Madeleine Isenberg, was born in London, England, and is a retired software engineer who was also a project manager and technical writer, primarily at Northrop-Grumman Corp., an aerospace developer, in California.

She has a BA in mathematics from UCLA, and “all-but-Master’s-thesis” in computer science from the Technion, Israel’s Institute of Technology.

She is fluent in Hebrew, having lived in Israel for over 10 years, and also manages with French, German, and some Spanish in a pinch.

She has been a genealogy researcher since becoming a member of the Jewish Genealogy Society of Los Angeles (JGSLA) in 1992. Since 2004, she has read and deciphered several thousands of tombstones and continues to do so. For the Spis Region of Slovakia alone, she translated information from over 3200 tombstones from over 25 cemeteries and has collected and maintained vital statistics data for Jews who once lived there. Over time, she has submitted portions of these burial records and tombstone images to JewishGen’s Jewish On-line World Burial Registry (JOWBR). As part of on-going efforts, she contributes translations of Jewish names for findagrave.com, when encountered and accepted. The latter includes a long-term project with Peter Absolon (peter@absolon.eu), to identify those buried in Kosice, Slovakia. Results are also intended for eventual addition to JOWBR.

In 2006, she co-authored the dual language (Slovak and English) book, “Jews in the Spis Region, Vol. I, Kezmarok and its Surroundings,” with Mikulas Liptak, of Slovakia. It was revised in 2010.

Aside from various low-tech hand-craft hobbies, she currently enjoys writing, especially family history. She has been a contributor of articles to JGSLA’s periodical, the Roots-Key Quarterly and the internationally-known quarterly journal, Avotaynu. Also within JewishGen's website, she has translated several sections of the Yizkor (memorial) book for Slovakia, as well as creating three KehilaLinks sites for towns in Slovakia (Kezmarok, Huncovce, Kosice).

She has given colorful and informative presentations on beginning genealogy, deciphering the content on tombstones, and comparison between Ashkenazi and Sephardi tombstones at several local venues. She has presented at International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies (IAJGS) Conferences (2010, Los Angeles; 2014, Salt Lake City, UT, and 2015, Jerusalem, Israel, and IAJGS 2016, in Seattle, WA, is imminent.

If someone needs help with specific tombstones, if you contact her, Madeleine always tries her best for you!