Category Archives: Genealogy

At Least I Did Something

Categories: Accountability, Genealogy
Estimated reading time: 1 minute, 13 seconds

Didn’t take that shower before I went to bed, and didn’t make it to the FHL again. On the plus side, I finally sent off a client report that had been basically finished for at least a month. I was waiting on gravestone pictures but decided to stop waiting and just send him what I had. I also cleaned out the new genealogy requests in my inbox.

Knowing that I’m going to blog about what I accomplished forces me to do something. Even if I waste the entire day goofing off or just watching TV shows, movies, radio shows, or audio files I’ve downloaded, I eventually put my brain to work on something more productive. I don’t make these blog posts public, but I can see them myself and that seems to be enough.

Still have two more clients to go to catch up. Both will need some FHL work done. And some new work came in from a regular client. I think a trip downtown is called for. I also think I should take that shower immediately instead of waiting for later and then feeling too tired and going to bed. Waking up at 4:30pm is not good for going downtown if I have to kill a couple hours with email/twitter/facebook and a shower first.

Client Work

Categories: Accountability, Genealogy
Estimated reading time: 1 minute, 5 seconds

I’ve got this client who wants me to research his family but doesn’t want to give me any information about them. He sent me an exceedingly long list of questions with minimal (or less) information and specific questions about each item. The problem is, most entries don’t have locations, some have dates of events but don’t state which event it is. I thought it might be an interesting challenge, but it has turned into a waste of time. I’m certain that most of what I’ve found was already found by them, as I haven’t answered a single question. The other problem with this client is that they paid me twice my minimum, which I didn’t agree to, and so I’ve had to do twenty hours of work. I just wrote up the research report and I have a few hours left, even rounding up every bit of work. I can’t wait to finish this. I already sent an email telling him that I wouldn’t continue the work this way. I wonder if he’ll supply me with the required information for me to actually get something found. Guess I’ll find out soon enough.

UJGS January Meeting

Categories: Genealogy, UJGS
Estimated reading time: 3 minutes, 9 seconds
1 Comment

Last night’s meeting of the UJGS was the first meeting when I was the President. I had the agenda planned out and I brought a lot of business to the table so we had to rush through a lot of it. I really wanted to bring some more structure and discipline to the group, but alas, that didn’t quite happen.

While I was wasting time fighting with the projector to get it to work, my co-President discussed his workshop idea with the other members. We are finally beginning our mentoring program, though we’re calling it the UJGS Work Meeting. Put simply, we will meet at a designated time at the Family History Library to do our research and be available to help each other where we can. The first meeting will be from 5-9pm on Wednesday, February 10th on the B1 floor.

We amended the bylaws and I passed around a few samples of flyers and business cards I had created. All the generic business cards were claimed by members before the meeting was over, so I’m glad that idea was adopted so quickly. I’ll need to have a lot more printed.

Since the 2007 IAJGS conference, we’ve had a small collection of genealogy reference books but hadn’t put them to use. Rochelle Kaplan graciously donated some books this meeting and we decided to split our library. “Let’s be shell-fish,” Rochelle said. After the meeting, she checked with the synagogue board meeting, which was coincidentally happening in the room next door, and they were discussing their library. So we will have a shelf or two in their library, and the reference books will be with the librarian (me) and we will offer a look-up service for members with those.

When it came time for my presentation, I had less than an hour. Having rehearsed the whole thing early in the morning, I was probably more prepared than for any previous lecture or computer lab I’ve given, which was good, since I had to rush a bit through the presentation titled Social Networking: Facebook and Twitter and Their Genealogy Uses. The comments afterwards were positive, so that’s always a good thing. I stuck to explaining the basics of both services and then went back and reviewed some specific genealogy uses. I was aiming for beginners, those who had never signed up before or who signed up and didn’t use it because they didn’t know what to do with it.

And now for my critique of myself. The fact that the projector blurred everything (and we didn’t really try to fix it) didn’t help, as I repeatedly mentioned it, except that it prevented me from clicking many things which would have taken time that we didn’t have. But actually showing what I was talking about would have been better. I didn’t take the time to stop and ask for questions at several places where I had planned. I’m still not sure if the four parts were in the right order. I gave a quick introduction to Facebook, then Twitter, then covered genealogy uses in Facebook, and then Twitter. Would presenting one service at a time have been better? Should I switch to the basics of Facebook, it’s genealogy uses, then do Twitter, and it’s genealogy uses?

I’m looking forward to our Work Meeting in February. I think I will use that opportunity to reserve that time to do my own genealogy research. I always do client work first so I rarely get to my own family research. I hope the meeting works out well and we repeat it every other month as we seem to be planning.

Hello World.

Categories: David Tennant, Doctor Who, Genealogy, Home Improvement, Hugh Laurie, IAJGS, UJGS
Estimated reading time: 1 minute, 51 seconds
1 Comment

Welcome to my blog. I am Banai. That’s pronounced like B’nai Brith, or B’nai Israel, or B’nai Torah, or if you haven’t heard of any of those or don’t know of any synagogues with those names, it rhymes with Renee.

I have been a genealogist since birth, but I got serious in 1998, moved to Salt Lake City in 2003, and soon became a professional.

I had been debating starting a blog for years. What would I write? Would anyone read it? Would I make the time to keep it up? What would I call it?

Well, the last question was answered first. I came up with the title somewhere in the middle of watching British TV shows last year. Even more recently (like, while editing this post) I added on the third word of my title, from the Ginger Jew to the Ginger Jewish Genealogist. I thought that might be going a bit too far, but I’ve decided to go with it for now. Any comments about that?

