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Jewish Genealogical Society of Oregon

2008 - 2009 Calendar of Events

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General Meeting

3rd Tuesday each month Sept - June 7:00 PM.  

Most  meetings start with a thirty minute schmooze session.

Free to members 

$5.00 suggested donation from non-members.

 

When:  June 23, 2009

Time:  7:00 pm - 9:00 pm

Where: Neveh Shalom Synagogue  2900 SW Peaceful Lane, Portland, OR (503-246-8831)

Enter through the main entrance and turn right.  

Using our Jewish Genealogical Society of Oregon Library Resources

This is a research session  where we will be able to explore and use the resources we have in our Neveh Shalom Synagogue Library.  We have so many wonderul books and supplies here, and rarely get around to using them.  Come explore what we have and what will suit your own genealogy searches.   JGSO purchases materials relevant to genealogical research and houses them in this library.  Here's your opportunity to get assistance from others doing research.

For more information  contact Barbara Hershey, Program Chair at at Barbara.hershey@comcast.net or 503-249-1976 ,

Date: Sunday May 31, 2009
Time: 10:30 am to 2:00 pm
Place: Ahavath Achim, 3225 SW Barbur Blvd., Portland Cost: $7 for members, $9 for non-members. New members are invited to join at sign-in.

Please RSVP for this Annual Brunch Program so that we can be prepared for all attendees. To RSVP, or for more information, send an email to Barbara.Hershey@comcast.net with your name and the number of attendees or call with the same info at 503-249-1976. 

Annual Brunch Program with special guest speaker, Pamela Weisberger

Two Presentations Jews in the News & 
When Leopold Met Lena: Marriage, Divorce and Deception in the 1890s

Jews in the News: Some of the most exciting resources for genealogists are the online databases and microfilms of old newspapers and journals. Following this oft-neglected “paper trail” will enhance your genealogical knowledge. From obituaries, birth, engagement and marriage announcements, to curiosities such as “Yesterday’s Fires,” “News of the Courts,” and articles covering Eastern European towns and businesses, you will be astonished by the unexpected appearances immigrant ancestors make in the pages of these tabloids and broadsheets. Learn techniques for locating people and events meaningful to you.

When Leopold Met Lena: First came love, then came marriage—but after the baby in the baby carriage came adultery and two trials in New York’s Court of Common Pleas. A divorce decree in the 1890s New York Times “News of the Courts” leads to scandal-ridden NYC court transcripts and revelations of a family secret. From Czestochowa, Poland and Cracow, Austria to Manhattan’s Lower East Side and Little Rock, Arkansas--the tumultuous, romantic and litigious world of our ancestors is brought to life in court records, newspaper articles, census and vital records. Learn how present-day research can be used to solve 19th century mysteries.

Pamela Weisberger is program chair for the Jewish Genealogical Society of Los Angeles, President and Research Coordinator for Gesher Galicia, and a co-chair for the 2010 IAJGS Los Angeles Conference. Her first job in the film industry was working for Otto Preminger who never took no for an answer. This was the perfect training for becoming a genealogist. Documenting her family’s history for over twenty years, she has visited and researched her ancestral towns and villages conducting research in Polish, Ukrainian and Hungarian archives. Her special interest is late 19th to early 20th century city directories, newspapers and court records. She has produced two genealogy-related documentaries.
  

When: April 21, 2009

Where: Ahavath Achim Synagogue, 3225 SW Barbur Blvd., Portland, OR


Time: 7:00 pm - 9:00 pm

 


Family History Research: What is my question; how do I research it and what do I do with all the information I gather along the way?

As part of JGSO's "Back to Basics" series, Debbi Korman will answer the question, "What do I want to know?" In answering the question, you will learn her tips on how to frame the research issues, develop a research plan, keep track of your sources and organize the genealogical information you amass in the course of trying to answer your questions. Debbi has been researching her family tree for 20 years and is prepared to reveal all of her mistakes in order to help you to be a more successful researcher. 

Debbi has been researching her family since 1988 (which is the equivalent of Paleolithic times in terms of how genealogy is done now). She specializes in Hungary, Slovakia and Poland. Debbi was the editor of "Rootskey" the publication of the Jewish Genealogical Society of Los Angeles for 5 years and is the esteemed current editor of "Shalshelet" – the newsletter for the JGSO. She has discovered and connected with distant relatives in multiple European countries and Australia. 
Where: Ahavath Achim Synagogue, 3225 SW Barbur Blvd., Portland, OR 

For more information contact Barbara Hershey, Program Chair at Barbara.hershey@comcast.net .

