Join PJ Library as we bring back Yad b’Yad with Kim Schneiderman! Intergenerational singing and stories at Cedar Sinai Park.
A weekly story hour for young families with music & PJ Library books!
No story hour on April 29th.
A weekly story hour for young families with music and PJ Library books!
Join us for a weekly story hour for young families with PJ Library stories, crafts and music!
Join PJ Library as we bring back Yad b’Yad with Kim Schneiderman! Inter generational singing and stories at Cedar Sinai Park.
A weekly story hour for young families with music & PJ Library books!
No story hour on April 29th.
Join us for some fun activities for our four-legged friends! Games, treats, doggy arts and crafts, plus more!
Dogs must be on leashes at all times.
Hal Bookbinder has graciously agreed to present two of his very popular programs on the same day. Hal is a former president of the International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies and currently serves on the JewishGen Board of Governors. In 2010 he was honored with the IAJGS Lifetime Achievement Award.
The first presentation will start promptly at 10:30 am. It will be followed by a 15-20 minute intermission. Light refreshments will be provided. The second presentation will begin Immediately afterwards. Please join us for this special event.
U.S. IMMIGRATION AND NATURALIZATION:
Description: One of the first things that the newly created United States of America did was to establish laws covering naturalization. These laws were administered by the states with many variations. Over the years, the laws were changed. In 1906 the Federal Government took control of the entire process. The standardized documentation after 1906 has proven invaluable to genealogical researchers. Similarly, laws controlling immigration have also changed over time with the Federal Government taking control in 1890. The speaker’s maternal grandmother was born in St. Louis, Missouri and so was an American citizen by birth. In 1917 she married a man who was brought to the U.S. as a toddler. Upon marriage she lost her American citizenship and was not to be an American again until being naturalized in 1936. This lecture will provide a short history of immigration and naturalization laws and provide general guidance in finding your ancestor’s documentation.
JEWISH FRATERNAL ORGANIZATIONS OF THE EARLY 20TH CENTURY:
Description: Our ancestors created a wide variety of organizations to provide mutual support, from religious to social, educational, insurance and burial services. “Landsmanshaften” brought together individuals who came from the same town in Europe. Sometimes they were formed as lodges of a fraternal organization, like the Independent Order, Sons of Jacob. These organizations paralleled existing American ones incorporating the pomp and secrecy of Masonry, Pythians and Odd Fellows. They provided a safety net through life and health insurance and offered social opportunities to lead and to be recognized. Hundreds of thousands of our immigrant ancestors participated during the heyday of these organizations in the first half of the 20th century. While most were male-focused, women participated through auxiliaries and occasionally fully independent orders. Understanding these organizations provides important insights into the experiences of our immigrant ancestors.
The Jewish Genealogical Society of Oregon invites you, your family and friends to its upcoming program on two topics – Ellis Island Name Change Myth & “Finding “Waldo” At Ellis Island presented by Joel Weintraub
Ellis Island Name Change Myth
The idea that inspectors at Ellis Island regularly Americanized immigrant names is a persistent myth. We will investigate the evidence that should exist (it doesn’t) to confirm the story as fact, and why name changing at the station was improbable given how immigrants were processed. The history of this immigration station, the types of people who passed through their doors, the legal documents (including their name) they came with, and station detention documents generated for about 1/6 of them, will be discussed with actual examples. Note: be prepared to avoid deportation by Inspector Weintraub.
Finding “Waldo” At Ellis Island
Using a case study, we will show how nine different strategies can be used to find the immigration record of an elusive immigrant to Ellis Island. For those who still cannot locate Ellis Island immigration records of their ancestors, this talk may provide some approaches you might not have tried. The difficulty of providing accurate indexes from transcriptions of ship manifests is a major problem associated with many of these strategies. We will see how well you do as a transcriber of manifest names.
Bio: Joel, a New Yorker by birth, is an emeritus Professor at California State University Fullerton and won awards for his science teaching. He volunteered for nine years at the National Archives and Records Administration. Joel created search tools for the U.S. and New York City censuses that are freely available on the Steve Morse “One-Step” website. He and Steve are currently developing locational tools for the 2022 release of the 1950 federal census. Joel has written and talked on NYC and Federal census research, immigration and naturalization, Ellis Island, biographical research, and Jewish genealogy topics.
The Jewish Genealogical Society of Oregon invites you, your family and friends to its upcoming program “Read All About It!: Using Online Newspapers For Genealogical Research” by Janice M. Sellers
Description: Newspapers are valuable in genealogical research because you can find information about births, marriages, deaths, moves, business, naturalizations, court cases, and more. Millions of pages of the world’s newspapers are now accessible online, but there is no one place to find them all. This class provides an overview of what is available online and techniques to help improve your chances of finding information about your relatives.
Bio: Janice M. Sellers is a professional genealogist specializing in Jewish, black, forensic, and newspaper research. She edits three genealogy publications and serves on the boards of San Francisco Bay Area Jewish Genealogical Society, African American Genealogical Society of Northern California, and Council for the Advancement of Forensic Genealogy. She is also a member of Association of Professional Genealogists, Genealogical Speakers Guild, and California Genealogical Society. Before becoming a professional genealogist, she worked in publishing for many years as an editor, indexer, translator, and compositor. Her web site is ancestraldiscoveries.com.