Blogger Meet-up

I began my day meeting with a few Jewish Genealogy bloggers. It was fun meeting like-minded people and sharing ideas on increasing readership and methodology. It was also a great self-esteem boost to hear Emily Garber, of (going) The Extra Yad, tell how much she enjoyed my book. (I gave her an advance copy at RootsTech in March.)

Crista Cowan, the Barefoot Genealogist and also of Ancestry.com, spoke about her podcast, Stories That Live In Us.. Doing a podcast sounds like a fun idea, but I think I have enough going on right now. Plus, I don’t like the way my voice sounds!! Somewhere during the conversation, I shared a bit about my next book; the one about Scott’s great-grandmother. After my short description of the book’s premise, Crista told me to contact her when it’s ready for market. She will interview me for her podcast! Oooof – I’m already marketing for the next book!!

I also gave a copy of Nothing Really Bad Will Happen to Mary-Jane Roth who said she will write a review of it for the Chronicle, the quarterly newsletter of the Jewish Genealogical and Archival Society of Greater Philadelphia.

So, it’s only 9:45 and I’ve already been productive!

Update on Romanian records: JewishGen Romanian Research Division

Michael Moritz, the Research director for JewishGen Romania Research Division gave an excellent overview of the records available for Romania. He began by revising the boundaries of Romania, current and past, listing the major cities in each region. My interest is Iasi, the home, of my maternal grandmother’s father, Herman Spiegel. I have a done only a little research on Herman, who left Iasi for Vienna, and later the Dutch East Indies, where he opened a Toko (shop). The building housing his shop is now a cafe, named in his honor. I attended this session, because eventually I want to return to researching Herman, who must have been a fascinating man.

Like many Eastern European countries, Romania’s borders were fluid, and as a result, records may found in a variety of languages, including Hungarian, German, Russian and Hebrew! Most important for me to learn was that records generally began in 1865, but there is a new source for records from the Romanian National Archive. They received a grant from the EU to start digitizing their vital records. More information about this will be in the handout for the session I attended. The handout will be posted on the website for the JewishGen Romanian Research Division very soon.

Exhibit Hall

I had a break, so I took a tour through the Exhibit Hall. My one purchase was for my brand-new nephew. He’s 25% Jewish so I thought he needed this book:

I also stopped at the Geni.com table and finally learned how to find the connection between myself and another person. More on that at a another time. I have three sessions scheduled this afternoon, then I hope to attend the Ron Arons Game Show in the evening. If I don’t get a chance to post tonight, I’ll catch up in the morning!!

Update: 8:35 pm. Just got back from a relaxing dinner with Scott and two friends at Con Murphy’s Irish pub. Great food! About to head to the Ron Arons Game Show which I anticipate should be lots of laughs. I probably won’t get back early to finish writing about the sessions I attended earlier, so this will be Part one of todays’ post. Stay in touch!