Locating Your Ancestors’ Naturalization Records and Using Them to Find Your Family’s Shtetl and Other Useful Information

Sunday, November 24, 2013
Holocaust Memorial Center
11:00 AM

With Special Guest Ken Bravo

We all have ancestors came from somewhere outside of the United States. The difficulty is often determining exactly where that somewhere is. Often records such as Census records indicate only a country and family lore frequently identifies only a geographic area. Many of these ancestors who were part of the immigrants who came to the United States were naturalized. If that naturalization occurred after 1906, the process created records that contain a wealth of information.

This program is designed to assist the average researcher in locating and obtaining copies of these records and then following up on the results.

Ken Bravo is the Immediate Past President of the Jewish Genealogy Society of Cleveland and is a frequent lecturer on a variety of genealogy subjects. He has been searching his own roots since the mid-1970s and, in more recent years, has added the families of the spouses of his four children to his research. He is serving as a co-chair of the 2014 IAJGS Conference that will be held, from July 27 through August 1 in Salt Lake City.

In the community, Ken has served a President of the Bureau of Jewish Education; President of what was then the Great Lakes Region of the Federation of Jewish Men’s Clubs; Vice President and Board Member of the Gross Schechter Day School; Vice President and Treasurer of The Park Synagogue; and Member of the Board of Governors of the Ohio State Bar Association. He currently serves on the Board of Menorah Park Center for Senior Living where he chairs the Government Relations Committee.

Ken and his wife Phyllis have been married 49 years and are the parents of four children and eight grandchildren.