SFBAJGS - Calendar of Genealogical Events

Past Programs

Future Programs subject to Public Health conditions

Sunday, September 24, 2023 SFBAJGS Presentation ZOOM Free and special members-only event. Time and Place: 11:00 am until 12:30 pm, Pacific Time Note earlier time At Your Home Topic: Finding Relatives in Russian Empire Records for Non-Russian Speakers Speaker: Lara Diamond ** This is a members-only presentation, per the request of the speaker. ** Co-presented with Jewish Genealogical Society of Oregon More and more Russian Empire records are becoming accessible online, but few are indexed. But for those who don’t speak Russian, browsing through the records in old-style Russian handwriting can be daunting.  This talk will focus on how to identify, within various types of Russian Empire records, records relating to a researcher’s family, in spite of not having any Russian-language background.  The talk will also cover various sources for online Russian Empire documents and discuss how to leverage these for one’s own research. Lara Diamond is President of the Jewish Genealogy Society of Maryland, leads JewishGen’s Subcarpathian SIG, and is on JewishGen’s Ukraine SIG’s board of directors.  She has lectured around the country and internationally on Jewish and Eastern European genealogy research as well as genetic genealogy.  She also runs multiple district- and town-focused projects to collect documentation to assist all those researching ancestors from common towns.  Lara blogs about DNA and her Eastern European research at https://larasgenealogy.blogspot.com/.  Lara began researching her own family around 1989 and has traced all branches of her family multiple generations back in Europe using Russian Empire-era and Austria-Hungarian Empire records.  Most of her personal research is in modern-day Ukraine, with a smattering of Belarus and Poland.  She has done client research leading to their ancestors in many parts of the former USSR, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Romania, and more. Register for this meeting. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting. You do not have to have a Zoom account to attend a Zoom meeting. You will be prompted to download the software, once you have clicked on the link that you have been provided. You may also wish to create an account, but that is not required to participate in a Zoom meeting.

Monday, October 23, 2023 SFBAJGS Presentation ZOOM Free and everyone interested is welcome. Time and Place: 4:00 pm until 5:30 pm, Pacific Time At Your Home Topic: Learn Just Enough Russian for Genealogy Speaker: Jane Neff Rollins Start by learning the Cyrillic alphabet, both printed and handwritten, and graduate to stringing letters together to form words and names.  With this overview and a bit of practice, attendees will be able to identify family names and basic genealogical terms in handwritten vital record registers and printed business directories. Jane Neff Rollins is a professional genealogist who cried when she first saw her grandfather's name on the 1900 census.  She has researched in archives in Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, Washington, DC, and Jerusalem. Jane routinely translates 19th-century Russian documents into English for clients and online databases. Register for this meeting. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting. You do not have to have a Zoom account to attend a Zoom meeting. You will be prompted to download the software, once you have clicked on the link that you have been provided. You may also wish to create an account, but that is not required to participate in a Zoom meeting.

Sunday, November 19, 2023 SFBAJGS Presentation ZOOM Free and everyone interested is welcome. Time and Place: 1:00 pm until 2:30 pm, Pacific Time At Your Home Topic: Discovering European Immigrant Ancestors:  Their Experiences and the Records Speaker: Nancy Loe Learn about essential resources to research immigrants who left Europe between 1820 and 1920.  What did they experience when they decided to leave their homes and communities to sail to America?  What was the voyage like?  When they reached America, what did they experience?  Discover essential and lesser-known migration records for your family history research. Archivist, librarian, and genealogist Nancy Loe has been helping researchers with their family trees since 1977.  She specializes in U.S. and European family history research, presenting at Webinars and conferences in the United States, Canada, and Australia.  Nancy’s Web site is sassyjanegenealogy.com.  Her great-grandparents immigrated to Chicago from Prussia, Scotland, Austria, Romania, Norway, and Sweden. Register for this meeting. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting. You do not have to have a Zoom account to attend a Zoom meeting. You will be prompted to download the software, once you have clicked on the link that you have been provided. You may also wish to create an account, but that is not required to participate in a Zoom meeting.

Sunday, December 3, 2023 SFBAJGS Presentation ZOOM Free and everyone interested is welcome. Copresented with Jewish Genealogical Society of Oregon Time and Place: 11:30 am until 1:00 pm, Pacific Time Note earlier time At Your Home Topic: The Industrial Removal Office: How a Little-known Program Scattered Jews throughout the United States Speaker: Risa Heywood The Industrial Removal Office, a little-known organization in operation from 1900 to 1922, was created to help alleviate overcrowding in the Jewish areas of New York City.  Its agents scoured the U.S. for businesses that needed skilled workers and matched them with immigrants in need of jobs.  After accepting a job offer, an immigrant would receive a one-way ticket to a new city.  Learn how to search this organization’s records and how they may help you solve the family mystery of why your family ended up in Cheyenne, Chattanooga, or some other unexpected place across the United States. Risa Daitzman Heywood is a professional genealogist, writer, and speaker specializing in Ashkenazi Jewish research.  She began researching her family more than 25 years ago after inheriting a six-generation family tree, meticulously hand-drawn by her grandfather on the back of a large piece of wrapping paper.  The tree had only Americanized names and no dates or places, so she began learning about genealogy in order to figure out the family’s original surname and where they were from.  Risa earned a Certificate in Genealogical Research from Boston University and is a member of the Association of Professional Genealogists.  She is a past president of the Jewish Genealogical Society of Colorado and served as cochair of JewishGen’s original Belarus Special Interest Group (SIG).  Risa lives in Lisbon, Portugal. Register for this meeting. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting. You do not have to have a Zoom account to attend a Zoom meeting. You will be prompted to download the software, once you have clicked on the link that you have been provided. You may also wish to create an account, but that is not required to participate in a Zoom meeting.

Que sera sera

 

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