Jewish Genealogy Society of Southern Nevada - Las Vegas

04/28/2022

May 15, 2022: Guest speaker Richard Haynes will present "Eleven Tools to Help You Find Out More About Your Military Ancestors"

Time: 1:30 p.m.

Location: Las Vegas FamilySearch Library, 509 S 9th St, Las Vegas, NV 89101

"Eleven Tools to Help You Find Out More About Your Military Ancestors"

You will learn how to use a variety of websites to find out more about your military ancestors. We'll look at Fold3, Ancestry, FamilySearch, JewishGen, the National Archives and more. Step-by-step instructions will be shared so that you can find information about your ancestors after the lecture is over! Typical documents that can be accessed include enlistment records, transport lists (think of a passenger manifest for troops), military registers, and separation documents. And while we're at it, we may find more general genealogical documents in these websites, like birth, marriage, census and death records. It's possible to uncover descriptions of your military ancestor's unit, what they did and where they did it. The more places you search, the greater the likelihood you'll find something. We'll also weave in a case study of the highest-ranking Jewish general from WWII, Maurice Rose.

03/11/2022

March 20, 2022: Guest speaker Lee Nishimoto will present "Golden Resources in FamilySearch: Wiki, Help Center, and Catalog"

Time: 1:30 p.m.

Location: Las Vegas FamilySearch Library, 509 S 9th St, Las Vegas, NV 89101
Golden Resources in FamilySearch: Wiki, Help Center and Catalog"

​The Research Wiki is continually expanding reference source on localities and topics related to family history. Articles help researchers find and understand important records. This is a “Must Check” for thorough research. The Help Center is for technical “How to” do or fix issues in FamilySearch with step-by-step instructions. The Learning Center has over 900 amazing videos in several languages on genealogy around the world. The FamilySearch Catalog allows the researcher to locate the millions of digitized records that are indexed or unindexed from many countries. All these are free at FamilySearch .org to help advance family history.

12/15/2020


Hold the date! Our next zoom presentation:
January 17, 2021: Guest speaker, Daniel Horowitz, will present "Location, Location, Location: Where Your Relatives Were"

Time: 1:00 p.m. Pacific Standard Time

" Location, Location, Location: Where Your Relatives Were​"

See information about registration at our web page: www.jgssn.org/meetings.html

You know what they say: location is everything. Maps, addresses, and places are some of the key points of genealogy research. Analyzing your facts and recognizing when the places you’ve recorded were misspelled, incomplete, or totally wrong can give your research a huge boost — paving the way for you to discover how, where, and why your ancestors lived and worked where they did. By using the correct tools and websites, you’ll find new clues and gain extraordinary insights... but only if you follow the right path. In this lecture, Daniel will show you the way.

Virtual Meetings Via Zoom Times may vary each month

11/09/2020

SAVE THE DATE!
December 13, 2020: Guest speaker, Jennifer Mendelsohn, will present "Think Like a Reporter
To Avoid Genealogy Mistakes"
Time: 1:00 p.m. Pacific Standard Time
​Members: Virtual meetings are free. New and current members will get advance notice and
may sign up immediately. Members will have priority​ access to "seats". To join JGSSN go to
our website (https://www.jgssn.org/membership.html)
Non-members: Registration will open on November 15. While virtual meetings are free, we ask
that you make a donation by going to https://www.jgssn.org/donate.html
To attend: email [email protected]. In the email subject line, put "I would like to attend the
December 13 meeting". Be sure to put your name in the email. If space is available, you will
receive a confirmation with the Zoom link. "Think Like a Reporter To Avoid Genealogy Mistakes​" This talk will cover how more than two decades of journalism experience has helped me as a
genealogist, both to zero in on reliable information and not to be duped by unreliable
information. We’ll talk about using the “Law and Order” method (follow the “dun duns!”) to
track down information and how relying on simple principles like Occam’s Razor – that the
most likely scenario is the least complicated – and logic grids can help you get further. We’ll go
over pitfalls like not blindly using Ancestry hints, assessing the credibility of sources, not being
wedded to spelling, (hello, wildcard searches!) and why genealogy is like playing Concentration:
you always have to remember the cards you’ve seen and turned over.

10/20/2020

November 8, 2020: Guest speaker, E. Randol Shoenberg, will present "Woman in Gold"

Time: 1:00 p.m. Pacific Standard Time

​Members: Virtual meetings are free and members will get advance notice and priority​ access to "seats".

To attend: email [email protected]. In the email subject line, put "I would like to attend the November 8 meeting". Be sure to put your name in the email. If space is available, you will receive a confirmation with the Zoom link.

