Long Island: You don't have to be Italian, May 31

"You don't have to be Italian ... to use the Italian Genealogical Group's databases" will be presented by IGG founder John Martino at the next meeting of the Jewish Genealogy Society of Long Island on Sunday, May 31.

The meeting begins at 2pm, at the Mid-Island Y JCC in Plainview, New York. JGSLI experts will be on hand from 1.30pm to answer questions.

Martino will explain the many naturalization records, county, Federal and New York City vital records on the IGG website. Currently there are more than 12 million records on the site, founded in 1990, which has helped researchers from around the world, regardless of their ethnic origins.

Personally, I have found naturalization records and marriage records for my own research. The databases are easy to navigate and hold valuable information for any researcher whose family settled in New York.

Since John's retirement in 2000 he has devoted a majority of his time to organizing volunteers to create these databases. Many volunteers are members of the Jewish genealogy societies of New York and of Long Island. I remember well his excellent presentation at the 2006 New York conference.

He'll explain how to use them and how the databases were created with an army of volunteers.

He first helped the Jewish Genealogy Society of New York with the Kings County Naturalizations. From there he did the Suffolk and Nassau County Naturalization. He then computerized the Bronx County Naturalizations and went on to the Federal records and computerized the Southern District Naturalization and is currently working on the Eastern District Naturalization.

John's team also computerized the New York City death records 1891-1929 and the Groom Index 1895-1936.

Admission is free. For more information, directions and future JGSLI programs, click here.

Check the Italian Genealogical Group for information on your family.