FGS: Strategies for societies now available online

The Federation of Geneaogical Societies (FGS) has placed a series of expert papers on society strategies on its website.

February 28, 2011 – Austin, TX. The Federation of Genealogical Societies (FGS) announces that a vast collection of its Society Strategy Series papers is now available—free to the public—at the FGS website (http://www.fgs.org/societystrategy/).

The Society Strategy Series is a collection of papers filled with suggestions and instructions for the management of genealogical societies, historical societies, and family associations.

These papers have been expertly written by respected authors in the genealogy community to help you and your society grow and prosper.

Timely Topics by Well-Known Authors
Topics covered in the Society Strategy Series papers include:
·        Series I: Strategies for Societies
·        Series II: Strategies for Presidents
·        Series III: Strategies for Vice-Presidents
·        Series IV: Strategies for Treasurers
·        Series V: Strategies for Secretaries
·        Series VI: Strategies for Program Chairpersons
·        Series VII: Strategies for Librarians
·        Series VIII: Strategies for Editors

Most genealogists and genealogy society members will recognize the authors of the Society Strategy Series papers which include Jana Sloan Broglin, Karen Clifford, Betty Robertson Kaufman, Roberta “Bobbi” King, Gary Mokotoff, David Rencher, Curt Witcher, and the late Sandra H. Luebking and Marsha Hoffman Rising.

Newer Society Strategy Series topics are placed in the Members Only area of the FGS website for a period of one (1) year as a member benefit for FGS member societies. Additional new papers are being written and are planned for the coming year.

Helping Genealogy Societies Grow and Prosper
FGS is proud to make the Society Strategy Series available to the entire genealogical community as a means of helping societies become better at managing and growing their organizations.

About the Federation of Genealogical Societies (FGS)
The Federation of Genealogical Societies (FGS) was founded in 1976 and represents the members of hundreds of genealogical societies. FGS links the genealogical community by helping genealogical societies strengthen and grow through resources available online, FGS Forum magazine (filled with articles pertaining to society management and genealogical news), and Society Strategy Series papers, covering topics about effectively operating a genealogical society. FGS also links the genealogical community through its annual conference -- four days of excellent lectures, including one full day devoted to society management topics. To learn more visit http://www.fgs.org/.

Editor’s Note:  Whether you have a robust society or are experiencing waning membership, whether you are a long-established society or just starting out as a society, this series is very useful to genealogy societies and similar organizations.

Society members should take a look and see if the articles can  help their organization solve problems and issues.

RootsTech 2011: Keynotes, presentations online

The inaugural edition of the RootsTech conference was quite an experience. Tracing the Tribe is looking forward to the 2012 event.

The keynote talks and select presentations are now available online for those who couldn't make it in person. FamilySearch media contact Paul Nauta - whose attention to detail and to the care of the geneabloggers and others was much appreciated - sent this press release:

Relive RootsTech 2011

Popular Conference Makes Select Presentations Available for Free Online

11 March 2011

SALT LAKE CITY—If you missed the popular inaugural RootsTech 2011 conference, you can now at least get a sampling of what all the excitement was about. The wildly popular new technology and family history conference held last month in Salt Lake City, Utah, made its keynote addresses and a few other popular presentations available online today free of charge. The six free presentations can be viewed at RootsTech.org.

“The scope of the RootsTech conference was unique. We wanted to try to fulfill a need to bring technology users (family history buffs and anyone interested in genealogy) and technology creators (developers, programmers, engineers) together in a unique, fun environment to collaborate and move the genealogy industry forward through technology,” said Anne Roach, RootsTech conference chair. And bring them together it did.

The inaugural conference, hosted by FamilySearch, was a runaway success. With over 3,000 in-person attendees and another 4,500 attending remotely over the Internet, it was arguably one of the largest genealogy-related conferences ever held in the country. In-person attendees hailed from 42 states and 15 countries. Some came from as far away as China, New Zealand, Australia, Namibia, and Israel.

