Genealogy at the library

Genealogist Stephanie Weiner is a librarian for the San Diego County (California) Library.

She became interested in genealogy when she met a Holocaust survivor relative in a La Jolla restaurant.

She was recently interviewed about Ancestry.com, which was just added to the library's subscription databases so patrons can use it free of charge.

Stephanie says "genealogy is a cross between a treasure hunt and a jigsaw puzzle. We follow the clues to a piece of the puzzle and then find where the piece fits."

Other topics she touched on were identity theft, how genealogy works, Mormon records , the Bad Arolsen-International Tracing Service archives, Social Security records, and the challenges of genealogy.

Stephanie just offered Interactive Genealogy 101 at her library, to introduce patrons to Ancestry.com. Attendees provided family names and, using Ancestry.com, she demonstrated the information that could be found.

She will present "Tracing Adopted or Orphaned Family Members - A Methodological Approach" at the upcoming International Conference on Jewish Genealogy July 15-20 in Salt Lake City. Her talk will cover legislation, accessible information, survey of laws, search strategies and print/electronic research media.