September 13	The Ellis Island Experience	Vincent Cannato
This event will take place from 1:30-4:30 at Gann Academy, 333 Forest Street, Waltham.

Were immigrants’ names changed at Ellis Island? Professor Vincent J. Cannato will discuss whether this is fact or fiction at the kick-off meeting for this season’s programs. Professor Cannato’s presentation on the Ellis Island immigration experience will pay special attention to the experiences of Jewish immigrants.

Professor Cannato will discuss why such an inspection station was created in 1892 on a small island in New York Harbor and how America’s immigration law evolved during this period. He will explain the inspection process and the reasons that some immigrants were excluded. Copies of Professor Cannato’s new book, “American Passage: The History of Ellis Island,” will be available for sale and signing following his talk.

Vincent Cannato teaches history at the University of Massachusetts, Boston and is the author of The Ungovernable City: John Lindsay and His Struggle to Save New York. He has written for The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post. 

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October 18	DNA for Genealogy	Jay Sage
This event will start at 1:30 pm at Gann Academy, 333 Forest Street, Waltham.

Jay Sage will discuss how genetic testing can be used for genealogical research. The cost of DNA testing has fallen at such a remarkable pace that companies are now offering tests at prices that individuals can afford. The talk will begin with just enough of an overview of the biochemical basis of human genetics to allow understanding of how DNA testing is used for genealogy and what can and cannot be learned from it. He will then describe how the testing is done, how much it costs, and how to interpret the reported results.

Besides being a passionate genealogist who has used DNA testing in his own research, Jay had a fleeting personal connection with early DNA research, having spent a summer in graduate school working on a biochemistry project in the laboratory of Walter Gilbert -- his physics professor turned biochemist -- who later received the Nobel Prize for advances in DNA sequencing.

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November 12      Color Flyer	Culture Wars: Litvaks vs. Galizianers in Eastern Europe Annual Genealogy Lecture Series co-sponsored with Hebrew College	Zvi Gitelman
This event will start at 8:00 pm at Temple Emanuel, 385 Ward Street, Newton.

Eastern Europe, home to 80% of American Jews, was an area of diverse religious practices, political ideologies, Yiddish pronunciation, foods, customs, and dress. Some of this diversity carried over to America, but it has faded in the post-immigrant generations. This talk will explore the differences among Eastern European Jews and the stereotypes to which they gave rise, illustrating the richness and vitality of a civilization that continues to inform Jewish life in Europe, the Americas and Israel.

Professor Zvi Gitelman is the Tisch Professor of Judaic Studies and Professor of Political Science at the University of Michigan where he has won major teaching awards. Professor Gitelman also served as Director of the Frankel Center for Judaic Studies and Director of the Center for Russian and East European Studies at the University. He is the author of Ethnicity or Religion? The Evolution of Jewish Identities, and A Century of Ambivalence: The Jews of Russia and the Soviet Union since 1881. He has written or edited 14 books and written over 100 articles.

Admission is free.

The lectures will be followed by a 9-week course on how to research your Jewish family history at Hebrew College starting on Feb. 8, 2010. The course will be taught by the experienced researchers from the Jewish Genealogical Society of Greater Boston. 

The lectures and the course are supported by a generous grant from Harvey Krueger of New York.

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November 15      Color Flyer	A Century of Ambivalence: Jews, Soviets and Russians Annual Genealogy Lecture Series co-sponsored with Hebrew College	Zvi Gitelman
This event will start at 3:30 pm at Hebrew College, 160 Herrick Road, Newton Centre.

During the course of a century or more, Russian Jewry experienced pogroms, two World Wars, two revolutions, purges, Communism, the Holocaust and Stalin's anti-Semitism, but also experienced unprecedented social, political and vocational mobility. Who were these Russian Jews? Prior to the 19th century, they were Polish, Lithuanian and Eastern European Jews until the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was carved up by its more powerful neighbors. In 1900, 5.2 million Jews lived in the Soviet Empire; today, they number about 500,000.