"Woman in Gold"

The remarkable true story of one woman’s journey to reclaim her heritage and seek justice for what happened to her family. Sixty years after she fled Vienna during World War II, an elderly Jewish woman, Maria Altmann, starts her journey to retrieve family possessions seized by the N***s, among them Klimt’s famous painting Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer. Together with her inexperienced but plucky young lawyer Randy Schoenberg, she embarks upon a major battle which takes them all the way to the heart of the Austrian establishment and the U.S. Supreme Court, and forces her to confront difficult truths about the past along the way

09/30/2020

Upcoming Monthly Meetings

Virtual Meetings Via Zoom
Times may vary each month

​October 18, 2020: Guest speaker, Robinn Magid, will present "Finding your Eastern European Jewish Family on JRI-Poland.org"

Time: 1:00 p.m. Pacific Daylight Time

​Members: Virtual meetings are free
Non-members: The virtual meetings are free, but we ask that you make a donation by clicking here.

To attend: email [email protected] and you will receive an invitation with the Zoom link a day or two prior to the meeting. In the email subject line, put "attending October 18 meeting". Be sure to put your name in the email.

"Finding your Eastern European Jewish Family on JRI-Poland.org"

Join us for a presentation of some truly memorable stories from the JRI-Poland.org case file that highlight what this incredible database and website might do for your own research. For 25 years, JRI-Poland has served as the preferred finding aid for the Jewish records that survive in the archives of Poland today. This vast collection of 6.2 million records from over 550 towns includes information about towns and families from Poland, Ukraine, Belarus, Lithuania, Germany and the former territories of Galicia and Prussia. Through understanding the contents of the database and how to improve your search results to exploring preserved Holocaust-related records, this lecture will focus on the good things that can come out of a genealogical search. Come listen to stories of the people we’ve helped in the hope that you’ll get a useful new idea from our more surprising experiences.

08/21/2020

Save the Date!
JGSSN Virtual Meeting via Zoom
Join us for another exciting Zoom meeting!

Live from Belarus
Meeting: "Belarus: Jewish History & Research Strategy in Belarus Archives"

When: September 13 starting at 10:00 a.m. (Las Vegas time)

Where: Your computer, tablet or smartphone (a virtual meeting)

Speaker: Yuri Dorn - live from Belarus

What you should do:
1. Put this on your calendar
2. Reply to this note ([email protected]) if you would like to attend (simply say "I will
attend")
3. Look for an email on September 10 with the Zoom link and more detail about the
presentation
We look forward to seeing you on September 13 for this
informative presentation!
Information about our meetings is also available on the JGSSN web site
at https://www.jgssn.org/.

08/13/2020

August 16, 2020
At 10:00 AM
Exciting Zoom Meeting
Guest speaker, Alex Krakovsky, will present "Jewish Documents Kept By Ukrainian Archives"

Live from the Ukraine
For complete Zoom information to join this meeting: Must rsvp to [email protected].

Alex Krakovsky is a Jewish Ukrainian born in Kyiv. He is using the Freedom of Information laws
and the court system in Ukraine to force archives to allow him to scan records. Alex became
interested in learning about his roots after his mother’s death in 2011. He found references to
his grandfather, whom the family knew almost nothing about in a book and some documents at
the archive in Zhytomyr. He was asked to pay 116,000 hryvnia (about $4,600) for copies of the
documents! He refused and continued to refuse until the archives decreased the fee to $2,
which he paid. Alex later sued the archive, winning back his $2 plus an additional 100
hryvnia ($4) for the hassle the archive put him through.
The case also changed Alex's life. With no formal legal training, he has become a litigation
machine—a hero of sorts to frustrated researchers and genealogists. Alex has sued more than a
dozen archives with the goal of bringing Ukraine’s archives up to European standards. Among
other things, he advocates for the publishing of inventories online so that people know what is
in the archives. This would also help prevent the illegal sale of archival materials, which he
suspects is ongoing. He also agitates for the right to freely photograph documents.
Alex has not lost a single case to date. He often wins, citing constitutional precedent. Recently,
he faced his most powerful adversary. Alex filed suit against Ukraine’s Ministry of Justice. The
Ministry has the state archives under its wing and issued a June 2018 order barring the copying
of documents larger than letter-size, files thicker than 1 ½ inches, old printed books, listings of
documents, and basically anything a researcher or genealogist might need to see.

07/05/2020

IAJGS ANNUAL CONFERENCE IS A VIRTUAL CONFERENCE THIS YEAR
For more information : IAJGS2020.org

06/26/2020

The Board of the Jewish Genealogy Society of Southern Nevada has voted to cancel the July 19th meeting scheduled to be held at the Sahara West Library. We feel that this is in the best interest of our members. The governor has not moved Nevada beyond Phase Two in the state’s response to the pandemic.

We still have our August meeting scheduled and hope that we will be able to meet then.
For more information go to our web page: jgssn.org

06/20/2020

IAJGS Conference will be virtual this August 10-13. As we receive more details we will post them here.

03/08/2020

IMPORTANT CANCELLATION NOTICE:

Following the most recent guidelines from the CDC regarding the Covid-19 virus, the Board of Directors of the Jewish Genealogy Society of Southern Nevada has voted to cancel the JGSSN March meeting scheduled for Sunday, March 15, 2020 at the Sahara West Library.

We will miss seeing all of you and will keep you posted regarding the meeting scheduled for April.