Where: Ahavath Achim Synagogue, 3225 SW Barbur Blvd., Portland, OR


When: Feb 17, 2009


Time: 7:00 pm - 9:00 pm

Jewish Genealogical Society of Oregon and Genealogical Forum of Oregon
present Picking a Genealogy Software Program, Speaker: Marty Krauter
Marty Krauter will provide some guidelines to help you make the decision how to maintain and present your genealogical research on a computer. Topics he will address include:

  • Research Goals
  • Recording 
  • Source Documentation
  • Output for your information
  • Suggested program list.

Marty Krauter has been the Chair of the Genealogical Forum of Oregon’s Computer Interest Group for 12 years. He has been actively doing genealogy for 14 years. He has a strong interest in Irish Genealogy where he has traced two of his wife’s family lines to their ancestral village. Marty is an accountant who loves the analytical nature of genealogy. 

For more information  contact Barbara Hershey, Program Chair at Barbara.hershey@comcast.net or 503-249-1976 

 Ahavath Achim 

3225 SW Barbur Blvd., Portland, OR 
Feb.  17, 2009
7:00 pm - 9:00 pm

Jewish Life in Eastern Europe Leading up to the Great Migration

Our speaker, Dr. Natan Meir, will describe what life was like for our ancestors in Eastern Europe prior to the mass migrations at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries.

Speaker: Natan Meir, Lorry I. Lokey Assistant Professor of Judaic Studies, Portland State University

Natan Meir received his Ph.D. in Jewish history from Columbia University, taught at the University of Southampton (U.K.), and was a Yad Hanadiv postdoctoral fellow at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. His scholarly interest is modern Jewish history focusing on the social and cultural history of East European Jewry in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. His first book, Kiev: Jewish Metropolis, 1861-1914, is forthcoming from Indiana University Press.

For more information please contact Barbara Hershey, Program Chair at Barbara.hershey@comcast.net or 503-249-1976 

Jan 20, 2009

7:00 pm - 9:00 pm   (As always we try to allow time for discussion of your research issues.)

Ahavath Achim   

3225 SW Barbur Blvd. Portland , OR   

 

Using Family History Centers 

presented by Susan LeBlanc, BGS/FH

Learn about the local Family History Centers and what they offer to help you in researching your family history. Susan will discuss where they are located, who works in them and what makes them unique.

Susan LeBlanc is a native of Oregon and started doing genealogical research 35 years ago. She is an avid reader and a determined researcher. Research specialities include Western, Midwestern, and New England states, Europe and Scandinavia. Works in Spanish, Italian and Portuguese records.  2005 BYU graduate, BGS degree, Family History, 1985 BYU AS degree, Spanish. Work includes ten years at the Milwaukie Stake Family History Center, instructor, lecturer. Coordinator of Ruth C. Bishop Volunteer Awards with the Federation of Genealogical Societies. A member of APG, Genealogical Council of Oregon, Genealogical Forum of Oregon and DAR. Speaker for BYU Genealogy Conference, Portland Area PAF Users Group, Milwaukie, McMinnville, and Corvallis Family History Center Fairs in Oregon, Oregon Genealogical Society, Genealogical Forum of Oregon, and The Genealogical Society of Washington County.

For more information please  contact Barbara Hershey , Program Chair at Barbara.hershey@comcast.net.  JGSO programs are open to members and non-members. We request a donation from non-members to cover our program costs.

November 18, 2008

7:00 pm - 9:00 pm

Ahavath Achim Synagogue, 

3225 SW Barbur Blvd. 

Portland, OR  

 

free for members

$2 non-members

 

 

 

Tips and Tricks for Using JewishGen: An Interactive Presentation : JewishGen.org is an invaluable resource for anyone who is tracing his/her Jewish heritage. In this presentation, Ron Doctor will guide attendees through the intricacies of JewishGen's multi-layered menus. He will highlight the major resources within JewishGen and will demonstrate how to find the information you need. The presentation will be interactive. Ron will try to answer your questions using Ahavat Achim's wireless connection to the Internet.

