Speakers Bureau

IAJGS is pleased to offer this list of speakers who are willing to present programs for IAJGS member societies.

The talks are listed in two sections below.

The first section has a condensed list of the talks with the name of the speaker and the title of the talk. The title is a link; click on it to go to the detailed information about the talk in the second section.

The second section contains additional information about the talks, including a more detailed description of the talk; whether the speaker is willing to present the talk virtually, in-person, or both; the category of the talk; and the appropriate audience. The speaker’s name is a link that will open an email message so that you can inquire about details or make arrangements for a talk.

If you would be interested in offering a talk through the Speakers Bureau (or need to update an entry that is already there), please send a note to Jay Sage at SpeakersBureau@iajgs.org.

Last Updated: 2025-04-06 20:31:25

Condensed List of Talks Offered

This section provides a condensed list of the talks offered. Click on the title to jump to the detailed information about the talk in the second section below, which includes an email link for contacting the speaker (click on the speaker’ name).

Speaker Name	Talk Title
Jordan Auslander	Gotham Genealogy: New York City Research
Hal Bookbinder	Why did our Jewish ancestors leave a great place like the Pale?
Hal Bookbinder	Ships of Our Ancestors
Hal Bookbinder	Obtaining, losing, and regaining American citizenship
Hal Bookbinder	Practicing Safe Computing in the time of Artificial Intelligence (AI)
Hal Bookbinder	A Murder in Boston's West End
Hal Bookbinder	The Changing Borders of Eastern Europe
Dick Goldman	The Wandering Jew
Dick Goldman	Digging up your family roots
Dick Goldman	What’s in a name? A rose by any other smells as sweet.
Dick Goldman	The Great Gefilte Fish War!
Dick Goldman	The Secrets Hidden in your DNA
Dick Goldman	The Rise and Fall of the Jewish Shtetl
Dick Goldman	Jews in Poland—A 1,000 year history
Dick Goldman	What we thought we knew but didn’t!
Daniel Horowitz	The Meaning Behind Common Jewish Names
Daniel Horowitz	Researching Jewish Ancestors Online
Daniel Horowitz	Solving the Puzzle of My Great-Grandmother’s Apparent Double Life
Daniel Horowitz	Utilizing the MyHeritage Search Engine to Find Your Family
Daniel Horowitz	MyHeritage DNA 101: From Taking the Test to Understanding the Results
Daniel Horowitz	MyHeritage Photo Features: A Whole New Way to Tell Your Family's Story
Ellen Kowitt	Finding Jewish Families in the Golden Medina/USA Part I: Pre 1880
Ellen Kowitt	Finding Jewish Families in the Golden Medina/USA Part II: Post 1880
Ellen Kowitt	What’s Jewish about Jewish Genealogy
Ellen Kowitt	New Jewish Resources on the Genealogy Giant Websites
Ellen Kowitt	Documenting Jewish Families or Communities Lost in the Holocaust by Bullets
Ellen Kowitt	Researching Jews in the Pale of Settlement
Debbie Kroopkin	Key Strategies for Successful Research
Debbie Kroopkin	Unique Aspects of JEWISH Genealogy
Debbie Kroopkin	Introduction to Jewish Genealogy
Debbie Kroopkin	Jewish Family Research in the United States
Debbie Kroopkin	Jewish Family Research around the World
Dan Oren	Intro to Jewish Genealogy Part1
Dan Oren	Intro to Jewish Genealogy Part2
Nancy Rosenfeld	Unexpected Discoveries from Storytelling: Uncovering Truths in WW2 Lithuania
Nina Talbot	Archival Research for ‘Places in Galicia’ Painting & Records Series
Susan Weinberg	The Fluidity of Names
Susan Weinberg	Mining the Manifest
Susan Weinberg	Crossing the Ocean: US Records to Ancestral Towns
Susan Weinberg	Immigration History: Laws, Documents and Stories

Detailed Information about Each Talk

This section contains detailed information about each talk offered by a speaker. Click on the speaker's name to contact them by email.

