Perplexing as it may seem, the program for the 28th International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies (IAJGS) Conference on Jewish Genealogy to be held in Chicago, August 17–22, 2008, may in fact be largely characterized as “guns, cats and DNA.” Co-hosted by the IAJGS, the Jewish Genealogical Society of Illinois, and the Illiana Jewish Genealogical Society, the conference will be held at the Chicago Marriott Downtown Magnificent Mile. For more information and registration, see . The following highlights some of the presentations that will be given in more than 150 sessions by more than 100 speakers.
Keynote Speaker
Attorney and genealogist E. Randol Schoenberg will be our keynote speaker at the opening ceremony. In his talk on “Recovering Nazi-Looted Art—A Genealogist’s Tale,” he will highlight how the skills he obtained as a genealogist facilitated his highly successful pursuit of Nazi-looted art cases.
Genealogical Research in Chicago and the Midwest
Some presentations will focus on Chicago resources, such as the Circuit Court of Cook County (Illinois) genealogical records, property records in Cook County, and Chicago’s Newberry library. One session will offer an overview of specific Chicago institutions and the resources available in them. In “How I Almost Didn’t Find Doda Channa from Tshikago (Chicago?),” Rony Golan will show how he tracked down Chicago relatives for his mother, a Holocaust survivor. The Chicago Jewish Archives at Chicago’s Spertus Institute of Jewish Study, will offer extended hours during the conference, but, since space is limited, an advance appointment is necessary; call 312-322-1741.
An informative and highly entertaining presentation will focus on the Broadway musical and Hollywood movie Chicago, based on the stories of two real-life Chicago women who killed their lovers (with guns). In their presentation, “The Musical Chicago and All That Genealogical Jazz,” Ron Arons and Mike Karsen will demonstrate how, by collecting standard genealogical documents, they have pieced together the lives of these two women and will, as well, put their tales into the context of Chicago history.
Moving away from Chicago, but still focusing on the Midwest, attendees may learn about various Midwestern resources for Jewish genealogy, such as the genealogy center at the Allen County Library in Fort Wayne, Indiana. Wisconsin resources will be featured in one session, and two genealogy specialists from Indiana will be available in the resource room of the Ancestry.com Learning Center, on Wednesday, August 20, to assist those researching that state. Sandy Rikoon, Professor of Rural Sociology at the University of Missouri, will focus on the work of the Chicago-based Jewish Agriculturalists’ Aid Society of America (JAAS) in “Jewish Farm Settlement in the Heartland from 1888 to 1910” and will include information about families found in the JAAS reports.
For Beginners
A beginner’s workshop in Jewish Genealogy will be offered on Sunday morning, August 17. This always-popular, multi-hour workshop by Nancy Levin (Arbeiter) covers all the basics in a thorough manner.
Research On and Off-Line
Learn how to use a Cat to enhance genealogical research. Reference librarian Shelly Weiner will introduce WorldCat, the world’s largest online library database with information on more than 96 million items owned by 60,000-plus libraries worldwide. Weiner will explain where and how to obtain access to WorldCat and how to use it to further genealogical research.
| “Presentations will be given in more than 150 sessions by more than 100 speakers.” |
Other resources to be delved into by various presenters will be: JewishGen databases, FamilySearch.org, Ancestry.com, MyHeritage.com, Footnote.com, and a genealogical tour through the World Wide Web. Not everything is online, of course. This will be demonstrated in a presentation with that very title by Alex Friedlander. Attendees also can learn about the HIAS Archives from Valery Bazarov, Director of HIAS Location and Family History Service. Marian Smith, Senior Historian at the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, will present two of her always-popular talks on immigration records, “Introduction to Immigration and Naturalization Research” and “Documenting Immigrants to America, 1882–1954.” Another of the many practical presentations will be “Utilizing Archives from the Perspective of Archivist and Researcher,” by Karen Franklin (who wears both hats), a program designed to help genealogists benefit maximally from an archive experience, whether it is in person or through correspondence.
