My FACEBOOK Presentation at IAJGS 2017

I recently received the recording of my session from the June 2017 International Association of Jewish Genealogy (IAJGS) conference iajgs2017.org.   In my Facebook for Collaborative Family History Research presentation I share the Facebook albums I created, the photos, documents, videos I posted and the discussions and discoveries they generated.

The recording is 55 minutes long, too big to upload to YouTube. I will be extracting and sharing 1-minute portions here.   So, please check back to this post.  I will post excerpts like I did with the 3 hour Steven Spielberg videos on my youtube/bevmargo channel.

1-Minute Video clips extracted from my Facebook presentation:

1. This video clip describes connecting with my cousin Yael through JewishGen.org  and a photo.
 


2. In this next Facebook video clip, my mom describes seeing her little sister Henny for the first time after 7 years. She describes how confused my Tata Henny was, just learning that she was Jewish in 1945. She was 2 years old when she was sent to Switzerland. She grew up with the name Evi and parents who loved her.  She only discovered the truth of who she really was after liberation and a 1-year custody battle.


 

IAJGS 2017 - International Assoc of Jewish Genealogy Annual Conference -

This was my 2nd time attending the IAJGS conference, my first time as a presenter. My Facebook for Collaborative Family History Research  was well attended. One attendee asked me why I did not use Facebook groups for storing my albums. I wish I knew about them when I started with Facebook back in 2008. 

Some highlights from IAJGS sessions I attended:

Tammy Hepp's session, Cousin Bait, described ways to lure & respond to family with social media. I have been successful with this, since this blog & my YouTube channel were both instrumental in allowing unknown cousins to find me: Erwan Grandais found my video of TonTon.  Tammy found photos of her family on Flicker, with Google. I googled "Bienstock family" and discovered https://www.genealogytoday.com/surname/finder.mv?Surname=Bienstock.  Another Google search format to try: "site:website.com keyword ". 

Linda Levy presented on Jewish Joint Distribution Committee;  archives.JDC.org  holds 80,000 index cards for 1945 Displaced Persons camps.  1914-74 is searchable online. I learned that the Dominican Republic accepted 700 Jewish refugees during the Shoah.  Alaska Airlines was responsible for airlifting of 50,000 Yemenite Jews to Israel, in Operation Magic Carpet. Operation Salomon, May 1991, rescued 14,500 Ethiopian Jews.

In How to Preserve your Research – Merle Kastner described how anecdotes and photos bring dry historical details to life. She creates spiral-bound family tree books, to give as gifts at family reunions, baby namings, unveilings.  I took  Emily Garber's advice from her talk on BLOGs & submitted my blog to her genealogy blog list on extrayad.blogspot.com . Now my blog is listed on geneabloggerstribe.com .

In Keys to Involving Students, Jeff Schrager discussed how he motivates teenagers in a 3-week Genealogy program. He uses storytelling to connect events & to tie genealogy to any subject – inherited disease, history, writing. Because genealogy has a start, but no end he teaches students context and focus. The earlier they start the more ancestors are alive to interview.   

my Facebook for Genealogy workshop -past, present, future - IAJGS '17

My proposal to present Facebook for Genealogy was accepted, again. This time I will be presenting at the International Assoc for Jewish Genealogy in July.  I have presented this workshop several times before, for Bergen Community, NJEdge, and my local genealogy group jgsnj.org In searching for materials to reuse I found a video online of my first 45-minute session for NJEdge 2013.

This 1-minute video clip describes how finding a single document from US Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) helped me discover a key missing piece of my family tree.