Paul Nauta, RootsTech public relations chair, reported that there were over 40 bloggers in attendance. “Between online articles, blog posts, and nonstop tweets, the online community was buzzing 24 hours a day during the conference and for weeks following—and amazingly, articles and tweets are still going strong,” noted Nauta.

The new conference was pulled together quickly by industry standards—in about 6 months. “The fact that we were able to attract as many conference goers as we did in such a short amount of time testifies to the interest there is in technology and family history,” said Roach. “And we’ve put the videos of the keynotes and other presentations online for free to give others a chance to share in the RootsTech experience; to give them a taste of what they can expect for 2012,” added Roach.

A highlight of the conference was the extensive community networking—community zone (exhibit hall), collaboration stations, and unconferencing sessions. These integrated features produced an open conference atmosphere that seemed to be ideal to introduce technology creators to genealogy technology users and to foster discussions, learning, collaboration, and future industry developments.

Unconferencing sessions—impromptu, participant-driven discussion forums that promote brainstorming, the sharing of ideas, and innovation—were totally new to genealogy attendees, but were more familiar to the technologists. Attendees took advantage of unconferencing sessions to discuss user needs with technology developers and to brainstorm new ideas and solutions. “People emerged from these [unconferencing sessions] with eyes sparkling, and I overheard several people describing conversations between developers and genealogists that left both feeling validated and motivated,” said Polly FitzGerald Kimitt, an attendee and author of Pollyblog.

The RootsTech 2012 conference is scheduled for February 2–4 in Salt Lake City, Utah.

In addition to the six video presentations mentioned above, video interviews of other conference speakers and developers can be watched at Genealogy Gems YouTube.

About RootsTech

RootsTech is a new conference designed to bring technologists together with genealogists to learn from each other and find solutions to the challenges faced in family history research today. The conference’s activities and offerings are focused on content that will help genealogists and family historians discover exciting new research tools while enabling technology creators to learn the latest development techniques from industry leaders and pioneers.

RootsTech 2012 is set for February 2-4. Mark your calendars now.

Mocavo.com: New, free genealogy search engine launches

Claiming to be the world's largest free genealogy search engine, Mocavo.com launched today.

The tag line reads, "Searching billions of names in tens of thousands of free sources."

The world’s largest free genealogy search engine, says Mocavo.com, provides genealogists access to the best free genealogy content on the web including billions of names, dates and places worldwide.

The site seeks to index and make searchable all of the world’s free genealogy information.

According to the website, Mocavo.com discovers new sites every day. Sites currently searchable include genealogy message boards, family trees, state and local historical societies. Some of the well-known sites that Mocavo accesses include the Library of Congress, National Archives, Ellis Island, Find A Grave, the Internet Archive, various U.S. state archives, and large numbers of genealogy sites built by individuals for their own family history.

Mocavo links directly to the original content sites.

Dick Eastman and Randy Seaver have already posted about their experiences. Tracing the Tribe is contributing to the Jewish experience on the new site.

I usually start with my names of interest, TALALAY and DARDASHTI, moving onto the geographical locations important to this research, as well as other topics of interest. The website claims to enable the search of more than 50 billion words, so there must be something for Tracing the Tribe, right?

• There were 168 results for TALALAY and 1,757 entries for DARDASHTI.

The TALALAY entries included Ancestry board posts, conference entries and more. This search did offer a few new ones that I need to follow up on, and it saved me from what usually happens on a Google search, which produces thousands of references to cousins producer Rachel Talalay and her films, Dr. Paul Talalay (Rachel's father), the latex rubber Talalay process and broccoli sprouts.

The DARDASHTI entries included many for Tracing the Tribe, of course, but the others included many conference entries.

