Event archive - Orange County Jewish Genealogical Society

Judy Golan: There are no brick walls in genealogy research!

1/26/2025

Well, of course there are. But there are a number of search techniques and resources to check before you give up finding your great-grandfather’s birth record.

This session reviewed how to approach your search to discover records of elusive ancestors. Vital detail clues can be found in an array of archive resources, from primary Birth-Marriage-Death records to more esoteric documents.

Examples were illustrated from the JRI-Poland.org massive collection of archival records in the Kielce-Radom-Sandomierz region of Poland, but the methodology can be mapped onto other resources in other lands.

Raised in New York, Judy Golan has lived in Israel for the past 30+ years with her husband, daughters and cats. She received her undergraduate degree from Stanford University where she was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. After receiving an MBA from UCLA, she worked for several years as a marketing executive and consultant both for high tech firms and her own company, On Target Marketing and Strategic Planning.

Today, Judy devotes extensive time as a JRI-Poland.org volunteer as the Area Coordinator for towns in the Kielce, Radom, Sandomierz and Grojec regions as well as Town Leader for several towns. She is the founder of the genealogical consulting firm Find My Roots and was awarded the IIJG Tagger 2nd Prize 2015 for her paper, “Reading Between the Lines: Mining Jewish History Through Extraction of Polish Archive Data.”

The recorded presentation

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Logan Kleinwaks: GenealogyIndexer.org : Searching historical directories, Yizkor books, and more

12/22/2024

GenealogyIndexer.org is a free website for searching 2 million+ pages of historical European directories (business, address, telephone), yizkor books, Galician secondary school reports, Polish and Russian military documents, community histories, and more. Containing tens of millions of personal names – often with towns, street addresses, and occupations, and sometimes with genealogical details such as patronymics, maiden names, or vital dates – most of the 4,000+ sources are not searchable elsewhere.

This talk provided an overview of all sources, with a focus on recently added sources and search techniques. The use of directories in the Warsaw property restitution process was also discussed briefly.

Logan Kleinwaks is JewishGen's Research Director for Danzig/Gdańsk, a former Board Member of Gesher Galicia, and creator of online genealogy research tools. His website GenealogyIndexer.org received the IAJGS 2012 Award for Outstanding Contribution to Jewish Genealogy via the Internet, Print or Electronic Product, and was one of Family Tree Magazine's 101 Best Websites for 2015-2023. He received JewishGen's Susan E. King Volunteer of the Year Award in 2022. During the war in Ukraine, Logan has worked to support Ukrainian archives' needs and facilitate preservation of Jewish genealogical documents in Lviv.

The handout

GenealogyIndexer.org handout
File Size:	331 kb
File Type:	pdf

The recorded presentation

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Schelly Talalay Dardashti: Sephardic Genealogy

11/19/2023

A journalist and genealogist, Schelly Talalay Dardashti is the US Genealogy Advisor for MyHeritage.com. She has been tracking her families across Spain, Eastern Europe, and Iran for more than three decades. She is the founder of “Tracing the Tribe–Jewish Genealogy on Facebook,” with some 69,000 members in more than 100 countries.

The recorded presentation

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David Brill: Getting the most from Revision Lists

9/10/2023

Revision lists (revizskie skazki) are among the most important genealogical resources from the Russian Empire, and are often the only available confirmation that an ancestor actually lived in a particular shtetl. With the growing number of revision list translations on JewishGen and elsewhere, it is easier than ever to expand one's research beyond U.S.-based sources and discover previously unknown genealogical connections.

This talk helped both the novice and the experienced genealogist learn to navigate the world of revision lists. We covered:

What are revision lists? When and why were they created?
What are the differences between censuses and revision lists?
What can revision lists tell me about my family, and about shtetl life in general?
Where can I find revision lists for my town? Are they online?

We explored examples of original revision lists in Russian and showed how they can be used to trace Jewish families. The prospect of reading 19th-century handwritten records may seem daunting at first. But as more and more images of the original Russian-language documents become available to genealogists on the internet, the value of being able to read those records for oneself is undeniable. This talk shows how even with no initial knowledge of Russian you can, with a bit of practice, become a “maven” at recognizing key words, names and phrases.

David R. Brill is a longtime member of the Jewish Genealogical and Archival Society of Greater Philadelphia, and the coordinator of its Russian Interest Group.

For over 25 years, David has researched his family history in the countries of the former Russian Empire (especially Ukraine, Belarus, Lithuania and Russian Poland). Over the years, his interest in this area led him to become a self-taught translator of prerevolutionary Russian-language genealogical records. Currently, he manages the Rovno District Jewish Records Project for JewishGen’s Ukraine Research Division, and is the JewishGen town leader for his ancestral shtetl of Tuchin (Ukraine).

David is a civil engineer with the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration. He lives in Cherry Hill, NJ.

The handout

Getting the most from Revision Lists
File Size:	1480 kb
File Type:	pdf

The recorded presentation

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Serafima Velkovich: Arolsen Archives: History, Exploration, and Online Access

8/27/2023

There are many myths surrounding the materials of the Arolsen Archives in Bad Arolsen, Germany. The International Center on Nazi persecution was, for many years, called the International Tracing Service of the International Red Cross (ITS). It was established as the Central Tracing Bureau at the end of World War II by the Red Cross and Allied forces to trace missing and displaced people and attempt to reunite them with relatives.

This presentation presented the history of the archives and what information can generally be gleaned from the archives' material. Serafima described the challenge of searching in the Arolsen material and strategies for finding the best information from the files, as well as the new and exciting ability to search the Arolsen Archives material online.

