IAJGS 2018 Warsaw Conference - Day 5

Seems like something comes up nearly each year that I miss the Professional Genealogists BOF meeting. I managed to attend last year. Last year I missed attending the IAJGS Annual Meeting because I was making a presentation (I sent another member of the Phoenix Jewish Genealogy Group to represent us). This year I figured I should attend the IAJGS Annual Meeting, myself. That meant missing the Professional Genealogists BOF, which was scheduled at the same time - Thursday morning. Such is the IAJGS conference experience when one is involved in one's community!

IAJGS announced that new board members are Janette Silverman, Sarina Roffe and Christa Cowen (all U.S. residents). There was some animated discussion regarding the lack of new board members representing other countries this year. Apparently 1/3 of IAJGS member societies are international and the current board will not reflect that diversity. In the recruitment committee's defense, they apparently contacted representatives of non-USA societies and no one from those societies stepped up this year. I imaging that two year's from now some new tactics will be employed.

This past year the membership committee has been employing new tactics that resulted in ten new societies joining the IAJGS. These include societies in Albany, NY; Kansas City, MO; Hungary; northeast Florida and Fort Wayne, Indiana. Nice!

Two awards winners were announced. The Stern Award went to Litvak SIG for their "Vilna Household Register Books project." Reclaim the Records took the Stegman Award for their acquisition of the New York City birth and death indices.

Next year in Cleveland! - 28 July - 2 August 2019.

Thursday was just that sort of day, and I had to make a hard choice for my next event, as well. There were a number of good options and I chose to attend Doug Hykle's "Documenting the Life and Death of an Eastern European Shtetl - Research Sources for Genealogists." 

I first made Doug's acquaintance several year's ago when he asked me for contact information for my 2nd cousin once removed, Sally Eisner, who was born in Zaleszczyki, moved to nearby Torskie when she was about 10, and was interned in Tluste (Tovste) during part of WWII. Quite a few years ago Sally had recorded her recollections for the USC Shoah Foundation and Doug had some questions for her about her experiences and testimony. With information I was able to provide, Doug made contact and traveled to Sally's home to interview her in-person. He's that kind of researcher. 

He describes his work as "community-scale forensic genealogy" and he has created and manages a wonderful website on Tovste that chronicles both Jewish and non-Jewish life in the community. Original sources come from the State Archives in Lviv, where the earliest Tluste Jewish records date to 1787.

Through Yad Vashem databases, the International Tracing Service, Gesher Galicia; testimonies from the USC Shoah Foundation and the Fortunoff Collection (at Yale University); and Sefer Tluste Doug has developed a spreadsheet of about 2,600 victims in 700 families.

Doug Hykle's research is a tour de force. So glad I attended his session.

For this conference, as I have for the last several, I organized an informal Jewish genealogy blogger's get-together. This year we did a bring-your-own lunch. Ten bloggers (or blogger wanna-bes) attended - which was more than I expected. We chatted about the blogging platforms we use and their pros and cons. 

Several of us who use Blogger (a Google product) are worried that Google, based on past history with other apparently non-monetized products, might not continue to support it. We have no inside information, really. 

We also talked about different emphases and pages on our blogs that some use as lures for readers. These include Philip Trauring's forms and Compendium of Jewish Genealogy on Blood and Frogs; Lara Diamond's genetic genealogy articles on Lara's Genealogy; Banai Feldstein's WDYTYA nitpicker articles at The Ginger Jewish Genealogist. A year of so ago I added list of Jewish genealogy blogger's as a page on my blog.

Other current bloggers in attendance included: Marysia Galbraith - Uncovering Jewish Heritage; Mary-Jane Roth - MemoryKeeper's Notebook; and Daniel Horowitz, who contributes to the MyHeritage blog.

I'd a busy morning, but, fortunate for me, I was well-prepared for my presentation: "Learning Our Craft: Online Opportunities for Improving Our Research Skills." The concept for this presentation is that one ought to return to the IAJGS conference next year with a solid year's worth of genealogy learning and experience under one's belt. The talk provides information on how to find blogs, podcasts, webinars and online courses and programs. I had quite a good audience for this presentation - which was not recorded.

I attended Carol Hoffman's short presentation, "Where's My Shtetl OR What's in a Name?" because overcoming challenges in identifying towns of origin is one of my pet topics (and peeves).[1] I had no problems with Carol's presentation. Carol, past-President of Litvak SIG and 2018 IAJGS Volunteer of the Year, ably covered the topic within the limited time-frame. The limited time meant the presentation had to be basic and there was not a great deal of time for the audience to ask questions.

I have to admit that I am not a fan of the short presentation format that IAJGS has introduced in the last couple of years. I especially feel this format is unnecessary at a conference outside the USA where all presentations have been shortened to one hour (45 minute talk plus questions) from the usual 75 minutes (one hour talk plus questions). Short presentations (25 minutes) short-change discussion and push speakers to over-simplify their topics. 
  The general reception for all conference attendees was held immediate before the Thursday evening banquet. And immediately before that was the IAJGS President's reception. Since I am a JGS president, I was invited. I definitely did not need any more food! I like to eat breakfast and I am not used to eating as late as I have been at this conference. Polish people seem to do dinner a bit late in the evening. Eating late means I am still digesting when I wake up in the morning. At this reception I was, however, quite happy with the provided glass of wine.

Early in the conference Max Heffler offered to reserved a seat for me at the JewishGen table during the banquet. That was pretty nice because the table is in the front row (it was also nice because there were some nice people at the table).

The banquet speaker was Kanstanty Gebert, listed as a journalist and Jewish activist. He also has taught a universities in Poland, Israel and the USA. His talk at the banquet centered on the complex development of Polish feelings toward remembering the Holocaust and the place the Jewish community once had in Polish society. I know that few things in life are one-sided or black and white. And Gebert's talk, placing the evolution of Polish and Jewish attitudes in recent historical context, surely bore that out.

The IAJGS Lifetime Achievement Award went to Mark Halpern. All I can say is that Mark is one of the kindest, most generous and accessible genealogists I know. I, like so many others, are indebted to him for his good work and his willingness to help and share.

Banai Feldstein won the award for Outstanding Project/Resource/Program for CSI: Crowd Sourced Indexing Project 

Outstanding Publication by a Jewish genealogical society went to Venturing Into Our Past, JGS of Conejo Valley (California).

I mentioned earlier that Carol Hoffman was named Volunteer of the Year. They actually gave two awards this year. Another went to Max Heffler.
 
A Special Award for volunteer service went to Susan Edel. 

Notes:
1. As a matter of fact, this is a topic I have spoken on at several past conferences and published on in Avotaynu. I did not offer to present on this topic this year.