San Francisco: 'Cadastral Maps, Landowner Records,' April 10

Northern California genealogists can learn about cadastral maps and landowner records with Pamela Weisberger at the next meeting of the San Francisco Bay Area Jewish Genealogical Society, on Sunday, April 10.

Doors open at 12.30pm for the 1.30pm program, at the Oakland Regional Family History Center, 4766 Lincoln Avenue, in Oakland. The meeting is free.

"Cadastral Maps and Landowner Records: New Horizons for Genealogists" will demonstrate why Galician (today Polish and Ukrainian) cadastral land records and property maps are valuable sources of family history information, especially when vital records are sparse or missing.

Pamela's talk will cover the history and relevance of cadastral maps as an alternative source of genealogical and community information, how to obtain this type of record from overseas archives, the history of Gesher Galicia’s cadastral map program, and how to create your own community projects using these data.

These maps, created in the early 19th-20th centuries, show exact locations of churches, synagogues, cemeteries, schools, and market squares and often have the names of the landowners written onto the plots of land.

The house or parcel numbers can be used to chart a family across several generations and the land records can provide the size and/or values (for taxes) of properties that an individual owned and show inheritance patterns. In some cases, these records may be the only documented evidence of a family living in a particular town or village.

Pamela started out in the film industry working for Otto Preminger, who never took no for an answer, which was excellent training for becoming a genealogist! She is currently the 1st vice president and program chair for the Jewish Genealogical Society of Los Angeles and president of Gesher Galicia.

In addition to co-chairing/program chair for the 2010 Los Angeles IAJGS conference, she has coordinated the genealogical film festival for the past four events. She chairs the LimmudLA film team and is a professional genealogist.

For more than 30 years, she has conducted research in Germany, Poland, Ukraine and Hungary with a specialty in newspaper research. She holds a BA from Washington University in St. Louis and an MS from Boston University.

For more information and directions, click here.