• My first geographical location -Mogilev, Belarus - displayed more than 1,550 hits, mostly from JewishGen's various pages, but aso including other sites. Some results need to be investigated more thoroughly.
• A search for "sephardic" - important for many Tracing the Tribe readers - produced more than 7,000 results, mostly from JewishGen. "Jewish Sephardic" brought out some 1,100. There were differences in the results.
• A search for "Tracing the Tribe," brought in some 71 hits, while "Jewish genealogy" resulted in nearly 20,000 results, covering a wide gamut of resources (JewishGen, Jewish genealogical societies, various archives, libraries, book lists, individual family history pages and much more).
• Searching merely for "Jewish," produced nearly 680,000 results. Among these were state history sites, message boards, state sites for Jewish archives, museums, JGSs, local history sites, cemeteries and many more.

Tracing the Tribe suggests you try it for your own "dot on the map" and surnames. Many more sites will likely be added and searches will produce many more results.

Mocavo.com also has a Facebook page, which Tracing the Tribe has "liked." I think you'll also like it.

Try it out and let your fellow readers know what you've found in your own search.

Poland: JRI-Poland adds many new records

JRI-Poland executive director Stanley Diamond (Montreal) has informed Tracing the Tribe about two new additions - nearly 74,000 entries - to the JRI-Poland database. The database currently holds some 4.1 milion records.

Yesterday, JRI-Poland's sshtel Co-Op Coordinator Hadassah Lipsius (New York) let us know about the addition of more than 28,000 entries indexed from LDS (Mormon) microfilms, including data from Wawolnica, as well as Checiny, Chelm, Kepno, Kozienice, Krzepice, Miedzyrzec Podlaski, Opole Lubelskie, Skierniwice, Sulejow, and Szydlowiec.

Today, Stan noted the new batch - records NOT filmed by the LDS - which are now online as part of JRI-Poland's PSA Project

Jewish Records Indexing - Poland, says Stan, creates indices of Jewish vital records from two prime sources:

• LDS (Mormon) microfilms of Jewish records, generally ending1860s-1870s and indexed under the Shtetl's CO-OP project.
• Index pages purchased from the Polish State Archives or created by archival staff (prior to November 2006). These are the PSA project.

Towns covered in this addition are: Brzesko, Czyzewo, Frampol, Gostynin (Books of Residents), Grabowiec, Hrubieszow, Jarczow, Jozefow Bilgorajski, Krasnobrod, Krasnystaw, Lancut (1910 Census), Laszczow, Leczna, Nowy Sacz, Nowy Wisnicz, Nowy Zmigrod, Raciaz (Books of Residents), Radymno, Sokolow Malopolski, Szczebrzeszyn, Tarnobrzeg, Tomaszow Lubelski, Turobin, Uchanie, Warszawa, Wysokie (in the Zamosc area), Zamosc and Zolkiewka.

Except as noted, the new/updated data are indices to birth, marriage and death records.

Some of the above towns' records are in the Zamosc branch of the PSA. A separate announcement by Zamosc Archive Coordinator Shelley Pollero is forthcoming.

SEARCHING

Search by surname AND town OR surname AND geographical area. For hints on maximizing your search results by using geographic coordinates, click here. TIP Don't search by town name only as this will not generate results!:

THANK YOU

Stans thanks JRI-Poland's database manager Michael Tobias, associate director Hadassah Lipsius and our support team of Howard Fink and Meira Putterman, dedicated Town Leaders and Archive
Coordinators and contributors whose efforts and generosity have helped the JRI-Poland database grow.

Towns for which there is no online data yet: Go to the "Your Town" link on JRI-Poland to contact the Town Leader for your town. If a Town Leader is not listed, contact the Archive Coordinator for that town. If your town is not listed, send an email.

DONATIONS

To support indexing of your ancestral town or help JRI-Poland's efforts to index Jewish records from all areas of Poland, click here.

New York: 'Jews of the Balkans," preserving memories, March 31

The Central Europe Center for Research and Documentation - known as Centropa - is headed by Edward Serotta in Vienna, Austria. Serotta informed Tracing the Tribe about recent events.

Serotta will speak on the Jews of the Balkans talk at the Center for Jewish History on March 31 in New York City, presented by the American Sephardi Federation and YIVO Institute for Jewish Research. The title is "Images of a Lost World: Pictures and stories of Balkan Sephardic life from the Centropa.org interviews."

