JewishGen Learning Center
Personal Mentoring Program

Six PDFs cover the fundamental Issues of Jewish genealogical research that explains the great resources on the Internet. Detailed descriptions of where to find vital records (birth, marriage, death), immigration, and census. Included are charts, forms, ways to get organized and evaluate results.

If you have not yet found the Hebrew names, birth year or town for your U.S. immigrant consider this course as it focuses on the more complex documents our ancestors generated including Naturalization, Passports, Death Records (Probate, Obituaries, Cemeteries), Newspapers, City Directories, Immigration Ports other than Ellis Island, Major Archives and Libraries, Military records, Internet Research and miscellaneous State and Federal Government Records. Eight downloadable PDFs.

Ten PDFs thoroughly document how to approach the writing process for a variety of publications focusing on sharing your genealogical research. Emphasizing organizing Your Data, the collection process (files and folders) outlining your project, visualizing the structure and the actual writing process. Included are commercial services and various formatting options.

Many of our immigrant ancestors started on the Lower East Side of New York City and gradually moved to the Bronx and Brooklyn; their children moved to Queens, Westchester, Long Island and New Jersey. This class will focus on fundamental documents such as census, vital records, naturalization, probate, landsmanshaften, voters registration, newspapers, court cases… and we will note which documents will be found online and which on-site at various archives.

The Jewish Immigrant Experience. Emphasis is on what makes Jewish genealogy unique, and how to set the filters in ancestry, familysearch, and other sites to enable your search for Jewish records. This course includes Jewish search basics of where and how to look for resources. We cover how Jews recreated the shtetl in New York City and other large cities like Chicago and St. Louis; Jewish geography, Jewish records, Jewish identity, Jewish institutions, and links to Jewish research sites.

Want to use the Internet for Genealogical Searches? Google is a fabulous search tool. Knowing tips and tricks to make it work for you will make your searches faster and more productive. This class is an introduction to using Google for Genealogy. This class workbook contains 15 lessons in PDF format.

This course is a series of lessons that will introduce you to forms of systematic record keeping and includes saving your collected records, recording searched databases, archives, internet sites and saving email and discussion group and social media correspondence. It will help you create your own personal system to find, index, sort and analyze data. This class workbook contains 19 lessons in PDF format.

The Belarus SIG was established in 1998 to promote Jewish genealogical research in Grodno, Minsk, Mogilev and Vitebsk Gubernias as well as the Lida and Vileika uyzeds (districts) of Vilna Gubernia. The website offers easy access to primary and secondary records to help you find your ancestors, search for records, and to learn more about your town. This class workbook contains 14 lessons in PDF format.

The new fundamental Series starts with this beginning refresher course. Bring the past alive. Fresh Start will move you though the major steps in genealogical research so that you can find the story behind the facts. It includes sources and methods: from getting organized to how to best use the fundamental databases to find census, passenger records, vital records, and former places of residence.

Do you ever find yourself wandering aimlessly in your genealogy research? Find yourself looking at the same records over and over, wasting time and energy? Learn the tools and strategies to create a focused plan and system for tracking the records you've already searched. Make it a gift to your genealogical research.

How to understand search engines and filters in the general databases: familysearch, ancestry, myheritage and findmypast. How to work with filters in JewishGen All Country Databases and specialized databases: stevemorse, routes to roots, JOWBR and Google.

Genealogists want to see the evidence. How do you prove it! What are the details? A citation, a record link, a description can show where you found it. A family story might be true and accurate but where are the records? This class will show you easy ways to show the data without being boring. Facts, true facts are everyone’s goal. Errors and discrepancies abound! Sources and methods will help you ensure that the information you find is your evidence. Learn more about the Genealogical Proof Standard as it applies to your personal research.

Track the Journey from last place of Residence on the passenger manifest to the new country of residence. From the port of Departure to the Port of Arrival. Trains, ships, wagon cart and by foot.

Solve an unusual mystery. Work on a Case Study with your peers and learn to be a Savvy Searcher. We will work as a group from selected records to build a documented story. You will download records from the internet. Most of the sources will include original records from headstones, census, newspapers, and vital records. Follow in the steps of professionals as you put together this complicated story.

Understand the complexities of JewishGen, maximize the use of the databases, and make use of the communication facilities of the JewishGen website.

This course is designed for those who are relatively new to Galician research. Pre-requisites are the names of your Galician ancestor and the original town name in Galicia.

Research in Belarus covers the modern boundaries of Belarus, including parts of former Lithuania, parts of Latvia, and parts of Poland.

Instead of a structured class, decide what you would like to study. Need obscure records? Write a newsletter? Hire a researcher? Single surname study? Set up your own project and work with an instructor.

Are you at a standstill, a Brick Wall or a Dead End? Review your data with an instructor who will help you analyze your data and break the block.

This discussion class provides an overview of the topic of using DNA analysis to add information to your traditional genealogy efforts. The various types of tests offered will be explained as well as how the results are interpreted. Special interpretation issues related to Ashkenazi Jews will be described. Additional topics include the ethics of DNA analysis. We will not analyze your specific results in this class.

This discussion class will walk you through the steps to analyze the test results that you have received. We will concentrate on the basic autosomal test that shows relative matches going back 4-5 generations. We will also discuss the Y chromosome and mitochondrial testing that examines the paternal and maternal lines, respectively.

New and innovative: Express your research stories spontaneously without hesitating over style and composition. Write in Class. Write from prompts.

You’ve amassed years of genealogical research and want to share your discoveries, but don’t know where to start. Learning to write a good quality short family narrative, one focused on a specific topic, is an excellent way to begin. This class will give you the tools you need to pick a topic, structure your narrative, showcase your research, and keep your readers engaged.