JGSWVO Past Meetings, Programs and other Activities
2012
Programs and speakers at Monthly Meetings
• Award winning film - The Ritchie Boys
The group viewed this interesting film about the Ritchie Boys. During WWII, the U.S. formed an elite intelligence unit—mostly German Jewish academics—at Camp Ritchie, Maryland. Tasked with devising ways to break the morale of the SS, these men are often credited with bringing an early end to the war.
• Posting Family Trees Online
Learned how to get your Ancestry, Geni, Family Tree of the Jewish People, etc. online, plus a discussion of GEDCOMS—what are they and what are they good for?
• Brick Walls & Problem Solving
The group discussed problems in researching family history and how to solve them.
• "From Russia to America"
Genealogist and JGSWVO stalwart Eliezer Froehlich discussed how our ancestors made immigration decisions, acquired tickets and necessary documents, crossed borders, travelled to the boats, and more.
2011
Programs and speakers at Monthly Meetings
• Finding Your Jewish Ancestors on Ancestry.com
Video lecture by Crista Cowan, the Community Alliance Manager for the Ancestry World Archives Project. Discovered what Jewish records were available for free at Ancestry.com and learned from an expert how to navigate the site. Also discussed proposed programs for 2012.
• “Echoes That Remain,”
A warm and rich documentary portrait of Eastern European Jewry before the Holocaust, combining hundreds of rare archival photos and previously unseen film footage with live action sequences shot on location at the sites of former Jewish communities in Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland and Romania.
• Using Genealogy Software
Reeva Kimble demonstrated how to easily keep track of all your relatives using computer genealogy software, create family trees in a flash, and organize your sources.
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JGSWVO Potluck
Members brought a family dish, something their ancestors might have eaten, or an Israeli dish, and whatever they wanted to drink. After dinner we talked about Jewish food, the JGSWVO Ancestors’ Recipes Project and genealogy.
• Introduction to JewishGen databases
A video presentation from the IAJGS International Conference 2010. An introduction to using JewishGen's most popular databases: the JewishGen Family Finder (JGFF), JewishGen Communities Database; the Family Tree of the Jewish People (FTJP), and JewishGen Discussion Group message archives. This session took us step-by-step through the process of using JewishGen's internet databases: how to search the databases, and how to add your own data.
• Searching for Immigration Records.
Eliezer Froehlich showed us how to find ships’ manifests and other documentation of our immigrant ancestors.
• Finding Your Missing Link
Time for beginners to ask questions, for experienced researchers to explain how they succeeded, for all to share search techniques.
• The Changing Borders of Eastern Europe
A video of a very informative talk/slide presentation by Hal Bookbinder, recorded at the IAJGS Conference in LA 2010.
• Interviewing Your Great Uncle
What questions would you ask, if you could talk to a senior family member? How would you frame the questions? Where would you look for records that might back up some of the answers you got. We interviewed Richard Littman, found out what he remembered of his immigrant parents and tried to determine if his recollections were based on fact or family stories. We also learned about his experiences in late 1940s Eugene.
• Market Towns in Eastern Europe
Presented by Prof. Ron Wixman. How they developed and functioned. Why market towns were important to Jews in the Middle Ages and beyond.
2010
Programs and speakers at Monthly Meetings
• Planning Your Research. How to get started (again?) Where were you get stuck last time? Should you switch to a different branch of the family? How to help a friend who is looking for family? What new tools or web sites have you found?
• Finding Your Missing Links. Time for beginners to ask questions, for experienced researchers to explain how they succeeded, for all to share search techniques.
• Showcasing Family Memories. Sondra Ettlinger is a prize-winning digital photographer who created slide show presentations using her genealogical material. Weaving family photos into a story board and putting it all together into a meaningful production has created a living diary for current family members and for those yet to come. Included was information on ways to publish a book, create a wall chart or make a family cook book as well as ways to create personal slide shows for family events.
• Family Stories—A chance to talk about a family story. Why was it told? What did it mean? Did it turn out to be true? And what discoveries came as a result.
