28 February 2011

Florida: Photo Genealogist 'Sherlock Cohn' to speak March 9

Ava Cohn - AKA Sherlock Cohen - Photo Genealogist - will speak at the Jewish Genealogical Society of Palm Beach County on Wednesday, March 9.

The meeting begins at 12.30pm at the South County Civic Center, 16700 Jog Road, Delray Beach, Florida. The main program follows a brick wall session and brief business meeting. The Poland/Belarus SIG will meet from 11.30am-1215pm. Admission: JGSPBCI members, free; others, $5.

"Clued-In: Case Studies" is the name of the program, which will detail the mysteries of heirloom photos unlocked by Cohn, who brings a lifelong fascination with heirloom photographs and a multidisciplinary background to photo dating and interpretation.
Cohn holds a Theatre Arts BA (Brandeis University), and has done coursework in decorative arts, art history and costume history at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. A former marketing executive, she has been studying her family history as a hobby for more than three decades, and full time since 2005.

For directions and more information, click the JGSPBC website.
As Sherlock Cohn, the Jewish genealogy sleuth, she will demonstrate how and why it is important to mine the clues our ancestors left in their photos. Whether families came from Poland, Belarus, Ukraine, Galicia, Romania, Germany or other parts of Eastern Europe or the world, whether they were Ashkenazic or Sephardic, they left very personal records of their lives in the photographs and portraits for which they sat. Analyzing Jewish family photographs presents unique challenges unlike those of any other ethnic groups.

Sherlock” will show how accurate photo dating, photo identification, knowledge of fashion and artifact history, and matching of vital records can illuminate relatives’ lives, and help solve some of the vexing family genealogy mysteries.

Cohn has made it her mission to help as many Jewish genealogists as possible to recover the personal information that their ancestors knew when they had their portraits originally taken and as such, specializes in the period of most Jewish photographs, 1880-1960.

No comments:

Post a Comment