Jordan Auslander: Gotham Genealogy: New York City Research

In Person/Virtual:	In Person, Virtual
Category:	Vital Records and Others
Audience:	Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced
Description:	As the cosmopolitan gateway to the United States, New York City continues to appeal to those who dream of a better life. Between 1820 and 1920 over 82 percent of immigrants to the United States came through the port of New York. Even if they migrated elsewhere, over 100,000,000 Americans have an ancestral paper trail that involves New York City (of them about 40 million have roots in Brooklyn). Learn how to trace your New York ancestors, whether they were passing through or called it home as well as resources to help you reconnect with family that remained elsewhere. While on-site research is the optimal approach to research, this is not always convenient or feasible. Components of New York City family history can be explored using a broad array of free and subscription internet sites as well as some conventional sources. These resources will be evaluated in the context of the questions and needs of lecture participants.

In Person/Virtual:	In Person, Virtual
Category:	Pale of Jewish Settlement
Audience:	Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced
Description:	Jews were welcomed into the Polish principalities in the 1200s, most notably, by the Duke of Greater Poland, Boleslaw the Pious. Thousands fleeing persecution and expulsions across Western Europe came. As Poland expanded to the east and south, Jews moved into Lithuanian, Belarusian, and Ukrainian lands. By 1800 there were more than a million Jews in the Pale. By 1900, they would number nearly five million. Jews flourished in the Pale, creating diverse religious, cultural, educational, and charitable institutions. Then, between 1881 and 1914 over two million left all that they had known for the West. This talk discusses how the Pale came to be, life in it, and why this mass migration occurred. It breaks the 120-year history of the Pale into periods of creation, confinement, repression, enlightenment, pogroms, and chaos. There is much more to the story than the horrific pogroms at the turn of the 20th century.

In Person/Virtual:	In Person, Virtual
Category:	Immigration Research
Audience:	Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced
Description:	Virtually all those who emigrated to America before the 1950s arrived by sea. This talk describes how this voyage changed over time, including its duration, cost, and dangers. With the advent of steamships and steerage class in the latter half of the 19th Century, the voyage became predictable, safer, speedier, and significantly more affordable. By the turn of the 20th Century, the shipping lines were competing for this lucrative business with aggressive advertising, improved accommodations, and even the availability of kosher food. The talk discusses how our ancestors traveled from their shtetl to the port, ship accommodations, travel to their final destinations, and cost. Finally, it shares the fascinating story of Albert Ballin, a Danish Jew, who rose to lead the Hamburg America Line in 1899.

In Person/Virtual:	In Person, Virtual
Category:	Citizenship
Audience:	Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced
Description:	One of the first actions taken by the United States Congress was to establish naturalization laws. John Adams then had Congress change the newly minted statutes to try to deny Thomas Jefferson the presidency. During the 19th Century, exclusionary laws were enacted banning various categories of potential immigrants including those with physical or mental issues, those who “might become public wards,” and most Asians. In the early years of the 20th century, laws stripped women of their American citizenship if they married a non-citizen. Hal’s St. Louis, Missouri-born grandmother was one of these women who lost her citizenship upon marrying his immigrant grandfather. Years later, they were both naturalized. After World War I, restrictions were tightened to severely limit the entry of our Eastern European ancestors. This talk traces the changing laws of immigration and citizenship which impacted our ancestors in their journey to become citizens.

In Person/Virtual:	In Person, Virtual
Category:	Technology
Audience:	Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced
Description:	Genealogists depend on reliable computing, data storage, and access across the Internet. Cybercrime and cyberterrorism have resulted in service disruptions, personal data being exposed, and millions of dollars in ransom being paid. As the sophistication of cybercriminals grows, this will likely get worse. Scams can also challenge us, and Artificial Intelligence will make current scams more dangerous and will introduce new ones. Even in the absence of bad actors, computers become corrupt and storage devices fail resulting in the potential loss of years of work. This talk discusses the risks, the myths, ways to reduce the likelihood of being hacked, and how to minimize the impact of data breaches, network and computing failures that do occur. See and search all of Hal’s articles at https://www.tinyurl.com/SafeComputingArticles (published monthly in the JGSCV Newsletter since 2015)