The International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies (IAJGS) held its annual Conference in Orlando, FL July 23-28, 2017. More than 900 participated in person and over the Internet. Participants attended more than 300 sessions and workshops with most extensive tracks on DNA and on Converso genealogy. More than 60 sessions were streamed live for those not able to be at the Conference and are available until November 1, 2017 at http://live.iajgs.org. Dr. Henry Louis Gates Jr. inspired the group
The climax of the Conference is the banquet evening where awards and grants are given out to outstanding individuals and groups. 2017 IAJGS award and grant recipients are:
IAJGS LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD
Jan Meisels Allen
In recognition of many years of service to genealogy, both Jewish and beyond, we are proud to grant the IAJGS Lifetime Achievement Award to Jan Meisels Allen. Jan is the founding president of the JGS of Conejo Valley, presently its programming chair, and she has been the program chair of the JGS of Los Angeles. She has served as board member and vice president of the IAJGS, and chairs its Public Records Access Monitoring Committee. Jan writes almost daily posts for the IAJGS Leadership List that keep the genealogical community well informed of current items of interest.
As conference Database Chairperson, Jan has been responsible for the resource room at IAJGS conferences for many years. Beyond Jewish genealogy, she has been a regular speaker at FGS and NGS conferences, at the invitation of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance and US Holocaust Memorial Museum, she spoke on access to Holocaust records, and has spoken on records access at European conferences. Her dedication to the cause of genealogical research and drive to work on its behalf has a continual far reaching effect. We are honored to name her as the recipient of this year’s award.
IAJGS VOLUNTEER OF THE YEAR
Rose Avigael Feldman
This year’s IAJGS Volunteer of the Year Award honors Rose Avigael Feldman’s dedication, encouragement, creativity, and achievements in the world of Jewish genealogy. Rose was an active volunteer in the organization of two IAJGS conferences. By contributing her time and energy to a records scanning project, documents from Israeli archives will be accessible to researchers worldwide. Rose has been and continues to be tireless in her efforts to promote Jewish genealogy: training volunteers for database work, writing and publishing articles, answering search queries, lecturing, attending genealogy lectures, and networking between people and organizations. We are grateful for her tremendous efforts and in appreciation we recognize her contributions through this award.
IAJGS OUTSTANDING PROJECT
Reclaim the Records
This year we bestow the IAJGS Outstanding Project Award to Reclaim the Records. As such we recognize the leadership of Brooke Schreier Ganz in organizing a group of concerned individuals and advocating for governmental agencies to release public data into the public domain. Using Freedom of Information laws (FOIL) and Open Data initiatives, in just a short time the organization has secured the release of thousands of vital records indices and voters lists, with continued efforts ongoing for records throughout the U.S. This project has had and will have an important impact in making public records available without charge to the public at large.
RABBI MALCOLM STERN GRANT
JewishGen’s Subcarpathian SIG
The SIG has recently identified over 3000 vital record books in Ukraine’s archives covering the period from 1895-1940 as well as some late registrations dating to 1840. This grant will help them have the records photographed which will allow them to be indexed by volunteers. These records will then be posted online so they can be accessed at no charge.
JOHN STEDMAN MEMORIAL FUND AWARD
Reclaim the Records
Our goal is first and foremost to win the first-ever public access to the Missouri birth and death indices. We would put these records online for free public use, just as we have with every other record set we have won from government agencies and libraries since we began the Reclaim The Records project in 2015. This grant would help with the legal expenses they are incurring and also speed up the availability of the records.
