About Miriam Weiner

Miriam Weiner, the first Jewish genealogist to be certified (in 1985) by the Board for Certification of Genealogists in Washington DC, is an expert in Jewish genealogy and Holocaust research.  Her syndicated column, “Roots and Branches”, has appeared in over 100 Jewish newspapers worldwide, and her articles have been published in numerous national publications for a combined readership of over 2,000,000 (click here for more information).

Miriam was formerly Executive Director of the American Gathering of Jewish Holocaust Survivors in New York, and she has served as a member of the Advisory Board of The Holocaust and War Victims Tracing and Information Center of the American Red Cross.  Her lecture schedule includes programs for Jewish Federations, Holocaust survivor organizations, Jewish Community Centers, international Jewish genealogy conferences, local JGS groups, synagogues and temples throughout the country.

She is president of Routes to Roots (www.routestoroots.com), a firm founded in 1991 and offering both in-depth archival research and customized visits to ancestral towns of the former Soviet Union and Poland.  In a 1998 interview with the “Forward” in New York City, the interviewer wrote: “So when you want to go home to revisit the lost world of Jewish European life, whom are you going to call?  Enter Miriam Weiner, the Indiana Jones of prewar Polish Jewry.” (click here for the entire article).

She is also president of The Routes to Roots Foundation, Inc., a not-for-profit foundation, which published a town-by-town inventory of Jewish documents that Miriam researched and compiled from Eastern European archives.  The first volume in the series, Jewish Roots in Poland (out of print in 2016), was co-published with YIVO Institute for Jewish Research in 1997 and the second volume, Jewish Roots in Ukraine and Moldova, also co-published by YIVO Institute, was published in 1999 (out of print in December, 2002).  Excerpts from both books, including new information from Belarus and Lithuania, can be found at the RTRF website at www.rtrfoundation.org.

Miriam received her B.A. in Historical Studies with a concentration in Modern Judaic History and Holocaust Studies from Empire State College at the State University of New York in Albany.  Prior to her genealogical pursuits, she was a licensed private investigator in California, a background that has increased her ability to develop sources of information not widely known in the genealogy world.

Further information about Miriam Weiner, her work, her legacy, and her impact upon the Jewish world can be viewed here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miriam_Weiner_(genealogist)