Professor Zvi Gitelman is the Tisch Professor of Judaic Studies and Professor of Political Science at the University of Michigan where he has won major teaching awards. Professor Gitelman also served as Director of the Frankel Center for Judaic Studies and Director of the Center for Russian and East European Studies at the University. He is the author of Ethnicity or Religion? The Evolution of Jewish Identities, and A Century of Ambivalence: The Jews of Russia and the Soviet Union since 1881. He has written or edited 14 books and written over 100 articles.

Advance registration will be required since space is limited at Hebrew College. Register at www.hebrewcollege.edu/genealogy.  Admission is free.

The lectures will be followed by a 9-week course on how to research your Jewish family history at Hebrew College starting on Feb. 8, 2010. The course will be taught by the experienced researchers from the Jewish Genealogical Society of Greater Boston. 

The lectures and the course are supported by a generous grant from Harvey Krueger of New York.

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December 6	Finding Your Ancestors in Polish Records	Fay Bussgang
This event will start at 1:30 pm at Temple Emanuel, 385 Ward Street, Newton.

Fay Bussgang will describe what records exist in Poland for genealogical research, what they look like, and how you can access them.

More American Jews have roots in Poland than in any other country. The Poles kept very good track of their citizens through metrical records (birth, marriage, and death records), population registers, and other documents. While many of these records were destroyed during the war, a surprising number has survived and can be found in Polish Archives, even for the localities no longer in Poland. Many of these records are now accessible through the Internet.

Ms. Bussgang has authored over 20 articles published in genealogical journals, as well as the “Russian Poland” section of the Avotaynu Guide to Jewish Genealogy. She and her Polish-born husband, Julian, have done extensive genealogical research during twelve trips to Poland. They have also translated two volumes of war-time accounts of child survivors still living in Poland. Ms. Bussgang served as co-president of the JGS of Greater Boston 1998–2000.

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December 13	Jacob’s Cane	Elisa New
This event will start at 1:30 pm at Hebrew College, 160 Herrick Road, Newton Centre.

The JGSGB will co-sponsor a lecture with Hebrew College by Elisa New on her recently published memoir -  Jacob’s Cane: A Jewish Family’s Journey from the Four Lands of Lithuania to the Ports of London and Baltimore, A Memoir in Five Generations (Basic Books 2009).

Elisa New, a Professor of English at Harvard University, traces the paths of her ancestors and captures the rich texture of life on several continents as her family searches to establish itself in the tobacco trade. She discovers an immigrant world profoundly affected by modern German culture, from the Enlightenment through the Holocaust.

The lecture will take place at Hebrew College in Newton Center. Advance registration is recommended. For more information, contact Renee Tepper at rtepper@hebrewcollege.edu  or 617-559-8622.

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January 17	Forensic Genealogy: Uncovering Hoaxes, Confirming Truths	Sharon Sergeant
This event will start at 1:30 pm at Temple Emanuel, 385 Ward Street, Newton.

This program discusses how the genealogical research methods and skills—that we are used to thinking of for creating family trees and family histories—are also used in "detective" situations: uncovering frauds and hoaxes, or establishing historical truths. The speaker uses examples from two cases she worked on that were widely reported in the press: "Misha the Wolf Girl" and "Angel at the Fence.”

Sharon Sergeant received international acclaim for exposing the Misha Defonseca “Jewish hidden child aided by wolves” and Herman Rosenblat "apple over the fence" Holocaust frauds. As an adjunct professor at Boston University Sharon Sergeant created the Problem Solving Techniques and Technology module in the genealogical professional development program. She combines technology and the Genealogy Proof Standard methods to research both modern and antiquarian records. Sharon has published in the Association of Professional Genealogists Quarterly, the National Genealogical Society Quarterly, and the PI magazine. Sharon has served as Program Director for local and regional genealogical societies.

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February 7	Who Do You think You Are; Zoë Wanamaker
This event will start at 1:30 pm at Needham Public Library, Needham, MA

This film is from the BBC family history documentary series that follows celebrities as they trace their roots.

