Marelynn Zipser, 1937-2021

UJGS is sad to report the death of Marelynn Zipser on February 19th.

Marelynn was a founding member of our society, serving as Membership Chair for many years, continuing as an active member until about 2017. She had a regular column in our newsletter, “Zip Tip”, with advice for research, often about the Family History Library. She was featured in the “Member Spotlight” in issue 14 in 2006.

Marelynn was a huge contributor to Jewish genealogy for over 15 years, indexing Hungarian records for the Hungary-SIG of JewishGen after researching her husband’s Austro-Hungarian family. The 1869 Hungarian census indexing project began with her work and she was often the only indexer for entire towns of records in the census or vital records, including indexing all of the Bratislava Jewish vital records in 2011, over 28,000 names.

In 2016, Marelynn received the IAJGS Volunteer of the Year award (nominated by her friends at UJGS), for her contributions to the Hungary-SIG database for so many years.

Her obituary can be found online, detailing her family and some of her life’s adventures.

UJGS sends it condolences to her family and friends.