Tuesday, December 18, 2012 from 6-8 PM
Burton Historical Collection
Detroit Public Library
5201 Woodward Avenue, Detroit, MI 48202

Photo © SNWEB.ORG Photography, LLC

Created on the foundation of Clarence M. Burton’s private library, the Burton Historical Collection (BHC) incorporates original documents, genealogical materials, a Rare Book Collection, the Ernie Harwell Sports Collection, and a sizable image collection. Read more about the Collection and its holdings here.

Mark Bowden from the Burton will give us a brief orientation and tour at 6 PM, and we can stay until closing time, about 7:45 PM.

• Car pooling:
  Meet at the Plaza Deli at 5:15 PM
  Northwestern and 12 Mile
• Not car pooling:
  Drive down on your own
  Meet at the Burton Collection at 6 PM
  DPL parking: free in the employee parking lot after 6 PM (the gates may be up earlier, around 5:30 PM);

The tour is free for members of either JGSMI or JHSMI; $5 for non-members.

Contact: Jim Grey (work 248-540-9070; home 248-553-4999; cell 248-739-9070; email gentrex@aol.com or GreyCo@aol.com)

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.

Friday, November 16, 2012 at 10am, Jewish Book Fair, West Bloomfield JCC

JGSMI is proud to co-sponsor the author, Dr. Harry Ostrer, at the annual JCC Jewish Book Fair

Who are the Jews? A race? A people? Both Jews and gentiles have tried to pinpoint a collective Jewish identity through physical anthropology and genetics.

Medical geneticist Harry Ostrer explores the history of these efforts. Bringing together threads from Europe, North Africa, the Middle East and India, this unique work situates Jews in the grand scheme of genetic analysis.

Dr. Harry Ostrer is a professor of Pathology and Genetics at Albert Einstein College of Medicine and director of Genetic and Genomic Testing at Montefiore Medical Center. He previously served as director of Human Genetics at New York University School of Medicine.

Sunday, December 2, 2012 at 11 AM, at the Holocaust Memorial Center

100 Voices: A Journey Home is a compelling and moving musical documentary that uniquely tells the history of Jewish culture in Poland. It highlights the current resurgence of Jewish culture through the personal reflections and musical selections of a group of cantors and acclaimed composer Charles Fox (“Killing Me Softly”, “I Got A Name” and many more) who made an important historical mission to the birthplace of Cantorial music. The documentary will give generations the opportunity to learn about and re-embrace the Jewish culture that produced one of the most artistic and educated societies that once flourished in Europe. Above all, the film celebrates the resilience and the power of Jewish life, while telling the story of two peoples who shared intertwined cultures.

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PNX2v8qvZv8

Running time 91 minutes

Sunday, February 3, 2013, at 11 AM at the Holocaust Memorial Center

Ellen Cassedy set off into the Jewish heartland of Lithuania to study Yiddish and connect with her Jewish forebears. But on the brink of her trip, her uncle revealed something she’d never suspected, and what had begun as a personal quest expanded into a larger exploration. Probing the terrain of memory and moral dilemmas, Ms. Cassedy shares the fascinating story of how a genealogical journey to the Old World changed her view of the past, changed her view of the future, and changed her. She takes us to the archives and kitchen tables where her family history revealed its confounding secrets, to the Vilnius Yiddish Institute, to complex commemorative sites, and to encounters with the leaders of Jewish education efforts in Lithuania today, giving us an close-up view of how a post-Holocaust nation explores its own “Jewish family history.” Jewish Book World calls her book “brilliantly balanced, totally engaging, and constantly penetrating.”

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QtVBSP-jfDo

Ellen Cassedy, the author of We Are Here: Memories of the Lithuanian Holocaust (Univ. of Nebraska Press), has explored both her own family history and Lithuania’s complex 20th Century history for ten years. She is a former columnist for the Philadelphia Daily News whose articles, essays, and translations have appeared in Hadassah, The Jewish Forward, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, and other publications. She has just been awarded the 2012 Translation Prize by the National Yiddish Book Center, with her colleague Yermiyahu Ahron Taub. Ms. Cassedy delivered the luncheon lecture to the Litvak SIG at the IAJGS conference in Washington, D.C., and has spoken or will speak to Jewish Genealogy Societies in New York, Chicago, Washington, D.C., San Diego, Portland, and Cleveland, and to congregations, universities, and Jewish and Lithuanian community gatherings throughout the country. She lives in the Washington, D.C. area.

