Many people use one or two features of JewishGen.org and are not aware of the variety of additional resources and how best to use them. JewishGen is a vast and growing treasure trove for researchers at all levels of experience.  Meredith Hoffman will survey a selection of these valuable and often overlooked resources with abundant real-life examples in the first part of her presentation.

In the second part, she will demonstrate tools to determine how personal names varied across countries and cultures (is Hirsch the same as Gersh?), figure out how surnames were spelled as they moved with your ancestors (how might Zukerman be spelled in Poland? in Galicia?), and pin down the name of your great-grandfather’s town (when they said they came from Poison, what did they really mean?).

Handouts:
Getting the Most Out of Jewishgen
My Grandfather Came From Poison

Meredith Hoffman is a professional genealogist and popular lecturer who specializes in researching Jewish immigrant ancestors. She particularly enjoys solving difficult Jewish name problems. Meredith is a member of the JGSGB board where she works on special publications and outreach, Syllabus Chair for the New England Regional Genealogical Conference, and JewishGen Town Leader and KehilaLinks coordinator for Berezno, Ukraine. She is a graduate of the Boston University Genealogical Research Program and Stamford University’s Institute for Genealogical and Historical Research, and holds degrees in Linguistics from UC-Berkeley.

Admission is free for members, $5 for non-members. Refreshments will be served.

Research Help

12:30 pm – come early to join the following discussion groups:

Bessarabia Special Interest Group
Litvak-Baltic Special Interest Group
Poland Special Interest Group

3:30 pm – stay after the lecture to join the following discussion groups:

Belarus Special Interest Group
Ukraine Special Interest Group