Banai Lynn Feldstein is a professional genealogist specializing in Jewish and Eastern European research. She lives in Salt Lake City where she is the Webmaster and Past President of the Utah Jewish Genealogical Society and served as Co-chair of the 2014 IAJGS conference in SLC.

See the Feldstein Genealogical Services website at http://idogenealogy.com/

Read her blog, The Ginger Jewish Genealogist.

Computer Lab: “Publish or Perish – Create Your Family Newsletter with Microsoft Publisher” (Sun-134), 9-10:30 A.M.

All genealogists must eventually compile their family research in an organized fashion and publish in order to share it with their relatives. Banai has been publishing a family newsletter for more than ten years and she will show you how to use Microsoft Publisher to create your own. Banai will teach some of the basics of using the program and offer tips for how to compile the data into a newsletter you will be proud to share with your relatives. General computer literacy is a prerequisite.

Topics: Jewish surname adoption and naming patterns, Workshop – Technology 

NOTE: One must reserve one’s place in this computer workshop and pay a separate fee of $35 (in additional to the conference registration fee).

“Seattle’s Colorful Jewish History (A Course in Basic Methodology)” (Sun-133), 3-4:15 P.M.

The classic rules of genealogy say to begin with what you know, then move on to asking relatives for what they know. Then you do research. And eventually, you end up researching people you never before knew existed. How do you research someone that you have no personal knowledge about? Beginning with only the information on their gravestones, Banai will show you the methods she used to put together the family histories of some of Seattle”s “Colorful” Jews.

Topics: Beginning genealogists, Specific countries or geographic areas 

“Search as an Art” (Weds-130), 9-10:15 A.M.

Now is a great time to be a genealogist. In the past, the only way to find records was to sift through microfilm and to snail mail requests and hope for replies. But now, there are so many web sites with indexes and record images that a lot of research can be done without ever leaving your home. But even with such easy access, sometimes the records are still elusive. What happens if the name was spelled wrong? What if the handwriting was so bad that the index is too far off for the search engine to find what you”re looking for? What if the indexer just got it wrong? With her computer programming background, and experience programming a genealogy search engine, Banai will teach you some of the techniques she uses to try to find the elusive records.

Topics: Methodology