Israel Pickholtz, a native of Pittsburgh, made aliyah in 1973 from Chicago and now lives in Jerusalem.

He has done serious family research for nearly twenty years. His flagship work is the Pikholz Project, a single-surname project to identify and reconnect all Pikholz descendants.

Alongside his work as a professional genealogist, taking clients in Israel and abroad, he became heavily involved in genetic genealogy in 2013. He manages test kits of over eighty family members, at last count. Last summer he published a book ENDOGAMY: One Family, One People, available at http://www.endogamy-one-family.com.

He blogs at http://allmyforeparents.blogspot.com and receives mail at IsraelP@pikholz.org.

“Lessons in Jewish DNA – One Man’s Successes and What He Learned On the Journey” (Sun-114), 9-10:15 A.M.

The hottest topic in genealogy in recent years has been genetics and many thousands of genealogists have ordered DNA tests. Many of those haven’t a clue what to do with their results. The situation is more complicated among Jews, who have married “within the tribe” for hundreds of years, thus ensuring that everyone is related to everyone else, multiple times. Marrying within a closed community – “endogamy” – has barely been addressed by the non-Jewish genetic genealogy community. This presentation – as in the speaker’s book, ENDOGAMY: One Family, One People – does not bring a “how to” approach, as every family is different. The speaker prefers a “how I did it” approach, demonstrating the successes he has had in his own families and the general lessons applicable to all genetic genealogy research. His goal is to inspire his listeners and readers to say “I can do this!”

Topics: DNA research and genetics 

“GEDmatch.com’s Lazarus Tool As It Applies to Two Kinds of Endogamy” (Sun-113), 4:30-5:45 P.M.

Lazarus, a tool offered by GEDmatch, can create a partial genome of a person based on autosomal DNA test results of descendants on one hand and non-descendant relatives on the other. This recreated kit can be compared to other kits in order to help determine and clarify relationships. But for endogamous families, this is more complicated, especially when you consider that there are two distinct types of endogamy. This presentation will address the two types of endogamy and the way to best use Lazarus while reducing “contaminated” input inadvertently introduced due to multiple relationships. It will also address the use of Lazarus as a tool for DNA analysis. The presentation – much of which is based on the speaker’s recently published book ENDOGAMY: One Family, One People – will use examples from the single-surname Pikholz Project.

Topics: DNA research and genetics 

“Beyond a Doubt: What We Know Vs. What We Can Prove” (Tues-108), 3-4:15 P.M.

What do you do when the hard proofs just aren’t there, but you are as sure as you can be what they would show if you could find them? If you fold your hands and wait, you may never get anywhere with your research, but if you accept your suppositions as fact, they may never be questioned again – not by you and certainly not by your research heirs. This presentation will use examples from the east Galician single-surname Pikholz Project to consider when what you know is beyond a reasonable doubt and if that is indeed good enough.

Topics: Ashkenazic research, Beginning genealogists, Evaluating research results