monkeys and ponies

1. What actor would you hire to play you in your TV movie biography, and why? Definitely Amy Irving, because she’s played a lot of quirky women.

2. What extinct animal would you bring back, if you could? According to a list of cute extinct animals I found online, the lesser bilbo was “a small marsupial that looked like combination of a mouse, kangaroo, and bunny.” Aww.

3. When have you realized you were really wrong in your judgment about someone? As I’ve gotten older, I understand my parents better and cut them more slack about areas where I disagreed with them.

4. Who was the best teacher you ever had, and why? It’s really hard to choose one. One piano teacher I had, Johanna, stands out because she was the first person who ever suggested to me that I was having trouble with something (in this case, playing triplets with one hand and 4/4 rhythm with the other) because it was actually difficult and not because I was a musical idiot.

5. What is your favorite season and why? Autumn, because I love the crispness in the air and the colors of the leaves.

6. What was your major in college? How did you choose it? My degrees are in mechanical engineering. I’d started out planning to major in chemistry, but some aspects of organic chemistry didn’t resonate with me. I could figure out some reactions that might happen, but never quite grasped how I could tell which one would happen. I read about work some professors were doing on intelligent prosthetics and that led me to mechanical engineering. One of my early classes in that field was Introduction to System Dynamics and it just clicked with my world view.

7. If you had a mind-reading ability but could only choose 3 people to read their minds, who would they be? The most obvious one is the Gentleman With Whom I’m Conducting the World’s Longest Running Brief Meaningless Fling. Next would be my brother. As for a third, on any given day, I would suggest one or another of my friends, but perhaps it might be more interesting to get into the mind of one of my favorite authors, e.g. Jasper Fforde or Alexander McCall Smith.

8. What is an experience you have had when you went fishing or swimming? When I was in grad school, there was a period when I lived in an apartment building with a swimming pool and I swam almost every day. I found that I could sometimes get into a state of perfect flow, with my mind completely relaxed thinking only of the rhythm of my strokes.

9. What do you like to do when it is really hot outside? Cower next to the air conditioner.

10. Tell about the kind of kids you hung out with as a kid. I mostly hung out with the other kids who lived on my block when I was younger. As I got older, I spent time with people with whom I had overlapping interests, ranging from dancing to playing tennis to science.

11. What are two things you want to do less of next week? What are two things you want to do more of next week? I want to waste less time watching dumb reels on Facebook. I want to spend more time reading and crafting. I should spend more time on housework, but I don’t really want to.

12. Which do you prefer, a shower or a bath? Why? Showers are for cleaning. Baths are for soaking and relaxing.

13. if you were on a game show (like Big Brother or Survivor for example) what would your strategy be? Lay low? make big moves? Win all the comps? How would your strengths and weaknesses play a role in your success or failure of the game? I can’t really imagine being on that sort of game show, where the whole point is interpersonal relationships. My idea of a fun game show is trivia / knowledge related and the only real strategies for those is to just know a lot of stuff. (Note: I was on Jeopardy! in 1989 and The Challengers around 1991.)

14. What does success mean to you? Success means meeting one’s goals to the best of one’s ability. It has to be self-defined, not dependent on another person’s standards.

15. How comfortable are you with saying “no”? It depends on the situation. I am usually good at saying “no,” but sometimes agree to go to an event I don’t really want to in order to support a friend or relative.

16. When was the last time you woke up and realized that today could be the best day of your life? I feel that way whenever I have plans to do something I’ve always wanted to but have never done before.

17. Where is your “happy place?” What about it makes you feel content? I often joke that my natural habitat is an airport lounge. In short, traveling makes me happy. That said, I love being near a beach with white sand and few people.

18. Have you ever pretended to be someone else? Why? Does giving a fake name and phone number to a guy who was hitting on me count?

19. Describe a game or activity you used to play with a sibling. My family played board games a lot. My brother was the worst person in the world to play Scrabble with because he was obsessed with keeping track of every move each of us made and it made things take forever.

20. Do you think your next car will be electric/hybrid? I doubt that I’ll live long enough to own another car. Twain (my Hyunday Accent, the logic being Accent Mark / Mark Twain) is 6 years old and has under 20,000 miles.

