, “Introduction to Jewish Genealogy.” She has authored three articles published in Avotaynu: The International Review of Jewish Genealogy and, for a client, completed two privately published volumes chronicling the 300-year history of a German Jewish family. She writes a family history blog, The Extra Yad (https://extrayad.blogspot.com/).
Emily serves on the board of the International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies. She is also Chair of the Phoenix Jewish Genealogy Group and is on the boards of the Arizona Jewish Historical Society as well as JewishGen’s Ukraine and Romania Research Groups. She was one of the moderators of the JewishGen Discussion Group for about 10 years.
Time: 1:00 p.m. Pacific Standard Time
Members: To RSVP, click here. Members can register for any meeting at any time.
Non-members: Registration will open on March 29. To RSVP starting March 29, click here. To become a member, click here. To attend a specific presentation, we ask that you make a donation by clicking here.
“Town Counsel: Finding Your Ancestor's European Town of Origin”
One of the most important building blocks of Jewish genealogy research is determining our ancestors’ communities of origin, especially where those places are on today’s maps. Discovering an ancestor’s town of origin (either birthplace or last residence) may be one of our most exciting research findings because it could be the portal to allow us to push our family tree back several generations.
Because records were (and are) often kept at local, municipal level or regional levels, successful genealogical research depends upon knowing our ancestors’ correct communities of residence. One cannot successfully jump the pond to Eastern Europe with one’s research until one has established location information from immigrant ancestors’ and relatives’ records in their adopted countries.
Bio of Emily Garber:
An archaeologist by training (B.A., Vassar College; M.A., University of New Mexico), Emily Garber is a professional genealogy researcher, writer and speaker who specializes in Jewish genealogical research. She has researched both Eastern European and German Jewish communities and immigrants to the United States and Great Britain. She has toured family shtetlach (communities) and explored archives in Ukraine.
After retiring from her 30+ year career in natural resources management, Emily earned a certificate from Boston University's Genealogical Research program. She has spoken at eight International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies conferences and at the National Genealogical Society’s virtual conference. She has presented talks and seminars throughout the United States, and in Israel and Poland. In the summer of 2020, she coordinated the week-long seminar at the Genealogical Research Institute of Pittsburgh, “Introduction to Jewish Genealogy.” She has authored three articles published in Avotaynu: The International Review of Jewish Genealogy and, for a client, completed two privately published volumes chronicling the 300-year history of a German Jewish family. She writes a family history blog, The Extra Yad (https://extrayad.blogspot.com/).
Emily serves on the board of the International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies. She is also Chair of the Phoenix Jewish Genealogy Group and is on the boards of the Arizona Jewish Historical Society as well as JewishGen’s Ukraine and Romania Research Groups. She was one of the moderators of the JewishGen Discussion Group for about 10 years.
May 16, 2021: Guest speaker, Marian Smith, will present "The What and When of US Immigration and Naturalization Records"
Time: 1:00 p.m. Pacific Time
Members: To RSVP, click here. Members can register for any meeting at any time.
Non-members: Registration will open on April 26. To RSVP starting April 26, click here. To become a member, click here. To attend a specific presentation, we ask that you make a donation by clicking here.
"The What and When of US Immigration and Naturalization Records"
Marian Smith will present an overview of three historical eras (1820-Present) of US immigration and naturalization records illustrated with documents of Jewish immigrants. Using a timeline tool (included in the handout), she will demonstrate how plotting an immigrant’s life events can identify what records may exist for that particular immigrant, and where to find them. A question and answer session follows the presentation.
Bio of Marian Smith:
Marian Smith retired in 2018 after thirty years as an Historian for the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), later US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). She now speaks to groups on US immigration and nationality records and leads the I&N Records Fortnightly study group.
Time: 1:00 p.m. Pacific Time
Members: To RSVP, click here. Members can register for any meeting at any time.
Non-members: Registration will open on April 26. To RSVP starting April 26, click here. To become a member, click here. To attend a specific presentation, we ask that you make a donation by clicking here.
"The What and When of US Immigration and Naturalization Records"
Marian Smith will present an overview of three historical eras (1820-Present) of US immigration and naturalization records illustrated with documents of Jewish immigrants. Using a timeline tool (included in the handout), she will demonstrate how plotting an immigrant’s life events can identify what records may exist for that particular immigrant, and where to find them. A question and answer session follows the presentation.
Bio of Marian Smith:
Marian Smith retired in 2018 after thirty years as an Historian for the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), later US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). She now speaks to groups on US immigration and nationality records and leads the I&N Records Fortnightly study group.
June 20, 2021: Guest speaker, Jordan Auslander, will present "Researching NYC Records Remotely"
Time: 1:00 p.m. Pacific Time
Members: To RSVP, click here. Members can register for any meeting at any time.
Non-members: Registration will open on May 24. To RSVP starting April 26, click here. To become a member, click here. To attend a specific presentation, we ask that you make a donation by clicking here.
"Researching NYC Records Remotely"
As the cosmopolitan gateway to the United States, New York City continues to appeal to those who dream of a better life. Between 1820 and 1920 over 82 percent of immigrants to the United States came through the port of New York. Even if they migrated elsewhere, over 100,000,000 Americans have an ancestral paper trail that involves New York City (of them about 40 million have roots in Brooklyn). Learn how to trace your New York ancestors, whether they were passing through or called it home as well as resources to help you reconnect with family that remained elsewhere. While on-site research is the optimal approach to research, this is not always convenient or feasible.
Nevertheless, much can be accomplished in advance or in lieu of physical travel. Components of New York City family history can be identified without setting foot on Broadway using a broad array of free and subscription internet sites as well as some conventional sources. These resources will be evaluated in the context of the questions and needs of lecture participants.
Bio of Jordan Auslander:
Former transportation planner, now New York based genealogical researcher, lecturer and expert witness. Jordan has pursued cases across the United States, Europe and Israel; translated, created and published an index to vital records in the Slovak State Archive system, Genealogical Gazetteer of the Kingdom of Hungary. (and articles including the history and documentation of US participants in WWI),
His history BA first applied in title search, real estate and background contracted for various literary projects; Jordan got into genealogy, like everyone else -- too late. Interest in family history grew while stuck with sorting through bales of material his paternal grandmother accumulated. He joined the Jewish Genealogical Society in 1988 serving on its board 1994-96; member of the Association of Professional Genealogists and The New York Genealogical & Biographical Society.
Applied his theatrical writing and acting pretensions as “Heir Jordan, Extreme Genealogist” Telly award winner for RootsTelevision.com and the ‘reliably inappropriate’ host of IAJGS conference Gameshow Night.