Boston: Galician Ancestors, April 6

The lives of our Galician ancestors will be the featured at the next meeting of the Jewish Genealogical Society of Greater Boston, at 1.30pm Sunday, April 6, at Temple Emanuel in Newton Center.

Speaker Suzan Wynne's presentation will include a geographical orientation to Galicia. Today, Western Galicia is in Poland and Eastern Galicia is in Ukraine.

She will provide an overview of the government-mandated self governing system, the Judischen Kultus Gemeinden (Jewish Culture Committee), a uniquely Austrian construct which governed Jewish life. She will also discuss Polish society's rigid class structure on the Jews of Galicia, their daily life and religious observance, the Hasidic movement, conditions before and after the 1869 Emancipation of the Jews, education, marriage and the tricky issue of surnames for genealogical research.

Since 1977, Wynne has been involved with Jewish genealogy as a teacher, lecturer, author and former professional. A founding member of the Jewish Genealogy Society of Greater Washington, she founded Gesher Galicia in 1993. She has written two books about Jewish genealogical research for Galitzianers, and has contributed to or written articles for Avotaynu and books about genealogy. A clinical social worker, she works as a geriatric and mental health care manager and consultant in the Washington, DC area.

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