Hosted by the ACT Jewish Community at their Centre and organised jointly by the Sydney and Melbourne Jewish Genealogical Societies, this conference will be a rewarding experience for all family history researchers. With a wealth of talent to be accessed and the proximity of some important archival repositories, this is an opportunity not to be missed by either the beginner or the experienced genealogist. 

Program
Download Program - as at 19 September
Adobe file (21Kbs)		Word file (66Kbs)

 

Download Program and registration form
Adobe file (100kbs)		Word file (1Mb)

Conference Venue

The National Jewish Memorial Centre, which is situated close to Parliament House, is the centre of the ACT Jewish Community. It is an excellent conference venue. The Centre comprises a synagogue, community offices, a plenary hall and smaller meeting rooms. All the activities including the sessions, the resource room and the Conference Banquet will be held in the Centre. On Sunday and Monday, lunches and morning and afternoon teas will be provided as part of the registration fees.

Because the National Jewish Memorial Centre is an older building - built in 1970 - there are no disabled facilties. In particular, there are 27 stairs from the Ground Floor up to the Plenary Hall of the Conference, and where the Conference Dinner will also be held.

We will be hiring portaloos for both sexes which will provide disabled access.

Programme

An innovative, interactive programme that focuses on helping the individual’s research interests has been planned.

On Sunday and Monday mornings there will be plenary sessions for all the conference attendees and in the afternoons there will be small group parallel sessions dealing with specific countries which will allow in-depth exploration of currently available resources and techniques.

On Tuesday and Wednesday, a number of guided tours have been arranged with the flexibility for independent research opportunities in the ACT archives.

The Resource Room will be available on Sunday and Monday. Apart from valuable reference materials, such as books, maps, folders and CDs, there will be computer access to online sites and databases. Wireless internet access will be available for the duration of the conference if you want to bring your laptop. Experienced help will be available to assist with research problems and appointments for individual consultations with experts in a specific area will be scheduled.

Conference Banquet

On Sunday evening, a special Conference Banquet, a kosher 4-course meal with accompanying fine wines, has been arranged. It will be another opportunity to relax and enjoy the networking possibilities. The entertainment will be very enjoyable, topical and a surprise!

Reception at Israeli Embassy

A cocktail party at the Israeli Embassy hosted by His Excellency Mr Yuval Rotem, the Israeli Ambassador, will be held on Tuesday night.

Conference Organising Committee

Kim Phillips (Convenor) (NSW); Sunny Gold (NSW - minutes); Vernon Kronenberg (ACT); Lionel Sharpe (VIC)

Register early as places are limited

---

Speakers

Martha Lev-Zion

Dr. Martha Levinson Lev-Zion is an historian of modern European intellectual history. She is the founder and president of the Negev branch of the Israel Genealogical Society; a former director on the board of the International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies [IAJGS] and past president of the international Latvia SIG. She was a co-founder and serves on the steering committee of the Courland Research Group and was on the organizing committee of the 24th IAJGS International Conference on Jewish Genealogy in Jerusalem in 2004. Dr. Lev-Zion is one of the three founders of the annual Yom Iyun [one day seminar] for researching genealogy in Israel and actively serves on that committee.

Dr. Lev-Zion has written extensively about the Jews of Franconia [Germany] and of Courland [Latvia]. She is the author of Taking Tamar, published by Avotaynu.  

Julia Church

Julia Church is a writer, artist and curator. Her books include Per L'Australia: the story of Italian migration (2005), a pictorial history commissioned by the Italian Historical Society and published by Melbourne University Publishing. Julia's longstanding interest in the Jewish-Australian story has resulted in a number of collaborations with the Jewish Museum of Australia in Melbourne, most recently as co-editor of its 25th Anniversary Souvenir publication in 2007. Julia is a senior reference officer with the National Archives of Australia in Canberra.

Liz James, Debbie Jurblum, Lionel Sharpe

Among a group of 40 genealogists who visited the Red Cross International Tracing Service in Bad Arolsen, Germany from May 5th – 9th this year were these three Victorian members. Liz is the honorary secretary of the Australian Jewish Historical Society (Vic) and a committee member of the AJGS (Vic). Debbie is a committee member of the AJGS (Vic) and recently travelled to Poland, Germany and Switzerland with Liz doing extensive family research. Lionel is honorary secretary of the AJGS (Vic) and editor of “Jewish Genealogy Downunder”. He is an Honorary Research Associate at Monash University.

Rhonda Kerr

Rhonda has been a member of HAGSOC for 17 years and was a member of council from 1998 to 2006, and during this time served in positions of Membership Secretary, President and Education Officer. Rhonda currently leads the Society Volunteers Group at the National Archives of Australia (NAA); is Convenor of the Writers' Special Interest Group; the Society rep on the Canberra Consultative Forum convened by the NAA, and has a monthly Family History session on Radio 1 RPH in Canberra. Rhonda has also produced several publications relating to family history; an Index to an early Australian colonial newspaper; monumental inscriptions of selected graves in Java, and an Index to and transcriptions of memorials found in 40 Anglican churches in the Diocese of Canberra-Goulburn. Her specific interests are Scottish family history and Australian military history.

Kim Phillips

Kim Phillips has served on the Committee of the Australian Jewish Genealogical Society since 1998 and has given presentations in 2004 at the 24th International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies in Jerusalem; 1999 and 2001 Society of Australian Genealogists Annual Conferences; Botany Bay Family History Society; Blue Mountains Family History Society Annual Conference; Coffs Harbour Annual Genealogy Conference and Ryde District Family History Society. She has led workshops at the Society of Australian Genealogists and Central Coast Genealogical Society.

Rieke Nash

Currently President of the Australian Jewish Genealogical Society and a founding member of the Society, Rieke has been publisher of the Kosher Koala for 15 years and has attended a number of International Conferences on Jewish Genealogy. She has researched in many overseas archives and is an Archive Coordinator for Jewish Records Indexing – Poland.

The conference will provide formal and informal networking opportunities to meet some of those other personalities well-known in the Jewish genealogical world such as