21. What's your earliest holiday memory? I don’t know if it’s the absolutely earliest holiday memory I have, but I remember the parades we used to have outside our synagogue on Simchat Torah when I was a child. We’d wave brightly colored flags and eat candy apples.

22. If you could be anybody, who would you be? I’m quite happy being myself.

23. What would you write in a letter you could send forward in time to yourself in 10 years? Hmm, maybe congratulations on having reached my late 70’s and wishes for continued good health.

24. Describe your favorite memory about an amusement park or county fair you visited. Do the rides at the 1964 New York World’s Fair and Expo ’67 count for amusement parks? I think Expo ’67 had a bobsled ride (on a track, not downhill) that I really enjoyed because it was fast but not high. There was also a small amusement park next to Nathan’s in Oceanside and I remember liking the helicopter ride.

25. Imagine you're stuck on the roof of a house that has been carried away by a flood. Which person would you most like to be on the roof with you? Practically speaking, I think it would be best to be on the roof with somebody trained and skilled in water rescue.

26. If you suddenly gained the ability to tell whether someone was lying, would you use it? Sure. It sounds useful, particularly with people I don’t know well.

27. When you were a child, how did you imagine your adult life? How is it similar or different to what you imagined? The main thing I remember imagining about my adult life had to do with where I’d live. I had some sort of building kit that let you design a studio apartment. I loved rearranging the walls and the furniture. I also liked drawing house plans. As an adult, I haven’t lived anywhere that matches the perfection of what I imagined when I was young.

28. What was the first way you earned money? My parents used to pay both my brother and me for certain chores that they considered above and beyond what we were normally expected to do. For example, in the autumn, they’d pay us so much per bag when we raked leaves.

29. What foreign countries have you been to? Which ones do you want to go to? Counting only UN member states, I’ve been to 93. In alphabetical order, those are Andorra, Argentina, Armenia, Australia, Austria, Azerbaijan, The Bahamas, Belarus, Belgium, Benin, Botswana, Brazil, Bulgaria, Burkina Faso, Cambodia, Canada, Chile, China, Costa Rica, Czech, Denmark, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Eswatini, Fiji, Finland, France, The Gambia, Georgia, Germany, Ghana, Greece, Haiti, Hungary, Iceland, India, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Kenya, Kiribati, Laos, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Madagascar, Malawi, Malaysia, Mali, Malta, Mauritius, Mexico, Federated States of Micronesia, Monaco, Mongolia, Namibia, Netherlands, Nicaragua, Norway, Oman, Palau, Panama, Papua New Guinea, Paraguay, Peru. Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, San Marino, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, Solomon Islands, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Tanzania, Thailand, Togo, Turkiye, United Arab Emirates, UK, USA, Uruguay, Vanuatu, Vietnam, Zambia, and Zimbabe.

As for where I want to go to, pretty much all of them but the top five would be Bolivia, Cabo Verde, Eritrea, Mozambique, and Turkmenistan..

30. Tell about the first time you ever held hands with someone. Assuming you exclude family members, it was probably a boy I knew in summer camp when I was about 10 or 11 years old. For what it’s worth, I’m in my late 60’s and I still think it’s really sweet when old folks like me and The Gentleman With Whom I’m Conducting the World’s Longest Running Brief Meaningless Fling hold hands in public.

My next trip was to Fort Wayne, Indiana from 9-15 August for the annual conference of the International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies (IAJGS). This was only the third time I attended the conference, though I had gone to bits and pieces virtually during the COVID shutdown. The two I’d gone to previously were in London and in Philadelphia. So why was it in Fort Wayne this time? Well, Fort Wayne has a small Jewish community, but it also has the Allen County Public Library, which has the second largest genealogy collection in the United States, behind the LDS Family History Center in Salt Lake City.

I flew in on Saturday, via Chicago. My flight to ORD left about 40 minutes late, so I was a bit concerned about my connection. But we did make up some time in the air. And I walked as quickly as I could through the unwashed hordes at ORD, arriving at the gate for the FWA flight slightly out of breath just before it started boarding. I forgot to look for the stand that allegedly gives out cookies to arriving passengers in Fort Wayne, alas. I did find where the van to the Hilton picks up and had a bit of a wait for that. The hotel check-in was on the slow side, but I got to my room just fine. I walked around a little and got some mediocre Chinese food for supper. Then I spent time in my room reviewing my plans for which conference sessions I wanted to attend.

