All posts by Banai Lynn Feldstein

Banai is the Treasurer, Webmaster, and Past President of UJGS. She is a professional genealogist living in Salt Lake City, Utah specializing in Jewish and European research.

Learning Opportunities

NJOP (National Jewish Outreach Program) has just begun a series of webinars titled a Crash Course in Jewish History. Wednesday nights at 5:30pm Mountain time, you can join these 90 minute sessions for free, ending on July 19th. Unfortunately, the first session was last week, so sign up quickly to get the rest of the series. The first session covered from the birth of Abram until the time of King David, so essentially the Old Testament and Prophets times. The session was recorded, but we don’t know if the playback will be available. Sign up at their web site to attend the rest of the series: https://njop.org/judaism/crash-course-in-jewish-history-with-rabbi-ephraim-buchwald-on-zoom/

We also want to remind you that the FEEFHS conference (Federation of East European Family History Societies) has their conference coming up in Salt Lake City, from August 1 – 4. There will be a virtual option, if you’re going to IAJGS or are otherwise unable to attend, but in person, there will be additional classes, consultations with experts at the FamilySearch Library, social opportunities, and more. Early bird registration is still available until June 30th at their web site: https://feefhs.org/index.php/conference-2023-info

During our meeting, we also learned about a YouTube channel for Jewish history from Dr. Henry Abramson, a specialist in Jewish history. There are many videos about specific parts of Jewish history, information about Jewish holidays, and other Judaica topics. Visit his channel any time to watch what interests you: https://www.youtube.com/@HenryAbramsonPhD/videos

Call to Meeting – February 27

Scheduled just in time for those arriving early to RootsTech, we will have Daniel Horowitz, the Genealogy Expert of MyHeritage, speaking to us about Why is my Grandmother’s Record Private? on February 27th at 6pm in the Main Floor Classroom B at the FamilySearch Library (formerly known as the Family History Library). We will also be broadcasting via Zoom for those who can not be there in person.

About the presentation: Searching for family records can be frustrating, especially when you discover that the records that may hold the answers to all your questions are in an archive that won’t grant you access. Why are some records kept in the dark while others are freely available? In this lecture, Daniel will share his extensive personal experience tracking down restricted records and his knowledge of the various privacy regulations around the world. He’ll show you some strategies for accessing hard-to-get records… and why you may need to wait another 100 years to get your hands on the ones you are missing.

About Daniel: Dedicated to Genealogy since 1986, he was the teacher and the study guide editor of 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). Since 2006, Daniel has been working at MyHeritage liaising with genealogy societies, bloggers, and media, as well as lecturing, and attending conferences around the world.

Please note the earlier start time at 6pm, as the FSL hours are not late enough for our usual meeting time. If you’re in Utah, whether a local, a society member, or just visiting for RootsTech, we’d love for you to join us in person. Masks are requested.

Or you can register here to attend via Zoom. We will not be able to test the technology on location before the meeting, so we apologize in advance for any technical difficulties.

Genealogy Education Around the Internet

You probably already know this, but there are genealogy events happening online all the time, especially since 2020. Today we’re sharing a few that sounded quite interesting, but there are so many more. All of the events listed here are free. We have listed the advertised time and the Mountain time, just in case we got any of those wrong.

And some that are on YouTube; we’re not aware if any of these have a limited time to view them.

  • Forgotten Holocaust: A Journey to Transnistria, English subtitles, from Institute for Germany Culture and History of Southeastern Europe at Ludwig-maximilians-Universitat Munchen, a film from 2019 about a girl from Czernowitz who survived (35 minutes) – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LGZaSXLzIjk

Don’t forget that RootsTech is right around the corner. Those in Utah can attend in person, but the virtual tickets are free – https://www.familysearch.org/rootstech/

And finally, UJGS’s next meeting will take place just before RootsTech, in person (and virtual), at the FamilySearch Library, formerly known as the Family History Library, on Monday, 27 February. Our speaker will be Daniel Horowitz, Genealogy Expert at MyHeritage. We’ll probably be starting at 6pm, instead of our usual 7pm. More details to come.

GRIP Evening Programs

The Genealogical Research Institute of Pittsburgh (GRIP) has some evening programs coming up that are free to the public to attend via Zoom thanks to several sponsoring organizations. These all take place at 5PM Mountain time.

Each presentation is hosted by the sponsoring society, and must be registered for via each society, but you may find some other presentations of interest on each one.

Presentations include:

  • Rebecca Whitman Koford, Research Logs: Write or Regret It
  • Debbie Abbott, Through the Eyes of a Genealogist: Paul Newman
  • CeCe Moore, Serendipitous Story of John Doe and an Adoptee
  • Michael Lacopo, Method for Identifying the German Origins of American Immigrants
  • Karen Stanbary, It’s All About Respect: Clinical Tips to Manage Uncomfortable Conversations bout Surprising DNA Test Results
  • Annette Burke Lyttle, Reconstructing the Lives of Our Farming Ancestors
  • David Rencher, An Update on What’s New at FamilySearch and the 1950 Census Indexing Project
  • Rich Venezia, Alien Registrations in America

Presentations are daily from June 20 – 23 and July 11 – 14.

Learn more at the GRIP web site, where you will also find the links to register for each presentation.

Call to Meeting – September 13

Shana Tova! Happy New Year! It’s now the year 5782 and we’ve got our first meeting of the year coming up in between major holidays, which is why we’re meeting this coming Monday, September 13, at 6:30pm, via Zoom.

Paul Graham will be teaching us about Genealogical Source Citations.

Citations are important for everyone to use, no matter what level of genealogist you are, amateur to advanced. If you don’t know where the information came from, you can’t know how reliable it is, especially if you find something later that contradicts it.

Registration is required, as always.

We’ll see you there.

Call to Meeting – July 19

Our next meeting of UJGS will be on the 19th of July, 6:30pm Mountain Time.

Our speakers are Schelly Talalay Dardashti and Maria Apodaca presenting about Conversos and Crypto Jews.

Schelly, founder of “Tracing the Tribe,” will discuss ethnicity, history, migration and DNA of Converso Jews. Maria will speak about her family’s personal journey. Both are leaders of Centro Sefarad New Mexico, the Sephardic Heritage program of the Jewish Federation of New Mexico.

Beginning this month, we are moving from GoToWebinar to Zoom, so be patient with us as we figure out the new software.

Registration is required.

We’ll see you there.