• Lakhn Mit Trern (Laughing With Tears). A Sampling of Yiddish and Ladino Music of our Ancestors. Stories of joy and struggle told in the songs and melodies of the Diaspora. We explored the origins and forms of secular music of Ashkenazi and Mizrahi/ Sephardic Jews and performed a few pieces of the repertoire. Lisa Arkin (vocals), Debby Laimon (violin), Lisa Ponder (viola), Ellen Rifkin (accordion and vocals), and Sabena Stark (guitar and vocals).
• Eastern European Shtetl Life. Professor Ronald Wixman compared shtetl life with life in towns and cities of Eastern Europe for Jews in the 19th thru early 20th century.
• DNA and Genetic Genealogy— A talk by Astra Henner of the University of Oregon Institute of Molecular Biology.
• Genealogy Roadblocks and Detours. Members tried to provide help for stuck researchers and offered suggestions for new directions. This was a chance to bring heirlooms and discover their possible significance. Learned how to add your family names to our web site. Showed new genealogy books and maps that might help other researchers.
• Reports on the 2010 IAJGS Conference in Los Angeles. Learned about the interesting lectures, best films, and exciting new JewishGen features. Both Eliezer Froehlich and Laeh-Maggie Garfield reported on some of their experiences during the conference. We heard about the most useful talks and also found out how to to use lecture recordings from the JGSWVO library.
• Annual Election of JGSWVO officers. The evening included Genealogy Progress Reports and ideas for programs in 2011. Since it is the last night of Hanukkah, members were encouraged to bring cookies or other goodies.
2007
Programs and speakers at Monthly Meetings
• Bennett Greenspan President and CEO of Family Tree DNA, spoke on “DNA Testing for Jewish Genealogy and History” at Temple Beth Israel, an event sponsored by JGSWVO in conjunction with TBI and the Jewish Federation. The lecture focused on the use of DNA testing to connect Jews with the same surname for genealogy purposes.
2006
Programs and speakers at Monthly Meetings
• Genealogy success stories and research issues. Discussion of the Yad Vashem Names Recovery Campaign and how JGSWVO members can help community members submit new information to memorialize family, friends and neighbors who perished in the Holocaust. Details on 2007 programs, and suggestions for future programs. Annual Election of JGSWVO officers.
• Schelly Talalay Dardashti, journalist for the Jerusalem Post and president of the Jewish Family Research Association Israel (JFRA Israel), spoke about “Making Connections: Every Genealogist's Dream” at a special Tuesday night meeting.
• Photographer Gary Tepfer talked about Roman Vishniac, Russian-American biologist, photographer, linguist, art historian, and philosopher, with emphasis on his pre-war photographic record of Jewish communities in Europe, as seen in the book, A Vanished World. Prints of some of Vishniac’s work were shown and discussed.
• Rabbi Jonathan Seidel spoke about “Changes in Jewish Marriage and Divorce in Eastern Europe in the 19th and early 20th Century”. Included was information on finding records, genetic diseases, frequency of cousin marriages, and changes in dating patterns.
• Film, “There Once Was a Town.” A memorial to Eishyshok, Poland, a small town where 3,500 Jews were brutally murdered in 1941. Fifty-six years after the massacre, a bus load of survivors led by Israeli scholar Yaffa Eliach return “to awaken old memories and confront long-silenced ghosts.”
• One-hour film, “West of Hester Street.” Interweaves the dramatized events of the Galveston Movement with the story of a young Jewish peddler who journeys from Russia to Texas.
• Ron Wixman, Professor of Geography at the University of Oregon, discussed various geopolitical changes in Europe in the 19th century, including Jewish rights and restrictions under different governments, nationalism, the rise of Zionism, and causes of Jewish migration to countries including the U.S., France, and Israel.
• One-hour film, “Echos that Remain.” A poignant, nostalgic study of the Jewish shtetl life before the Holocaust. Combined hundreds of rare archival photos and previously unseen film footage with live action sequences shot on location at the sites of former Jewish communities in Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland and Romania.
2005
Programs and speakers at Monthly Meetings
• Sasha and Rafail Levkovsky, from Kiev, spoke about education, customs, languages, climate, geography, etc. of the Ukraine.
• Marion Walter, Professor of Mathematics at the University of Oregon, native of Germany, talked about her Kindertransport experiences and how some of the people who were involved are still finding relatives and friends. She showed selections from a video titled “ The Children Who Cheated the Nazis.”
