Jewish Genealogy in Eastern Europe–Miriam Weiner

SESSION: F346  TRACK: Jewish      TITLE:  Jewish Roots in the Former USSR: What’s New and Where is it?

Miriam Weiner is a Certified Genealogist Emeritus and was the first person to be certified in Jewish genealogy.  She specializes in Jewish genealogy of Poland and countries of the former Soviet Union and writes a regular column that has appeared in over 100 Jewish newspapers.  She is a former private investigator and holds a BA in history with a concentration in Modern Judaic History and Holocaust Studies.

A previous post highlighted Weiner’s lecture on Thursday that focuses on using business directories, telephone books, and both town and regional maps for towns in Poland and the former USSR via OCR and standard surname searches.

Weiner is also giving a lecture on Friday that will be an introduction to new surname databases, identifying newly-discovered document collections and how to find and then acquire family documents in the former USSR. Weiner will walk attendees through using the various websites that allow you to first determine what records have survived the holocaust and then how to access them.

There are six other talks on Jewish genealogy.  Two talks on the Crypto Jews of Mexico and the western United States; an overview of Jewish records available online; methods for reconstructing families torn apart by the holocaust; and new Jewish records now available online for the former USSR.  These are summarized in the previous blog post on the Jewish and European-Middle Eastern tracks.

Onsite registration opens May 23 in Sacramento for those who choose to register upon arrival.