CLIMBING THE FAMILY TREE


Lecture outline:

This is a 90 minutes presentation to be given to an audience who is not exposed to the topic. Its scope covers genealogy in the US, Jewish genealogy in Eastern Europe and topics of interest that relate to genealogy (Taxonomy, History and local-history).

I. Introduction: Myths about Jewish Genealogy & How to start.

  1. Why start a Genealogy work? How much should one research?
  2. How to start? The Basic Steps (What we know? What we need to know?
  3. How to find out? What actually is told to us? What to conclude?)
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II. Directions & Methods: Where to find records? What to concentrate on?

  1. Original Records vs. State Records in the US (BMD, Census(es), Military, Immigration/Naturalization etc.)
  2. Records from Eastern Europe (Churches/Townships, LDS).
  3. Electronic databases (SSA, LDS, REIPP, WWW).
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III. Family HiSTORY: How to reconstruct the lives of our ancestors?

  1. Photos & Archival
  2. Artifacts
  3. Stories & Interviews
  4. Other published sources (Newspapers, Minutes, Census Scanning etc)
  5. Local History.
  6. National and World History.
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IV Tidbits:

  1. What's in a name?
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V. Q & A & Book References

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Samples & books will be presented & discussed. Informational sheets will be distributed to participants.

Presentation creator's Bio:

Yigal Rechtman has been a genealogist for 12 years, first in Israel and then in the U.S. Member of the New York Jewish Genealogy Society, special editor to Landsmen and a contributor to Russian Era Indexing of Poland Project (REIPP) database and Roots-L on the Internet. Other specialties include: Genealogy using the Social Security Administration, Genealogical Software and photography archival. Yigal Rechtman, N.Y. 1997 ©