Speaker: Ronald Doctor, PhD, is the Membership Chair of JGSO.  Dr. Doctor was an Associate Professor at the University of Alabama's Graduate School of Library and Information Studies until retirement in 1997.  Since moving to Portland, this former engineering PhD from UCLA has been involved with the JGSO in many capacities, currently as Membership Chair. He is a former president of the organization.  He serves on the Advisory Board of JewishGen's Ukraine Special Interest Group and as the Coordinator of the Kremenets-District Research Group (KDRG).  He is involved with collecting, translating (Russian, Polish, Yiddish and Hebrew) and making publicly available, documents about the Jews of the Kremenets District in western Ukraine, including Yizkor Books, Vital Records, Census Records and other documents dating back to the 1500's.  Ron has given numerous genealogy presentations in Oregon and at annual conferences of the International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies (IAJGS).  His publications include "Getting Started in Jewish Genealogy: A Handbook for Beginners, with Supplementary Information for Advanced Research", Vital Records of Kremenets, and the JGSO CD-Rom. 

For more information contact Barbara Hershey, Program Chair at at Barbara.hershey@comcast.net.

Wednesday October 22, 2008 at 7:00 PM

Mittleman JCC Chapel

6651 SW Capitol Hwy Portland , OR

 

free for members

$2 non-members

 

 

Paul Shapiro

Director of the Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

Opening the Archives of the International Tracing Service

 The ITS archives, located in Bad Arolsen, Germany was established by the Allied powers after WWII to help trace missing family members and reunite families.  Contents of the archives remained closed to the public until this year.  The archives contain millions of pages of documentation captured during the liberation of concentration camps.  Sixteen linear miles of shelving are required to hold all of the files. The archive now contains approximately 50 million digital images providing documentation on 17.5 million people arrested, deported, killed, forced into slave labor or displaced from homes to which they were never able to return. 

 CBS’s “60 Minutes” ran a poignant story (updated in 2007) about the opening of these archives bringing several camp survivors back to see their own records.  You can view that segment at http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/12/14/60minutes/main2267927.shtml.

About the speaker: 

Mr. Shapiro led the Museum’s effort to obtain the international cooperation necessary to open the archives of the International Tracing Service—the largest and last major inaccessible collection of Holocaust-related records anywhere.  Paul Shapiro has led the US Holocaust Memorial Museum’s effort to provide focused leadership to the field of Holocaust Studies in the US and abroad.  Mr. Shapiro is a member of the Congressionally-mandated Interagency Working Group on Nazi War Crimes and Japanese Imperial Government Records and serves on the Academic Advisory Committee of the Center for Jewish History in New York . 

In 2003-4 he wrote major sections of the final report of the International Commission on the Holocaust in Romania , chaired by Elie Wiesel.  Before joining the Museum, Mr. Shapiro served at the United States Information Agency and Department of State, where he was responsible for the Fulbright Fellowship Program and other major international exchange programs.  Earlier, he was an Editor of the journal Problems of Communism and Editor in Chief of the Journal of International Affairs.  Mr. Shapiro served as a consultant to the Board for International Broadcasting, Radio Free Europe-Radio Liberty, and the Justice Department’s Office of Special Investigations ( OSI ). 

Mr. Shapiro has a BA degree in Government from Harvard University ; a Master of International Affairs degree and a Master of Philosophy degree in History from Columbia University .  He has been a Fulbright scholar, an IREX scholar, and a Visiting Fellow at the Institute for Eurasian Studies at The George Washington University.

For more information please contact

Barbara Hershey , Program Chair JGSO  barbara.hershey@comcast.net  or 503-249-1976

Ahavath Achim Synagogue,3225 SW Barbur Blvd, Portland

Sept. 26, 2008

7:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. 

free for members

$2 non-members

SOS – Share our Successes

One of the many things that we like about genealogy as a hobby is the opportunity to interact with others to pursue our goals. We all have stories about how we pursued some item of information and the results we achieved. We have learned much from people who are researching geographical areas far from our homelands, and surnames totally unrelated to ours. Learning from each other will helps to break through those brick walls.

For the September 16, 2008 meeting we will highlight several presenters describing the genealogy successes and the techniques that led to those successes.  One of the features of the program will be a short film, “Beshert” which chronicles Rick Kolinsky’s discoveries on his visit to his ancestral home in Ukraine.

Please join us at 7 PM at Ahavath Achim Synagogue, 3225 SW Barbur Blvd, Portland.

For more information contact Barbara Hershey, Program Chair, at Barbara.hershey@comcast.net or 503-249-1976

 

 

 

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