Announcement: JGS of Palm Beach County

SUBJECT:
Membership Meeting

PLACE:
South County Civic Center, 16700 Jog Road, Delray Beach, FL 
DATE:
Wednesday, January 11, 2012

TIME:
11:00 am–3:30 pm               

FEE:
Non-members–$5 (guest fee may be applied toward membership dues) 

PROGRAM:
Your Jewish Roots in Poland: JRI-Poland, the Records and More
GUEST SPEAKER:
Mark Halpern

Mark Halpern, a driving force in Polish-Jewish genealogical research, will speak at the membership meeting of the Jewish Genealogical Society of Palm Beach County (JGSPBCI), Wednesday, January 11, 2012 at the South County Civic Center, 16700 Jog Road, Delray Beach, FL.

Halpern, a member of the Board of Directors of Jewish Records Indexing-Poland www.jri-poland.org , will lecture on “Your Jewish Roots in Poland: JRI-Poland, the Records and More,”  and will  discuss Jewish records and research from the various parts of Poland – Congress  of Poland, Russian Pale of Settlement (Bialystok area), Austrian Galicia, and Prussian Poland  . The presentation will demonstrate what kind of information can be found in each sort of record and how to learn what records are available for one's town. Sample searches will show ways to utilize the JRI-Poland database in order to get the most out of the research.

Jewish Records Indexing- Poland (JRI-Poland) is a valuable tool for all researchers with family roots in Eastern Europe.  It is the largest fully searchable database of Jewish vital records accessible online. It contains millions of vital records from the current and former territories of Poland, including  towns that are now part of Lithuania, Ukraine and Belarus.

Mr. Halpern’s presentation is at 1:15 PM, after a brief business meeting.  A joint meeting of four Special Interest Groups (SIGS) – Lithuania, Belarus, Poland, and Ukraine – is at 11:00 AM in the main lecture hall, followed by a Brick Wall Question and Answers period at 12:15 pm. Genealogy mentors will be available after the  presentation. Guests are welcome. There is a guest fee of $5 for those who wish to attend. The guest fee may be applied toward membership dues.

Halpern has been researching his Polish and Galitzianer roots since 1996. As a Board member of JRI-Poland, he has been responsible for the Bialystok Archive project and the AGAD Archive (eastern Galicia records) project as well as the JRI-Poland ordering process. He is the immediate past President of the Jewish Genealogical Society of Greater Philadelphia. He is also the originator and coordinator of BIALYGen, the Bialystok Region Jewish Genealogy Group and coordinates a project to index and restore the Jewish Cemetery in Bialystok, Poland.

For further information about the Brick Wall program, or to submit questions in advance, e-mail president@jgspalmbeachcounty.org .  For Special Interest Groups (SIGS), contact Mona Morris mona@jgspalmbeachcounty.org.
For meeting information contact:
Sylvia Nusinov sylvia@jgspalmbeachcounty.org, (561) 483-1060
Marilyn Newman mnewman@jgspalmbeachcounty.org, (561) 775-4920