Here's what they have to say:
Zoë Wanamaker was born in New York, but when she was three her father, American actor Sam Wanamaker, fled to the UK to escape the anti-communist McCarthy witch-hunts. Hoping to better understand her father's decision, Zoë heads to Washington DC where she visits the FBI headquarters. Here, under the Freedom of Information Act, Zoë gains access to her father's FBI file, an extraordinary document that reveals the level of scrutiny Sam was under and the very real risk of imprisonment he faced.

Wanting to explore the roots of her father's left-wing politics, Zoë next looks into the life of her father's father Maurice Wanamaker, an émigré Russian Jew. Zoë is moved to discover that, soon after his arrival in Chicago, Maurice suffered a series of personal tragedies and hardships that almost destroyed his American dream.

Finally, Zoë travels to Nikolaev in Ukraine where she discovers the original form of her unusual surname and the reason why her family left for America.

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For a third year, the Jewish Genealogical Society of Greater Boston (JGSGB) and Hebrew College will be offering the award-winning Foundations of Jewish Genealogical Research, an intensive 17-hour course to provide serious adult students with the tools to research their family origins.

The course will meet at Hebrew College in Newton Center from 7 to 9 PM on eight Monday evenings beginning on February 8, 2010. Dates, tuition, and enrollment information will be available in the Fall.

More information and details are available here.

February 21	Problem Solving with Experts: A Research Session
This event will start at 1:30 pm at Temple Emanuel, 385 Ward Street, Newton.
Problem solve with our “experts.” Learn how to get started or get over that “brick wall” in your family research. Visit various roundtables, some with computers connected to the Internet for online research. Included are tables dedicated to the following topics: Immigration, Naturalization and Vital Records Getting started with Jewish genealogy (using the JewishGen and Steve Morse websites) Holocaust research (using the Internet) Austria-Czech Roundtable Galicia Roundtable Lithuania Roundtable Polish Roundtable Ukraine Roundtable Translation of foreign-language documents (e.g., Yiddish, Hebrew, Polish, German, Russian) Genealogical reference materials will be available for perusal. So bring in your research questions and your foreign documents for translation. If you want help at the meeting in obtaining information about a relative, please try to have at least their name and their date and place of birth.

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March 14	Mapping Madness: Historical Maps (Ron Arons) and Google Earth (Jay Sage)
This event will start at 1:30 pm at Temple Emanuel, 385 Ward Street, Newton.

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April 25	Sephardic Jewry after the Expulsion from Spain (Jonathan Decter) and Tracing Family to 13th Century Spain (Daniel Laby)…
This event will start at 1:30 pm at Temple Emanuel, 385 Ward Street, Newton.

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May 23	Finding your Ancestors in Lithuanian Records	Deena Berton
This event will start at 1:30 pm at Temple Emanuel, 385 Ward Street, Newton.

Deena Berton will describe what records exist in Lithuania for genealogical research, what they look like, and how you can access them. Ms. Berton will also explain what LitvakSIG does, how it is organized, and give a tour of the new website of LitvakSIG. LitvakSIG is the primary internet resource for Lithuanian-Jewish research, whose mission is to preserve Litvak heritage by discovering, collecting, documenting, and disseminating information about the once vibrant Jewish community of Lithuania before its destruction in the Holocaust. Besides Independent Lithuania (1919-1940), the geographic coverage is the larger Lithuania from the Russian Empire Period (1795-1919, including a number of shtetls now in Belarus and Poland.

Ms. Berton is on the Board of Directors of LitvakSig, and has extensively traveled to Lithuania and been active in acquiring data from local archives.

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June 13	Jacob’s Cane	Elisa New
This event will start at 1:30 pm at Temple Emanuel, 385 Ward Street, Newton

Jacob's Cane: A Jewish Family's Journey from the Four Lands of Lithuania to the Ports of London and Baltimore; A Memoir in Five Generations.