Sunday, October 14, 2012 at 11 AM, at the Holocaust Memorial Center

For the curious and not-so-curious to discover family roots geared to the beginner and intermediate researcher. This PowerPoint presentation will acquaint you with the availability of various research documents. Topics for discussion include hints on organizing and keeping track of research as well as the reliability and accuracy of documents.

Central topics include:

• City Directories
• U.S. Census
• U.S. Naturalization
• Ship Manifests
• WWI Draft Registrations
• Social Security Death Index
• Newspapers
• Cemeteries
• Funeral Records
• Vital Records.

Each resource is accompanied with practice tips and an example.

We conclude with an overview of Internet genealogy sites, historical and authoritative treatises and joining genealogical societies as well as special interest groups [SIGs] and birds of a feather [BOF].

Diane M. Freilich, JD and Jim Grey, CPA will be the presenters.

Refreshments will be served.

JGSMI Members: Free
Guests $5.00

We hope you are enjoying your summer – we’ll be back in late August or early September!

Tuesday, June 12, 2012 from 6-8 PM
Burton Historical Collection
Detroit Public Library
5201 Woodward Avenue, Detroit, MI 48202

Photo © SNWEB.ORG Photography, LLC

Created on the foundation of Clarence M. Burton’s private library, the Burton Historical Collection (BHC) incorporates original documents, genealogical materials, a Rare Book Collection, the Ernie Harwell Sports Collection, and a sizable image collection. Read more about the Collection and its holdings here.

• Car pooling:
  Meet at the Plaza Deli at 5:15 PM
  Northwestern and 12 Mile
• Not car pooling:
  Drive down on your own
  Meet at the Burton collection at 6 PM
  DPL parking: free in the employee parking lot after 6 PM (the gates may be up earlier, around 5:30 PM);

Jim Grey will also be going to the Burton on Wednesday, June 13th if you prefer to join him then. Please see his contact information below.

Cost: free to JGSMI and JHSMI members; $5 non-members; $36 dues may be paid that evening

Contact: Jim Grey (work 248-540-9070; home 248-553-4999; cell 248-739-9070; email gentrex@aol.com or GreyCo@aol.com)

Sunday, February 12, 2012 at 10:30 AM, at the Holocaust Memorial Center

There is a wealth of useful free resources online for family researchers. It’s a matter of knowing where to look and, sometimes, brushing up on your computers skills. This session will give you instructions on how to find maps, images, and content for your family history. Once you find the documents you seek, how do you share and protect them? A short overview on conservation methods and supplies.

Cecile (Ceil) Wendt Jensen is a Certified Genealogist and owner of Michigan Polonia, LLC. Author, educator, and researcher, Cecile was born and raised Detroit. In 1998 Ceil began a transition for from public education to genealogy and has become a feature international speaker. She has conducted research in Poland at libraries, civil and diocesan archives, and in local parishes. She is the director of the Polonica Americana Research Institute (PARI) on the historic campus of Orchard Lake, Michigan. Her published articles have appeared in National Genealogical Societies Magazine, Ancestry Magazine, FEEFHS Journal, Polish Genealogical Society of Michigan’s Polish Eaglet, and online with Gen Dobry.

She had authored five books to date: Internet Lesson Plans (1994); Detroit’s Polonia (2006); Detroit’s Mount Elliott Cemetery (2006); Detroit’s Mount Olivet Cemetery (2006); and Sto Lat: A Modern Guide to Polish Genealogy (2010).

Refreshments will be served.

Sunday, March 25, 2012 at 10:30 AM, at the Holocaust Memorial Center

Join us as we hear the sucess stories of three of our members!

Alexandra Goldberg, VP of Programming
Recreating ancestors branch based on the databases of the Warsaw Okopowa Street Jewish Cemetery, JRI Poland and Yad VaShem’s Central Database of Shoah Victims’ Names.

John Kovacs, Past President
What’s in a name? A long search about the mystery about my father and his two brothers having been adopted as adults despite the fact that their loving parents were alive, brought them up and continued to be the most important persons in their lives until they perished in Auschwitz. A long search through archives, museum documents, newspapers, phone books, cemeteries, interviewing strangers and finding unknown relatives provided some of the answers to the mystery.

Stephanie Newman, Editor of Generations
Solving the mysteries of people in three photos given to her over thirty years ago through contacting a little-known relative who furnished information about two different branches of the family. One branch was added utilizing Ancestry.com databases, as well as obituaries from the Detroit Free Press archives over the past ten years.