Lessons in Jewish DNA with Israel Pickholtz – One Man’s Successes and What He Learned On the Journey

Thursday, February 2, 2017 at 7:00 PM
Farmington Community Library Auditorium
32737 W. Twelve Mile Rd.
Farmington Hills, MI 48334

Free and open to the public

The hottest topic in genealogy in recent years has been genetics and many thousands of genealogists have ordered DNA tests. Most of those haven’t a clue what to do with their results.

The situation is more complicated among Jews, who have married “within the tribe” for hundreds of years, thus ensuring that everyone is related to everyone else, multiple times. Marrying within a closed community—“endogamy”—has barely been addressed by the non-Jewish genetic genealogy community.

This presentation, as in the speaker’s book ENDOGAMY: One Family, One People, does not bring a “how to” approach, as every family is different. The speaker prefers a “how I did it” approach, demonstrating the successes he has had in his own families and the general lessons which are applicable to all genetic genealogy research.

His goal is to inspire his listeners and readers to say, “I can do this!”

About the Speaker

Pittsburgh-born, living in Israel since 1973. My personal research includes single-surname research in Galicia (formerly Austria, now Ukraine) as well as my families from Slovakia, Poland, Belarus, Hungary and later in the US, UK and Israel. From there I developed skills relating to more general Jewish genealogy, including Holocaust research.

I have participated in grave translation projects, searches for missing relatives and Holocaust-era insurance claims, as well as traditional genealogy research using European, American and Israeli sources.

My most frequent assignments from Israeli sources involve locating and photographing graves, locating living people, Mandatory Citizenship records, records for Galician residents in the 1920s and 1930s, inheritance matters and Holocaust research.

I have lectured IAJGS Conferences on Jewish Genealogy in the United States, as well as other subjects in Israel.

I have served on the Board of the Israel Genealogical Society, as Secretary of Gesher Galicia and as Town Leader for JRI-Poland.

I have recently taken my family research deep into the field of DNA and am prepared to consult with clients on the subject.