Marion Werle began her family history research over 20 years ago, researching family from Lithuania, Latvia and Belarus, who settled in the US, Canada, UK and Israel. She has been on the boards of JGS Conejo Valley and Ventura County and JGS Los Angeles, and is a past president of the Latvia SIG.

She is a retired IT professional with master’s degrees in both European History and Library Science from UCLA.

She has recently completed a history of her grandmother’s Skuder family from Lithuania. She has an ongoing interest in using technology to enhance genealogical research and applying general genealogical methodology standards to Jewish research.

“You Found the Records-Now What? Records Analysis for the Jewish Genealogist” (Tues-169), 3:00-4:15 P.M.

Jewish genealogy is focused on finding records, but not necessarily what to do with them once you find them. What do you do when records show Grandpa with six different birthdates? What should you believe? All of us have been faced with contradictory evidence that leaves us scratching our heads.

This interactive presentation will focus on evaluating records you find and building a case to prove identities, ages, residence and other facts about your ancestors. The speaker will discuss analyzing record types (original, derivative, authored), record information (primary, secondary, unknown) and evidence (direct, indirect, negative), and how to weigh the reliability of various documents.

Together we will analyze examples of actual Jewish records and learn how to ask the right questions to help us create sound genealogical research. We will also discuss the challenges unique to Jewish genealogy as we attempt to apply general genealogical research principles to our work.

Topics: Ashkenazic research, Cemetery research, Holocaust research, Methodology