An exhibit in the Constantiner Gallery opens at 6.30pm, while Serotta will speak at 7.15pm on using new technologies to preserve Jewish memory.

Seventy years ago this spring, Nazi Germany invaded Yugoslavia and Greece, then set about destroying the Jewish communities that had been in this region since the expulsion from Spain in 1492 (in some cases, even longer).

Between 2001 and 2008, Centropa interviewed 200 elderly Sephardic Jews in Bulgaria, Bosnia, Serbia, Macedonia, Turkey and Greece. Rather than use video in its interviews, Centropa digitized 4,000 family photographs. Rather than concentrating on how Jews were murdered during the Shoah,

Centropa’s interviews are much more about how Jews lived--before, during and after the Shoah. This exhibition is comprised of pictures and stories from these interviews. All texts in this exhibition are in both English and Spanish.

Following the opening of the exhibit, Serotta will present a talk on how his institute has preserved Sephardic Balkan Jewish memory.

Born in Savannah, Georgia in 1949, he has lived in Berlin, Budapest and Austria since 1988. He has authored books and documentaries.

He presented a similar talk in Los Angeles. Read the LA Times article here.

A recent Philadelphia seminar for some 30 educators, organized by Centropa, was covered by the Philadelphia Jewish Exponent.

For more information on Centropa, click here.

Cleveland: Beginners' workshop, March 28

A beginners workshop featuring computer genealogy tools will be offered by the Jewish Genealogy Society of Cleveland (Ohio) on Monday, March 28.

The session runs from 7.15-9pm at Menorah Park. Admission: JGSC members, free; others $15.

Instructors are JGSC president Ken Bravo and Kol editor Cynthia Spikell.

WiFi Internet and Ancestry.com will be available - for the first 20 registrants - for those who bring their own Wi-Fi-enabled laptops.

To register, send an email or see the JGSC website for more information and to download the registration form.

San Francisco: 'Towers of Gold' author speaks, March 27

Have you read Frances Dinkespiel's book - Towers of Gold - about her great-great-grandfather Isaias Hellman ? Tracing the Tribe highly recommends it.

San Francisco-area residents can hear the author talk about the book at the next meeting of the San Francisco Bay Area Jewish Genealogical Society on Sunday, March 27.

Doors open at 12.30pm, and the program begins at 1pm at Congregation Beth Israel-Judea, 625 Brotherhood Way,  next to Brandeis Hillel Day School.

Dinkelspiel's lecture is entitled "Towers of Gold: How One Jewish Immigrant Named Isaias Hellman Created California."

Isaias Wolf Hellman left Bavaria at age 16 and within 10 years of arriving in Gold Rush-era California founded Los Angeles' first bank. A brilliant entrepreneur and financier, he was integral to the founding of Wells Fargo Bank, the establishment of the University of Southern California, and the financing of the burgeoning oil industry. Frances Dinkelspiel (Hellman's great-great-granddaughter) will talk about Hellman's impact on early Los Angeles and his role in the development of San Francisco as a major financial center.

An award-winning journalist, Dinkelspiel's work has appeared in the New York Times, People, the San Jose Mercury News, San Francisco Magazine, and other publications. She is the co-founder of Berkeleyside.com, a new local website about Berkeley, and lives in Berkeley. Read more about her and the book here.

For more information or directions, click here.

Family Tree Magazine: 2011 best gen blogs

Tracing the Tribe hasn't checked email for two days as we are attending the Sephardic Memory and Movement Conference in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

Today, during a schedule break, we managed to get an internet connection and discovered that Tracing the Tribe has been named in the heritage category of Family Tree Magazine's 2011 Best 40 Genealogy Blogs.

Thank you to Family Tree Magazine and to the Family Tree 40 Panel of blogger colleagues for this honor which includes us among so many distinguished colleagues.

Due to a few technical difficulties, the graphic and the links cannot be posted immediately. They will be added when the technical glitch is fixed.