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.

Call To Meeting

Call to Meeting – February 27

16 February 2023 Banai Lynn Feldstein

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.

Press Release

Genealogy Education Around the Internet

1 February 2023 Banai Lynn Feldstein

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.

Now until 7 February, Virtual Tour of Jewish Barbados, speaker Neal Rechtman, from Baltimore Zionist District – https://www.dropbox.com/s/fknxt50qadt30pp/Jewish%20Barbados.mp4?dl=0

7 February, 5pm Pacific (6pm Mountain), Unusual Places to Find Births and Naturalizations, Debra Dudek, San Angelo Genealogical and Historical Society – https://register.gotowebinar.com/register/5237471287352579339

8 February, 4pm Pacific (5pm Mountain), Eastern European Research, Joey L. Caccarozzo, Howard County Genealogy Society – https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSe_gzJc3SOfOfiWzVZm_emq_EmuP1VwoECBGhL8EILCVFuOug/viewform – (Because this is not a Jewish session, it might be interesting to see if they have different ideas for research paths.)

9 February, noon Pacific (1pm Mountain), The Sassoons: The Rise and Fall of a Jewish Dynasty, speaker Joseph Sassoon, from Maven/American Jewish University – https://maven.aju.edu/events-classes/program/the-sassoons-the-rise-and-fall-of-a-jewish-dynasty

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

How the Holocaust Began, James Bulgin, a documentary from BBC Two (59 minutes) – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9eC0wGmOoB4

Virtual Tour of Jewish Iraq, Joseph Samuels, from My Jewish Learning (58 minutes) – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=loMSH70Gh38

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.

Call To Meeting

Meeting Link – 18 July

18 July 2022 Banai Lynn Feldstein

The link to register for our July 18 meeting via Zoom:

https://ancestry.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJYof-CpqjguHdfuym1e36JPEOk9jUhdAK7T

Please give yourself time before the meeting begins to complete the registration. Our meeting starts at 7pm, as usual. See you tonight.

Press Release

GRIP Evening Programs

11 June 2022 Banai Lynn Feldstein

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

Call to Meeting – December 20

13 December 2021 Banai Lynn Feldstein

Join us for our next meeting on Monday, December 20th, at 6:30pm.

Todd Knowles will lead us on a virtual tour of the new layout at the Family History Library.

We’ll also be having our election of officers for the next two years.

Call To Meeting

Call to Meeting – November 16

9 November 2021 Banai Lynn Feldstein

Out next meeting is Tuesday, November 16th, 6:30pm.

Rabbi Avremi Zippel, Program Director at Chabad Lubavitch of Utah, will speak with us about the Utah Jewish community.

See you there.

Call To Meeting

Call to Meeting – September 13

8 September 2021 Banai Lynn Feldstein

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

Call to Meeting – August 16

14 August 2021 Banai Lynn Feldstein

Sorry for the late notice. Our next meeting will be on August 16, 6:30pm.

Erika Manternach, of Ancestry ProGenealogists, has served as a reporter, news anchor, and journalism teacher. She will be presenting “Conducting an Effective Oral History Interview”.

Join us on Zoom where registration is required. See you there.

Call To Meeting

Call to Meeting – July 19

13 July 2021 Banai Lynn Feldstein

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.

Call To Meeting

Call to Meeting – June 21

1 June 2021 Banai Lynn Feldstein

June 21st is the next UJGS meeting, 6:30pm online.

Our speaker is Chuck Weinstein, the Towns/Districts Director for the Ukraine Special Interest Group, 2019 JewishGen Volunteer of the Year, and co-chair of the 2016 IAJGS Conference. His topic is: The Three Great Myths of Jewish Genealogy.

And welcome to a bunch of new mailing list members. You signed up to be added to our mailing list at RootsTech 2020 but unfortunately those lists went missing until recently. We’re still happy for you to join us.