Chicago 2008: Breakfast with experts

The 28th IAJGS International Conference on Jewish Genealogy (Chicago, August 17-22) has announced this year's Breakfast with the Experts. This year's Q&A format will cover beginners, Chicago resources, JRI-Poland, Sephardic research, the 2009 Philadelphia event, International Tracing Service, Polish document translation and - for the first time - blogging.

I've been invited to lead the Thursday morning Blogs Q&A session (see below), and hope to meet many Tracing the Tribe readers at the breakfast and during the conference week.

The conference website does not yet offer speaker bios, so here's some very limited information for each breakfast leader. Seating is limited; early registration is recommended.

Monday, August 18

Beginners Q&A: Nancy Levin Arbeiter CG is a full-time professional genealogist specializing in Jewish family history research and has taught the beginner's workshop at many annual conferences.

Chicago Resources Q&A: Mike Karsen is JGS of Illinois president, author of the Chicagoland Jewish Resources guide, and a professional genealogy speaker, instructor and researcher.

Tuesday, August 19

JRI-Poland Q&A: Mike Halpern is a JRI-Poland Executive Committee member, BIALYGen founder/coordinator responsible for indexing Galician and Bialystok area records and JGS of Greater Philadelphia past president.

Sephardic Research Q&A: Jeff Malka is a luminary and pioneer of Sephardic genealogy, award-winning author, creator of JewishGen's SephardicSIG and of SephardicGen.com

Wednesday, August 20

Philadelphia 2009 Conference Q&A: Fred Blum is president of the JGS of Greater Philadelphia, which will co-host the 29th IAJGS International Conference of Jewish Genealogy (August 2-7, 2009).

International Tracing Service Q&A: Gary Mokotoff has a strong interest in Holocaust research and heads Avotaynu, publisher of essential Jewish genealogical reference works.

Thursday, August 21

Translating Polish Documents Q&A: Judy Frazin is the former president of the JGS of Illinois, and author of a popular guide to 19th-century Polish-language civil registration documents.

Blogs Q&A: Schelly Talalay Dardashti focuses on Jewish genealogy as researcher, journalist, online instructor, speaker and blogger.

To register for the conference, hotel, special interest group lunches and expert breakfasts, click here. Breakfasts run from 7-8am; the fee is $29 and a kosher option is available. Scheduled conference programming begins following breakfast.