• Rabbi Jonathan Seidel, a member of the University of Oregon’s Judaic Studies Department, spoke on the Early Modern and Modern history of the Vilna Gubernia, the intersection of the Hasidic and Mitnagdic Worlds and the history of the Polish/Lithuanian town of Postowe. He focused on his father’s lineage, in particular the Zeitl/Seidel/Sjeidl families from 1750 to 1945.
• Reeva Kimble and Renee Gottesman reported on the 25th IAJGS International Conference on Jewish Genealogy and provided details on the many sessions they attended.
• Richard Sapon–White showed slides and talked about genealogy research and other features of his 6 month stay in Prague, Czech Republic.
• Renee Gottesman presented by program titled “Finding your Ancestors on the Internet: An Overview of Searching New Databases”
• Open discussions of research successes and problems by JGSWVO members titled “You and Your Families: Breakthroughs and Barriers”
Other Activities
• The name and status of EugeneGen: The Eugene Oregon Jewish Genealogy Study Group was changed to JGSWVO: Jewish Genealogical Society of Willamette Valley Oregon. We created and passed by–laws.
• JGSWVO was accepted into the International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies (IAJGS). Dues and donations to JGSWVO are now tax deductible.
2004
Programs and speakers at Monthly Meetings
• Bob Welch, a Eugene Register–Guard newspaper columnist talked about the research for his book, The Story of Frances Slanger, Forgotten Heroine of Normandy. Book details at: www.bobwelch.net/books/nightingale/index.html
• Ron Wixman, UO geography professor (former Soviet Union, eastern Europe, cultural geography) spoke about Eastern European border changes since the 1700s and how they affected our ancestors.
• Eliezer Froehlich, member and Corvallis genealogist, provided details about Jews in the Civil War in two programs.
• Charlie Fleishman and Reeva Kimble presented information and tips on using links from Steve Morse’s One Step web site.
• Faris Cassell, Eugene author, presented background on her book in progress about Hedwig Berger, a Viennese Jewish woman who died at Maly Trostinets, and her family.
• Polish Inns and Jewish Innkeepers – by Reeva Kimble
• The German Jewish Special Interest Group, GerSIG – by Pam Endzweig
• Mary Bella Beale Brainerd's Jewish Ancestry – by Richard Sapon–White
• Video tape from the Canadian television series, “Past Lives,” featuring the quest for family that first drew Stanley Diamond–President of the Jewish Genealogical Society of Montreal and Executive Director of Jewish Records Indexing Poland–into genealogy research. Stanley Diamond's website: www.diamondgen.org
• Video “Delta Jews”, followed by discussion of Jews in the south.
Other Activities
Genealogy Presentations to the local community by members:
• Renee Gottesman – to students at Temple Beth Israel
• Reeva Kimble and Charlie Fleishman – LDS conference on Genealogy
2003
Programs and speakers at Monthly Meetings
• Your grandmother's needlework, your grandfather's tallis: Preserving fabric heirlooms – Reeva Kimble
• The origins of Jewish surnames from eastern Europe. Ron Wixman, a cultural geographer at the University of Oregon
• Discussion on the origin of last names.
• The Hamburg Passenger lists and how to access them. – Eliezer Froehlich
• The features and search options of the EugeneGen web site. Charlie Fleishman
• Immigration into the US via Galveston, Texas in the early 20th century. Janet Mangus
• Plagues and Pogroms as influencing when our ancestors left the old country.
• Other ways to present genealogy information besides charts and family trees.
• Writing memoirs and family history – Arnold Ismach
• “Pauline Wengeroff's Memories of a Jewish Grandmother and Bella Chagall's Burning Lights: Two Early Twentieth Century Memoirs of Eastern European Jewish Family Life. Judith Baskin, Professor of Religious Studies and Director of the Harold Schnitzer Family Program in Judaic Studies at the University of Oregon.
Other Activities
• Set up a genealogy library at our meeting place that includes books, CDs, and videotapes.
• EugeneGen featured in the monthly newsletters of Temple Beth Israel and in the quarterly Jewish Federation of Lane County newsletter.
• EugeneGen participated in a community fair at Temple Beth Israel, answering genealogy questions and providing reference material.
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