Serafima Velkovich is the Head of the Family Roots Research Section in the Reference and Information Department of Yad Vashem Archives division. She has been working at Yad Vashem for 17 years. She is also a PhD Candidate at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Serafima was closely involved in the work on names material in Yad Vashem`s databases. At the same time, her main research field is family roots. She lectures on the use of Yad Vashem resources for genealogical and other research and participates in international conferences and films on Holocaust topics. Her recent publication is “Polish Citizenship as a Way to Freedom: How Soviet Jews Escaped the USSR Using Polish Documents” in “Polish Jews in the Soviet Union (1939–1959): History and Memory of Deportation, Exile, and Survival”.

The recorded presentation

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Michael Moritz: Researching Romanian Jewish Genealogy

6/25/2023

We dove into Romanian Jewish records with Michael Moritz. Michael covered the different regions of Romania past and present, and what types of records are available today in each of the regions. He also discussed the work of the JewishGen Romania research division.

Michael Moritz is an attorney and avid genealogist with 15 years of family research experience, having performed research for hundreds of individuals, with ancestry in over 35 countries and records written in over 10 languages. His research has been featured on the PBS show Finding Your Roots and was cited in The New York Times. Michael is the Director of JewishGen's Romania Research Division and a frequent contributor to its Germany Research Division. He has also volunteered to transcribe thousands of vital records, primarily from Germany and Romania. Michael also moderates Facebook groups for those with Jewish ancestry from Hamburg, Germany and Iasi, Romania.

As an attorney, Michael is currently representing Reclaim the Records, a non-profit organization whose goal is to make public records more accessible, in its suit against the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene regarding public access to New York City death certificates from 1949 to 1968.

For more information about genealogy services and interactive classes, visit www.MoritzResearch.com. For inquiries, please contact [email protected]. You can also follow Michael on LinkedIn and Twitter.

The recorded presentation

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Daniel Horowitz: Researching Jewish Genealogy Sources in Latin America

5/21/2023

Looking for ancestors who lived in, passed through, or died in Latin America? The Internet contains many rich repositories where you can learn about them — and these resources, which can be searched in English or Spanish, are growing each day.

In this session, we learned how to access these resources, contact the communities and people that can help, and use the tools you need to make the most of them. Daniel also provided a quick introduction to the Spanish keywords and translation tools that can help you overcome language barriers and unearth fascinating details about your ancestors located in South America.

Daniel Horowitz is the Genealogy Expert at MyHeritage, where he is the liaison with genealogy societies and media, lecturing, and attending conferences around the world. Dedicated to genealogy since 1986, Daniel taught and edited 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).

The handout

Jewish genealogical resources in Latin America
File Size:	256 kb
File Type:	pdf

The recorded presentation

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Jakub Czupryńsk: Polish State Archives - Researching off the beaten track

4/23/2023

Jakub took us on a guided tour of well-known and less obvious resources for Jewish genealogy in Poland. Apart from vital and census records, the state archives keep millions of other records documenting Jewish life in past centuries.

Jakub Czupryński lives and works in Poland, where he has been a professional genealogist specializing in the history of Polish Jews for over 15 years. He is also a professional travel guide and organizer, specializing in heritage tours in Poland. Jakub collaborates with JRI-Poland, the Jewish Culture Festival in Kraków, and the Kraków Jewish Community Center, where he organizes meetings and lectures on genealogy.

The handouts

Jakub said he is happy to answer your questions via email: [email protected]

Jakub's slides
File Size:	5603 kb
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Galicia Gazetteer [40 MB]
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Interwar Poland Gazetteer (A-M) [85 MB]
File Size:	87020 kb
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Interwar Poland Gazetteer (N-Z) [73 MB]
File Size:	74653 kb
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The recorded presentation

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Michael Morgenstern: Genealogical Gems in the Forverts (Jewish Daily Forward)

3/26/2023

Founded in 1897, the Forverts was a leading Yiddish language newspaper in the United States throughout the 20th century. Most of this newspaper is available to browse digitally for free through the online Historical Jewish Press database.

This lecture examined hidden genealogical gems within this newspaper, some of which can be found with minimal Yiddish skills. Among these gems are personal inquiries submitted by readers seeking information on their relatives, letters to the editor, and the “Gallery of Missing Husbands.” This lecture also covered the historical and cultural context of the newspaper, which will help evaluate its relevance to a researcher's individual family history.

Michael Morgenstern is a native of Los Angeles, California. After completing an undergraduate degree in history at Loyola Marymount University, he worked as a researcher on TLC’s “Who Do You Think You Are?” history and genealogy show. Since 2014, he has worked as an educator at Holocaust Museum Los Angeles. He has been an avid genealogy researcher since he was 16. He has volunteered genealogy research to Holocaust survivors, focusing on those who do not have any prewar family documents or photographs. Lately, he has translated segments of the “Jewish Daily Forward” from Yiddish to English for JewishGen. Some of his work can be seen at “The Forward: A Gallery of Missing Husbands (1908-1914)”

The handout

Forverts handout
File Size:	130 kb
File Type:	pdf

The recorded presentation

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Hallel Yadin: Using YIVO resources for Jewish genealogical research

2/26/2023

The archives and library of the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research constitute the world’s largest collection on Eastern European Jewish history. They include a wealth of sources for genealogical research. In this session, Hallel Yadin reviewed the kinds of documents available at YIVO, including pre-war community records, yizkor books, immigration case files, benevolent society records, and more. She also discussed how to effectively search YIVO’s online catalogs and how to access YIVO’s holdings remotely.

Hallel Yadin is the Archivist & Special Projects Manager at the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research.

The handout

YIVO handout
File Size:	52 kb
File Type:	pdf

The recorded presentation

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