Working the Line: Documenting Auto Workers

Sunday, November 4, 2012 at 11 AM, at the Holocaust Memorial Center

With special guest Ceil Wendt Jensen

Straight from the Motor City, the lecture “Working the Line” covers the recruitment, training, and employment records as well as archives maintained by automakers and unions. What was life like for an assembly line worker at the plants during the auto makers’ heyday and what types of records were generated? Hand in hand with plant life was the formation and negotiations of the unions such as the UAW, AFL-CIO. This lecture covers records and publications relevant to autoworkers and their unions.

Ceil Wendt Jensen, Certified Genealogist and Polonia Americana Research Institute Director, presents practical examples and suggestions on how to use records, databases, and archives to start or advance your genealogy research. She dispels the myth that records were destroyed during the World Wars and that language barriers make European research difficult. A lavishly illustrated workbook, Sto Lat: A Modern Guide for Polish Genealogy, offers a plan for researching at least one hundred years of family records, and is a compilation of techniques developed over thirty years of research and teaching. These are tried and true techniques used for clients and with patrons at the Bloomfield Hills Family History Center. Both traditional and digital research techniques are presented. Common research questions are answered and suggestions are offered to help novice and advanced researchers find ancestors in North America and Poland.