Specific Geographical Areas and Experts from Abroad
Many specific geographical areas from which our ancestors hailed or where family members live or lived will have detailed coverage from experts: Austria, Canada, Courtland, Czechoslovakia, Galicia, Germany, Hungary, Israel, Jamaica, Latin America, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Poland, Russia, and Ukraine.
Hubert Steiner, Archivist at the Austrian National Archives in Vienna, will describe the property files at that repository and their use in the Holocaust-era property restitution process. Lenka Matusikova, Archivist at the National Archives in Prague, Czech Republic, will explain archival holdings pertaining to the Jews of Bohemia and Moravia. Another session, with Henry Wellisch, will cover Vienna, Prague and Budapest, great cities with large pre-Holocaust Jewish communities.
Attendees will be enlightened by Hilary Henkin speaking on Canadian immigration, border crossings, censuses, and other Canadian resources and by Gladys Friedman Paulin discussing Jewish farm colonies in Saskatchewan.
Professor Omar Bartov, Distinguished Professor of European History at Brown University, will give a session entitled “Erased: Vanishing Traces of Jewish Galicia in Present-Day Ukraine,” based on his recently published book of the same name. Bartov also will present “The ‘Jew’ in Cinema: From ‘The Golem’ to ‘Don’t Touch My Holocaust.’”
As one of two Lucille Gudis Memorial lectures (sponsored by the Jewish Genealogical Society, Inc., New York City), Zvi Gitelman, Professor of Political Science and Judaic Studies at the University of Michigan, will speak on “The Litvak-Galitzianer Wars: The Cultural Geography of East European Jewry.” In this talk, he will explore the differences among East European Jews and the stereotypes to which they gave rise, illustrating the richness and vitality of a civilization that continues to form Jewish life in Europe, the Americas, and Israel. Professor Gitelman’s second Lucille Gudis Memorial lecture is entitled “An Uneasy Relationship: Jews, Soviets, and Russians.”
Presentations on Germany include three by Friedrich R. Wollmershäuser of Oberdischingen (near Ulm), Germany. His three presentations will cover genealogical sources for Southern-German Jews from the pre-emancipation period, genealogical sources about Southern-German Jews from the post-emancipation period (1806 until 1933), and marriage contracts of German Jews.
“Gazetteers and Research in the Kingdom of Hungary” will be the focus of Jordan Auslander’s session, in which he will show how genealogists can use a variety of map series and gazetteers, published and on the Internet, to overcome problems with changes in spelling and town names that took place when Hungary was dismembered in 1920.
Three presentations on Latin America will be given. A general overview of genealogical resources on that continent will be presented by Daniel Horowitz, who will also give a session specifically about Venezuela. Argentina will be covered in a session by Rabbi Victor Mirelman, born and raised in Buenos Aires, but currently living in Chicago. A luncheon for questions and answers on research in Venezuela and Argentina will feature both Horowitz and Mirelman as experts.
Among the various programs covering Lithuanian and Latvian research will be “Litvak Migratory Decisions in the 19th Century and Their Consequences,” by Professor Ruth Leiserowitz of the Berlin School for European Comparative History at the Free University of Berlin and the Institute of Baltic Sea Region History and Archaeology of the Klaipeda University (Lithuania).
Natalia D. Alhazov of Chisinau, Moldova, will present two programs about Moldova. The first will be about the Kishinev Pogrom of 1903, in which she will show how this three-day, anti-Jewish riot, in which “only” 49 Jews were killed, had such a lasting effect on the city and beyond. Her other session is entitled “Looking for Jewish Roots in Moldova,” in which she will discuss what can be found at the National Archives and in registry offices, including census materials, rabbinate metric registers, documentation from Jewish schools, and more.
