Yitzhak Berchunsky
ca 1880 |
Welcome to the Orange County Jewish Genealogical Society! The OCJGS is your resource in Orange County, California, for all things related to finding your Jewish roots.
Whether you're a beginner or a seasoned expert, you will find our monthly meetings stimulating and informative. In addition to meetings, hands-on workshops, and special events, members also have access to an excellent library of books and magazines pertinent to Jewish genealogy. The Orange County Jewish Genealogical Society is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit. We are a member of the International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies. Remember the Days of Old; Ask your father and he will tell you, your elders and they will explain to you. (Deut. 32:7)
זכר ימות עולם בינו שנות דור ודור שאל אביך ויגדך זקניך ויאמרו לך פרשת האזינו |
The Summer Sale is On!Get $10 off membership. Hurry, when summer is gone, so is this sale. Calendar of EventsWorld-Class Speakers!We have a lineup of truly world class speakers coming to you wherever in the world you are, from wherever in the world they are. We normally meet the 4th Sunday of each month.
Virtual meetings are via Zoom. You must register in advance by clicking the link for the meeting you want to attend. Registration only takes a few seconds. Attendance at virtual meetings is free to OCJGS members. If you are not a member, please consider joining. Otherwise, the charge for non-members is $5. Please visit the Membership page to join or pay your $5 fee. July 28 at 10:00 am (Pacific time zone)
Janice Sellers: Bubbie, Who Are You?: Finding the Maiden Names in Your Family Tree ![]() Female relatives can be difficult to trace, but they can be found. This presentation introduces resources for tracing the women in your family, many of which are available online, including family items, oral histories, federal and state census records, immigration records, vital records, religious records, journals, newspapers, legal and court records, library archives, and manuscript collections.
Janice M. Sellers is related to actor Peter Sellers and to John of Gaunt, son of a king and father of a king. At least that’s what her grandparents told her. Unfortunately, they were wrong, but that’s why she has researched her family for 49 years and now helps others find the right pieces to fit their genealogy puzzles. She specializes in Jewish, Black, forensic, and newspaper research and has taught at local to international levels. Her site is ancestraldiscoveries.com. Register in advance for this Zoom presentation. Click this link to register.
August 25 at 10:00 am (Pacific time zone)
Daniel Wagner Yiddish Theater: From Warsaw to the US, via Harbin, China ![]() My great-grandfather Moshe Zilberkasten grew up in Warsaw and was a promising theater actor in Poland. Then he disappeared and became a family myth: the rumor was that he left for the USA, but nobody knew for sure. This lecture describes 30 years of dedicated research to find out about his extraordinary fate. As will be described, he acted in life much as he did on stage.
Daniel Wagner is a Professor of Materials Science at the Weizmann Institute in Rehovot, Israel. He is also the current Chair of IIJG, the International Institute for Jewish Genealogy and Paul Jacobi Center. Wagner has researched his Polish roots since 1995 and was a Co-Chairman of the 2004 International Conference on Jewish Genealogy held in Jerusalem. Wagner co-chaired (with the late Dr Neville Lamdan) the Genealogy and the Sciences international conference (17-18 December 2018) held at the Weizmann Institute of Science. He is the author of 35 papers and 3 books about genealogy, and the editor of a multi-author booklet about scientific tools in genealogy. He is the Guest Editor of a Special Issue of the Genealogy journal, entitled “Current trends and topics in Jewish genealogy” which includes articles all written by IIJG members (see: https://www.mdpi.com/journal/genealogy). Wagner is the Zdunska Wola JRI Shtetl CO-OP Coordinator and Town Leader and a past Chairman of the Organization of Former Residents of Zdunska Wola. In 2006 he was elected Honorable Citizen of Zdunska Wola. Further details, see: https://www.weizmann.ac.il/materials/Wagner/beyond-science/genealogy. Register in advance for this Zoom presentation. Click this link to register.
September 22 at 10:00 am (Pacific time zone)
Randi Biederman Schindler's Listed: The Search for my Father's Lost Gold ![]() Randi Biederman tells the story of her 20-year-long genealogical search in Poland to uncover clues to the location of the family's stash of gold coins buried just prior to being deported by the Nazis in December 1939. As Randi says, "We started with very little information, and what we thought we knew was wrong."
Randi Biederman is co-author of the book, Schindler’s Listed: The Search for my Father’s Lost Gold. A resident of Southern California, Randi is a widow, mother, horticulturist, teacher and now a writer and a speaker. Randi’s father-in-law, Hirsch, was a teenaged deportee from Poland who ended up as the third person named on Schindler’s List. His family had a treasured coin collection that they buried to keep out of Nazi hands, which was not recovered for over sixty-five years. Part of the book is the story of the treasure hunt, which Randi and her husband, Mark, embarked upon after Mark related the story that his father had told him about the coins. Mark only knew that the coins were buried somewhere in Poland. Mark’s dad died in 1981, so it was no longer possible to ask him any details. Mark eventually, along with Randi, started what ended up being a 20-year quest to discover when and where the family managed to bury the coins. Additionally, the book is the search for answers as to what happened to Hirsch and the rest of his family, all of whom disappeared during the Holocaust. Register in advance for this Zoom presentation. Click this link to register.
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