Sunday, April 6, 1 pm Pacific
Speaker: Michelle Tucker Chubenko, Professional Genealogist
Piecing Together History: Using Maps and Gazetteers to Rediscover Eastern European Towns
Description: Our ancestor’s lives were more than the life events of birth, marriage and death. Yet, finding already constructed historical vignettes for where they lived aren’t always readily available. During the presentation, Michelle will share how to use published materials such as gazetteers, schematisms, directories and maps, to build the historical image of your ancestral town/village. She will demonstrate how to use the statistical data and incorporate visual details using a variety of examples from locations across Central and Eastern Europe.
About Michelle Chubenko
Michelle Tucker Chubenko, AG®, AGL™ is accredited in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States through the International Commission for the Accreditation of Professional Genealogists (ICAPGen) and specializes in the Mid-Atlantic region and Eastern European research. She is a founding member with the “Nashi Predky/Our Ancestors” Family History Group at the Ukrainian History and Education Center (Somerset, New Jersey) and in 2023, coordinated the institute course Researching Your Ancestry in the Crownland of Galicia, Austria-Hungary. Since 2021, she has hosted a monthly Q&A Zoom session Have Questions? Get Answers for Research in Galicia.
Non-members pay $5.00 Zoom link will be sent the week of the event. Members automatically receive a Zoom link.
Sunday, April 27, 1 pm Pacific
Speaker: Jan Gronski, DoJR AI Lab Director & Technology Advisor
Unlock Your Family History with Transkribus, a Powerful AI Tool for Genealogists
Description: Dive into the world of automated text recognition with Transkribus, a powerful AI tool for genealogists working with historical documents in key languages which are important to the Jewish community such as Polish, Russian, German, Yiddish, Hebrew, and more. This hands-on workshop will guide participants through the essential steps of using existing language models to transcribe paragraph-based materials accurately. Learn the differences between transcription and translation, discover why Transkribus outshines other AI tools, and explore best practices for achieving high-quality results. Whether you’re a beginner or looking to refine your skills, this workshop will equip you with the knowledge and confidence to unlock the past and preserve your family’s legacy. Note: Participants will receive prerequisite study materials to prepare for this workshop.
About Jan Gronski
Jan Gronski is L’Dor V’Dor Foundation’s DoJR AI Lab Director and Technology Advisor building upon more than 25 years of experience in the networking industry as a hands-on developer and an engineering executive. Over five years, Gronski has garnered considerable hands-on experience creating AI models for automatic handwriting recognition while leading the most extensive and advanced project of its kind for processing historical records in the languages of the Jewish Diaspora. Gronski is multilingual: fluent in English, Polish, and Chinese and conversational in Russian, German, Spanish, French, and Turkish. Gronski is a key volunteer for Jewish Records Indexing – Poland. Gronski earned his undergraduate degree in mathematics at the University of Warsaw and PhD in mathematics at University of Illinois.
Non-members pay $5.00 Zoom link will be sent the week of the event. Members automatically receive a Zoom link.
Tuesday, May 6, 4 pm
Pacific
Speaker: Hailey Thompson, Accredited Genealogist and Eastern European Expert
Navigating Revision Lists, a Hands-on Workshop
Description: Join us for this unique opportunity to learn, strategize and study how to effectively read, locate, translate and summarize the contents of these important documents.
The Ревизские сказки Reviska Skazka (“Revision Lists”) are some of the most important records for Jewish Russian genealogical research beginning in 1719 through 1858. These lists, used to levy taxes, contain the names of all taxable persons from each city, town, village or estate arranged by household and provide the relationship to the head of house and ages over time.
Please note: Participants will receive prerequisite study materials to prepare for this workshop. Participants will have the opportunity to submit documents prior to the workshop. We will use some document examples in real-time.
About Hailey Thompson
Hailey Thompson (nee Wentz) is an Accredited Genealogist (AG®) with an emphasis in Eastern European genealogy. She dedicated a portion of her studies to the linguistics field, which led her to develop skills in a variety of languages. She currently works as a Slavic research specialist at the FamilySearch Library in Salt Lake City.
One of Hailey’s passions is teaching genealogical principles in a way that empowers others and helps them to have the confidence to continue their research.
Non-members pay $5.00 Zoom link will be sent the week of the event. Members automatically receive a Zoom link.
Sunday, May 18, 1 pm Pacific
Speaker: Megan Lewis, Reference and Research Specialist
In-Depth Research Guide of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Digital Collections
Description: This is a unique opportunity to submit your questions, documents, and ancestral locations/surname pairs.
Megan will review advanced search techniques and main tools to access the Holocaust Survivors and Victims Database (HSV:name index) and the Collections Search catalog all from your home.
Collections include photographs, oral histories, artifacts, historic films collections 1930-1950, all with built-in place name thesaurus. Interwar materials from Galicia and Lithuania, records from the aftermath of the 1920s pogroms in Kiev and pre-Holocaust history books of various places will also be reviewed. Access to the full Arolsen Archives containing DP camp materials, personal DP camp records from survivors and workers, refugee materials from various countries, YIVO archives and records of Polish Jews who were repatriated from the Soviet Union. Some digitized unindexed records are included.
Megan will point out how finding aids/inventories for archival collections often include names of individuals or families, so are de facto names lists. An in-depth handout will accompany this presentation.
About Megan Lewis
Megan Lewis has worked at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum since 1998, where she is currently a reference librarian. She has spoken to many genealogy groups over the years about the Museum’s rich resources. Megan has a BA in History and a Masters in Library Science. She is currently doing post-graduate work in digital curation.
Non-members pay $5.00 Zoom link will be sent the week of the event. Members automatically receive a Zoom link.