Polish research will be covered in 12 sessions. Fay and Julian Bussgang will present two sessions relating to the topic, “Books of Residents and Other Lesser-Known Polish Sources” and “Polish Pronunciation and Basic Grammar for Understanding Documents.” Jonathan Shea will discuss “Content and Location of Polish and Russian Language Documents in Eastern European Archives.” Judy Baston and Mark Halpern will take two sessions to focus in detail on “Polish Records: What They Contain, Where They Are, and How to Get Them.” In addition, Paul Valesek will present a session on “Www.PolishRoots.org—Why It Applies to More Than Poles.” Debra Kay-Blatt and Warren Blatt will speak on “Using Pre-1826 Polish Parish Records in Jewish Research.” Matthew Bielwa’s session will focus on “Gazetteers, Maps, and Geographical Dictionaries for Jewish Genealogical Research in Poland.” Stanley Diamond will describe “Jewish Records Indexing–Poland: What’s New,” and Mark Halpern will be the expert at a breakfast on JRI–Poland questions and answers.
Two computer workshops will focus on Polish research, “Szlepping through Kalisz: Journey of Researching Polish Families Using the Family History Library and JRI–Poland” and “Jewish Records Indexing–Poland Database Search Techniques,” taught by Banai Feldstein and Hadassah Lipsius, respectively.
Alexandre Beider, soon to publish the revised edition of his Dictionary of Jewish Surnames from the Russian Empire (Avotaynu), will address the topic “Comparison of Surname Patterns in Various Regions of the Russian Empire.” Jonathan Shea and Kahlile Mehr will cover Russian resources for Jewish genealogy.
Alex Dunai of Lviv, Ukraine, will share his expertise on “Documents of the 1897 General Census of Population of the Russian Empire in the Ukrainian Archives” and “Ukrainian/Galician Archives: Records, Research, and Resourcefulness.”
DNA and Genetics
Three presentations, offered as a mini-seminar sponsored by Genzyme Corp., will focus on Jewish genetic diseases and how genealogists can play a role in identifying family medical history. Other sessions focused on DNA and genetics include: “From DNA to Genetic Genealogy: Everything You Wanted to Know but Were Afraid to Ask” (Steve Morse); “A Y-DNA Study of 50 Related Families within a Unique Jewish Cluster” (Herbert Huebscher and Saul Issroff); “The DNA of Ashkenazi Jewry by Genetic Groups” (Bennett Greenspan); “Genetic Goldmine: Jewish DNA Disorders and Their Role in Refining the Story of the Jews” (Jon Entine); and “Genes for Genealogists: Genetics, Inheritance, and DNA Made Simple” (Nina Sitron). Dr. Michael Hammer and Matt Kaplan will deliver a progress report on the DNA Shoah Project, based in Tucson, Arizona. More about this project—which seeks to use DNA to reunite families separated during the Holocaust, assist global orphan-placement organizations to identify siblings and close relatives separated during World War II, and eventually, when the database has reached sufficient size, assist European governments in Holocaust-era forensic identifications—may be found at .
Holocaust Research
Presentations will be made regarding the International Tracing Service so all can learn about the latest updates and how to access documents held there (Gary Mokotoff), and there will be two sessions on those records now accessible at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (Megan Lewis, the Reference Coordinator for the Survivors Registry at the museum) and Yad Vashem. Other types of materials found at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum will be explained by Megan Lewis in a separate session. Attendees will be able to learn all about JewishGen’s Holocaust Resources. Berl Falbaum will relate the story of Jews who escaped to Shanghai from Nazi Europe.
Other Programming
Other programs include how to organize successful family reunions, family newsletters, writing your family history, citations made simple, scanning and restoring old photographs, forensic genealogy, blogging, a number of programs on researching Sephardic ancestry, and “Fire! Fire!—Prioritizing Your Valuables in an Emergency” with Carol Baird, forced to evacuate her home on short notice during the recent fires in Southern California. (Her home was not destroyed.)
Finally
Check out the breakfasts, lunches, and computer workshops; each focuses on a specific topic. They are listed on the conference website, <www.chicago.2008.org>, along with the complete program and complete conference information.
Anne Feder Lee of Honolulu, Hawaii, Mike Posnick of Minneapolis, Minnesota, and Joel Spector of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, serve as IAJGS President, Treasurer and Secretary, respectively. They serve as co-chairs of the Chicago conference.
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