Oregon: Steve Morse, June 22

Genealogy resource guru Dr. Stephen P. Morse will speak at the Jewish Genealogical Society of Oregon’s annual brunch meeting on Sunday, June 22.

The meeting takes place 10:30am-2pm at Congregation Bais Menachem Chabad, across from Portland’s Mittleman Jewish Community Center.

Steve will present two programs, “A Potpourri of Genealogical Search Tools,” which covers his One-Step Web page tools that we all use, as well as the rather funny “The Jewish Calendar Demystified,” presenting the Jewish calendar through Adam and Eve’s eyes.

An amateur genealogist who has researched his Russian-Jewish origins since he was a boy, he has developed many web-based searching aides used by genealogists around the world, and has won more than a few awards and recognition from major genealogy organizations. The One-Step website began as an aid for finding passengers in the Ellis Island database and grew from there to more than 100 web-based tools in 13 categories.

A computer professional with a doctorate in electrical engineering (NYU), Steve has held research positions at Bell Labs, IBM Watson Research Lab, GE Corporate R&D, and Compagnie Internationale pour l’Informatique in France; and in development at Intel Corp, Alsys Inc, and Netscape. He’s also taught at CCNY, Pratt Institute, UC Berkeley, SUNY Albany, Stanford University and San Francisco State University, authored technical papers, written textbooks and holds four patents. He is best known as the architect of the Intel 8086 (the granddaddy of today’s Pentium processor) which sparked the PC revolution 25 years ago.

The brunch requires RSVPs; click here for more information.

Iraq: Lost and found

It’s never too late.

This Ynetnews story covers Hannah Menashe who was 21 when she was kidnapped from her Baghdad family before they immigrated to Israel. Now 76, she is finally making aliyah and rejoining her family.

Fifty-five years after she was abducted from her family’s home in Baghdad by her Muslim neighbor and forced to renounce her Judaism, Hannah Menashe managed to flee Iraq and find her way to one of Israel’s European embassies. Her long, exhausting journey is finally coming to an end these days, as she will soon be reunited with he family in Israel, who thought her murdered all these years.

Hannah’s fascinating story begins in the 1950s, when her Baghdad-native family – parents and seven siblings – decided to immigrate to Israel. Hannah, already married to a Jewish Iraqi, was also planning to make aliyah, when fate struck: A Muslim neighbor, who was aware of the family’s plans to immigrate, kidnapped the striking Hannah to keep her by his side. Her siblings only have a vague recollection of that horrible day. They went looking for Hannah, they say, but the earth had swallowed her.

Decades passed, the siblings made aliyah and the family expanded, all the while keeping their bitter secret to themselves. Shortly after arriving in Israel, Hannah’s mother died at 37, her heart broken by losing her child.

However, six months ago, the family received a surprising phone call from Ravit Topol of the Ministry of Interior who wanted to confirm a story.

Hannah’s husband died a year ago and she escaped Baghdad, reached Europe and located an Israeli embassy.

“I am Jewish, I want to go to Israel,” she said in fluent Arabic and with great excitement. The embassy found it hard to believe her story; but when she named her relatives in Israel, the embassy officials realized the truly incredible nature of the story unfolding before their very eyes and quickly contacted the Ministry of Interior’s population administration.

Read more here.

Chicago: Jewish Folk Arts Festival, June 15

The Greater Chicago Jewish Folk Arts Festival will take place from 11am-6pm Sunday June 15, at the Cook County Forest Preserve in Morton Grove.

The production group volunteers, according to the site, say:

We are linked by a single purpose: to produce an event which celebrates Jewish life and culture. We are committed to this project because of our resolve that Jewish identity must be based, in part, on a tangible positive feeling about Jewish life, especially for children.

The Jewish Genealogical Society of Illinois will have a booth at the event.

Started in 1980, it is today the largest Jewish cultural event in Chicago and the largest ongoing Jewish festival in America. The community production is called the “Heart and Soul of Jewish Chicago” because attendees can find everything that is Jewish in Chicago.

The day brings together the best of the community’s professional and amateur singers, dancers and artists. There are seven hours of entertainment on four stages, including music, dance, theater and storytelling, as well as a children’s stage, a hands-on activity area, art fair, craft fair, ethnic food fair and organization information booths.

Produced by the non-profit Jewish Production Organization for Cultural Events and Theater (POCET), the festival attracts people from all over to attend, sell and to perform. For more information, click here.

Pennsylvania: Beau Sharbrough, June 16

All researchers in the greater Philadelphia area should be interested in this program with FootNote.com vice president of content Beau Sharbrough.

The Jewish Genealogical Society of Greater Philadelphia will host Beau at their next meeting at 7.30pm Monday, June 16, at Reform Congregation Keneseth Israel, in Elkins Park. Note that the date is a departure from their regularly scheduled meetings.

The topic is Jewish Research on Footnote.com.

I’ve heard Beau speak at many conferences – his talks are always valuable and presented with great humor. I highly recommend attending his talks.

Footnote is a great resource. If you haven’t used it yet, look at Tracing the Tribe’s right column and see the FootNote search widget. My latest find on FootNote is a record of a relative in Moscow who was head of an auditing committee and was giving testimony which had been translated into English. I just located this a few days ago – it was completely unexpected! As always, be creative in your spelling of family names.

JGSGP members, free; others, $2. For more information, click here.

Everton Genealogical Helper: Online Edition

Everton’s Genealogical Helper in print has been around for 62 years. As of July 1, it will add an Online Edition.

Genealogy Online (which does business as Everton Publishers) is the Helper‘s publisher also publishes the best-seller guidebook for family history researchers – Handybook for Genealogists – now in its 11th edition.

Helper editor Leland K. Meitzler – he also writes the Genealogy Blog – has just sent information about a new venture.

A major portion of the Helper is now focused on Internet family history. This very popular section began in the September-October 2006 issue. In-depth reviews are included on websites that the Helper considers to be the best on the Internet. These are grouped by topic, and a special issue on genealogy blogs is planned for the January-February 2009 issue.

What makes this new venture more important is that the Helper will have an online edition in addition to the print version.

The online edition will launch July 1, at an annual subscription of a mere $10 until that date ($12 later). It is an identical copy of the 176-page traditional print edition – but complete with hotlinks to hundreds of website addresses. Current print edition subscribers will have complete free access to the magazine – no extra fees. For more information, click here.

The Net Family History section is a magazine within a magazine. New information specific to using the Internet for genealogy is always found in this part of the bimonthly publication, along with extensive website reviews and articles dealing with Internet-related activities.

Meitzler adds that because some of the most exciting genealogical resource advances are taking place online, it is important that this information should be provided to the Helper‘s thousands of readers in every issue. Readers will be able to go from the paper edition to the hotlinked online edition to access any included website.

The online edition will be in PDf format (Adobe Acrobat Reader required) and it will be hosted by FamilyLink.com, Inc. (parent company of World Vital Records).

The Helper also offers, in addition to the Internet section, how-to and historical articles, genealogical sharing, extensive book and CD-ROM reviews and announcements, queries, the most complete event calendar anywhere, and hundreds of ads for new products and services.

In addition, subscribers will also have access to the new updated, hotlinked Directory of Genealogical and Historical Societies – coming in the Sept/Oct and Nov-Dec issues! Edited by Leland K. Meitzler, the Helper is guaranteed to help you extend your lines and fill in those blanks in your family tree.

What will you get for your $10 (before July 1)? You’ll have the print magazine and online access for less than 3 cents per page. What a deal!