HomeTJGS Speakers Available

TJGS Speakers Available

Triangle JGS speakers are available for presentations on
Jewish Genealogy at your organization's event.

TJGS does not charge for its speakers, but an honorarium for our organization would be happily accepted. Speakers may ask for a fee and/or reimbursements for travel/time.

Deborah Long

Deborah Long, TJGS's founder, has been researching her family’s Holocaust story since she was 10 years old, but her efforts really took off in 2009 with trips to her ancestral villages in Poland and Hungary. She was able to locate long-lost cousins in Sweden, Hungary, Canada and Israel and continues to search for more relatives.

She will provide your organization with her program Three Guides, Four Countries: A Daughter of Survivors and her Search for Family, an inspirational talk for your organization about finding her family lost in the Holocaust.

She can also provide programs on Holocaust research, Out of the Whirlwind: Resources for Holocaust Research.

A third program is a personal narrative called called A Tale of Two Cousins, the Holocaust, and an Obsession. This is a genealogical detective story that takes us from Poland to Russia to Tashkent to Palestine.

Debbie also provides a program called The Jewish Way of Death: Customs, Gravestones and Cemeteries

The programs are 1-1.5 hours. She can be reached at
DebbieTheTeacher@
gmail.com.

Mike Kalt

Mike Kalt served as TJGS' president for 2015-2017. Mike was born in the Detroit area and is a proud graduate of the University of Michigan. He also holds a PhD in Political Science from UNC-Chapel Hill.

He has been a genealogy buff since 1984, and has been actively involved as a volunteer with JewishGen since the mid-1990's, working on JewishGen's Yizkor Book project and Holocaust data base. He also maintains the town pages for Stryj and Grodek Jagiellonski for JewishGen's KehilaLinks project. In 2001, he traveled to Poland and Ukraine to visit his ancestral shtetls.

Mike can provide a variety of programs on research techniques. His presentations include:

An Introduction to JewishGen -- An overview of the information available at www.jewishgen.org, probably the most valuable web site for those doing Jewish genealogical research.

Using JewishGen Discussion Groups -- How to use discussion groups to communicate with other genealogical researchers and find answers to your genealogical questions.

So, You Don't Know Where the Mishpocha is From?

How to use the Town Finder page on the JewishGen Web Site -- find your family's ancestral towns and access information and resources for the towns.

Putting Your Family Tree Online -- A discussion and demonstration of different approaches for making information about your family available on the Web.

Using the Stephen Morse Web Site -- An overview of the web site www.stevemorse.org, which provides better search interfaces than commonly used genealogy web sites. The Morse web site also contains numerous other resources for those doing Jewish Genealogy.

How Zayde Got to Montana: Jewish Migration in America -- A discussion of Jewish immigration and migration patterns across the United States, with special emphasis on the western states.

Mike can be reached at mfkalt@gmail.com.

Jarrett Ross

Jarrett Ross began researching his own family history in 2009 while finishing his undergraduate degree. Since then he has successfully connected with thousands of relatives all over the World and has helped build hundreds of trees for people of varying ancestral backgrounds. Jarrett has found a specialty in Genetic Genealogy and Sephardic Jewish research with an emphasis on the Dutch Sephardim. He also specializes in Jewish Agricultural Societies of Southern New Jersey, Ashkenazi Jews, and Jews in America. Along with his specialties Jarrett also has extensive experience with all sorts of varying ancestries. Jarrett writes a blog called "Sephardic Genealogy,, which focuses on his Sephardic genealogy research. He also has a vlog called "GeneaVlogger" where Jarrett talks about his research, gives genealogy tips, interviews other genealogists, and shows different aspects of working in genealogy.

Available programs:

Iberia to Amsterdam: A Genealogical Look at the Sephardic Community of Amsterdam - After the Inquisition many Jews who stayed on the Iberian peninsula eventually made their way to Amsterdam where they found a new home in which they could practice their religion without persecution. They built a large and influential community which can be studied in detail thanks to the extensive cache of documentation they archived as well as the documentation archived by their new homeland of the Netherlands. In this program we will look at the Sephardic community of Amsterdam by studying the expansive array of documentation and how the Dutch are making it easier to access than ever before. (1 hour version and 1.5 hour version)

The Soil From Which They Grew: A History of The Alliance Colony - The Alliance Colony was the first successful Jewish agricultural colony in America, founded in Vineland, New Jersey in 1882. The community was originally settled by 43 families who were part of the Am Olam society which pushed to create Jewish agricultural societies in America. Alliance flourished with more families settling in the Colony over the decades, growing into more colonies and creating an amazing legacy through its many descendants. Many Alliance descendants are still in touch after many generations and even have reunions with over 600 descendants attending. This presentation will discuss the History of Alliance and how collaboration between descendants has been a genealogical goldmine. (1.5 hour program)

Success with Jewish DNA - Genetic genealogy has become a major component of genealogical research, confirming hundreds of years of documentation and breaking down brick walls. Yet confirming new family and expanding one’s tree using Jewish Genetic Genealogy is a difficult task filled with many pitfalls. Many aren’t even sure where to begin when they first look at their DNA matches but success is still possible. This presentation will explore multiple case studies by Jarrett Ross in researching his own family history using genetic genealogy. Using different types of DNA tests and multiple techniques to identify significant DNA matches Jarrett was able to expand multiple branches of his tree and find lost cousins, for both his Ashkenazi and Sephardi ancestry. Come learn all the techniques used as Jarrett breaks down the process of each case study and what methods found success in his research. (1.5 hour program)

An Introduction to Geni - Geni.com is home to The World Family Tree, which has over 130 million people, as well as many genealogy tools. This program reviews the basics of Geni, how to set up your family tree, and available tools through the website. (1 hour program)

Contact Jarrett at
Geneavlogger@gmail.com