I finally decided to just go ahead and try it. So on New Years Eve, between the ball drop and midnight (’cause the ball drops in NYC two hours before midnight in SLC), I installed the blog, adjusted the design, and figured out how to use it. I have blogged every day this year so far. No, you can’t read what I wrote because I marked all the entries private. I was kind of testing the waters.

But now I’ve decided to go public with my blog. So here it is!

Just like my Twitter account, this will likely end up to be about more than just genealogy, but since that’s my profession and my hobby, I expect it to show up a lot. Other topics that will appear often will include UJGS, the Utah Jewish Genealogical Society (I am the president, newsletter editor, and webmaster); IAJGS and each annual conference; David Tennant, Doctor Who, and anyone else associated with the show; Hugh Laurie, House, and any other corresponding shows or people; any other TV show or celebrity that suits my fancy over time (those are just the current ones); and any home improvement projects that may be happening.

Let the fun begin.

Accountability Works

Categories: Accountability, Doctor Who, Genealogy
Estimated reading time: 1 minute, 33 seconds

Had a slow start today, waking up too early, then a loud bang at the door. (Why can’t the pizza delivery knock loud enough that I can hear it over a little music but FedEx can wake me up?) I got two deliveries but not enough sleep.

My new bluetooth headset I immediately plugged in and left charging while I went back to bed. The new wi-fi routers came a little later. Somehow I have to get one of these to Congregation Kol Ami before our Monday night UJGS meeting. It will probably happen on Sunday or Monday. I’m sure I won’t be awake early enough on Friday. At this point, I’m getting up at 3pm.

Eventually, and partly knowing I’d have an entry to make on this blog, I got to work. I did some Polish translations and then followed that up with searching JRI-Poland for more records that could be in the same family. I created a list of records I’m sure are in the family, but I’m also sure there are more. But the client wasn’t interested in the peripheral family, at least not yet.

I’m finally getting back to watching the early seasons of Doctor Who also. I finished the fifth season and started the sixth. It will be much easier from now on. The sixth season only has a few missing episodes whereas the fourth and fifth were loaded with them, making them so much more difficult to watch.

I’m falling behind on my reading again, but I’m sure I’ll get back to that soon enough too. I’m really liking the accountability this blog is giving me, even if it’s only my own personal journal and no one else ever sees it.

Visit to my Second Home

Categories: Accountability, Family History Library, Genealogy, IAJGS, JGSLA 2010
Estimated reading time: 1 minute, 32 seconds

I finally went back to the Family History Library. It had been over two weeks, with all the early and total closings around Christmas, and it was my first visit this year. I got some work done for two clients in Polish records. I ran out of time to work in the Virginia records for another client. I was hoping to have the willpower to continue the work sometime after I got home, but as usual, I didn’t. But at least I got some work done.

I also visited the JGSLA 2010 web site and submitted a couple of lecture proposals. I left them in edit mode so I could tweak what they say. Given my history, albeit of only two years of IAJGS conference lectures, they won’t get much tweaking between now and the final deadline.

On the way home from the FHL, I picked up another box of hair color. If my title is The Ginger Jew, I really should be more ginger. We’ll see how this particular color works out. Instead of auburn, I bought strawberry blond.

I also just noticed the visibility option in the publish box. I can make all these accountability entries private and post other things publicly. I’m sure that’s the way to go. Now all I have to do it start posting things that other people might want to read. I just hope other bloggers don’t expect me to start reading their blogs more just because I have one now. I read some of them sometimes. Mostly, I just read blog entries when they’re tweeted and the title intrigues me.

Actually, I’ve decided to leave them all public instead. I can always change it later.

In The House

Categories: Accountability, David Tennant, Genealogy, Hugh Laurie, IAJGS, JGSLA 2010, UJGS
Estimated reading time: 1 minute, 57 seconds

After yesterday’s Doctor Who marathon, today had a House marathon on USA Network. I mostly slept through it, but I had it on for a while. So now my blog has hit upon my two favorite doctors and my current favorite actors, David Tennant and Hugh Laurie.

There has also been some work accomplished. While I didn’t feel like I had done much, by the time midnight came around, I was getting some genealogy work done. I did some data entry for a client. I’m searching Polish church records for Jewish records and hoping to find more information about his family. After typing up the last batch that I had handwritten last month, I finally compared the whole file (even though I have a couple more years to look through). Sadly, I didn’t find a single record that corresponded to what I already know about his family.

And it really does make me sad when I don’t find anything. The thrill of genealogy is not just the searching, but the finding after spending so much time searching. When I don’t find anything, I feel bad. Not just for the client but for myself. All that time spent and I didn’t find a single record useful to his family research.

In addition, I finally started to plan out my lectures for the 2010 IAJGS conference in Los Angeles. I have until the 15th to submit my lectures and I hadn’t really worked on it. My plan is to sort of repeat what I did last year, but try to do it better. Next Monday, I am presenting at the UJGS meeting, and I want to submit that to the conference. Instead of doing a computer lab about Facebook, I am going to do a lecture. My other computer lab from last year was about using Microsoft Publisher, and I want to submit that possibly as two labs, beginner and intermediate levels.

Not such a useless day after all. And there’s still a few more hours to go before I fall asleep, so maybe I’ll get some more work done for my genealogy clients, or I’ll update a web site. Or maybe I’ll just waste some time.