On Sunday, I checked in at conference registration. Then I connected with a guy from my home town (who I didn’t know before, though I’d been friendly with his sister, who was in my Hebrew school class), connected with my cousin Fred who I hadn’t met in person before, and compared photos with a woman whose father had been in a DP camp in Italy with my father. I spent an exhausting amount of time in the exhibit hall, where I learned about some potentially useful resources. The opening session was that evening, with keynote speaker CeCe Moore, who spoke on The Power of Genetic Genealogy. Her most significant advice was to “fish in all four ponds,” i.e. have your DNA data on all of the major DNA sites. She also talked a lot about the use of genetic information in solving criminal cases, with an example of how finding DNA data for close relatives led to solving a murder.

Monday (day 2 of the conference) started with a breakfast with Jody Tzucker of LitvakSIG. For some mysterious reason, one person kept asking questions about Slovakia. After that I went to a talk by Rabbi Ben-Zion Saydman on Morris, Izzy, and Seymour: What’s In a Name, which was amusing, but rather sloppy about some details.

The luncheon for JRI-Poland (JRI=Jewish Records Indexing) had a talk by Halina Goldberg on Not Warsaw: Jews and Culture Beyond the Capitol. A particular line I liked was “let’s get the fiddler off the roof.” I followed that with Robinn Magid’s presentation on What’s New at JRI-Poland.org. They still need to unify systems to pay for things, e.g. membership is not handled through the shopping cart. It does look like they’ve added records for Tykocin (where my Chlebiocky family is from) so I need to spend some time on that. My favorite quote from that talk was “There was no one in 19th century Poland named Jennifer.” But I learned recently that there actually were women named Tiffany in medieval times, so you never know. Also, they have a new book club,although another book club is the last thing I need.

Small world department: I was washing my hands in the lady’s room in between talks when someone said to me, “Is your name Miriam?” When I said “yes,” she asked “did you go to West Hempstead High School?” She turned out to have been in my high school class!

I managed to find someone who could read the writing on the back of one photo and was able to verify that I was correct about who it was of. Then I spent about an hour and a half mentoring someone re: a ship manifest. I discovered that the person she was researching wasn’t traveling alone, but was probably with a son or nephew. (I did some other mentoring later on in the conference, but that was mostly answering quick questions, e.g. reading a name written in Russian.)

After that I went to the Family Journey Showcase talks, mostly to see what people were doing that I should keep in mind for my presentation on Thursday. The day ended with a presentation by Karen Franklin on JewishGen 2025, which had some info about who is filling what roles. The item of the most interest to me is that Shul Records America now includes Canadian and Caribbean records.

Which brings us to Tuesday, day 3 of the conference. I started it with another “Breakfast with the Expert” session. This one was with Curt Witcher of the Allen County Public Library. The table I was at had a lively discussion about how to get younger people interested in genealogy. My answer to that always has to do with emphasizing stories, rather than lists of names.

Next, I went to an excellent talk by Ellen Cassedy about Women of Lithuania. Something I learned from that talk was that Lithuania was the last country in Europe to become officially Christian. In 19th century Lithuania, Jews were the middle class, below aristocrats but above farmers and peasants. The first Lithuanian women’s conference was in 1907. Jewish women played the role of healers and non-Jewish women went to them for help with the evil eye, for example. Also, in 1926, the quota for Lithuanian immigration to the United States was 380 people. That explains why so many of my relatives who left Lithuania went to South Africa or to Argentina instead.

Continuing on that regional theme, the LitvakSIG meeting had updates about new records that have been added, as well as about changes in board members and leaders of District Research Groups. Afterwards, I talked to somebody who turned out to know part of my Atlanta family. That was followed by the LitvakSIG luncheon, where Dan Rabinowitz talked about The Strashun Library Ledgers Project. This wasn’t a lending library, but rather an annex to the Great Synagogue, with a reading room. There were 5 ledgers which have records of the reading lists of its members.

After lunch, I went to a talk by Anna Wiernicka about How to Learn Family Story from Crumbs - About the Value of Notary Records. I don’t know of my Polish ancestors having had any court cases that would have been handled in notarial courts, but who knows? Maybe somebody did own land and had a deed recorded or there was some issue with an inheritance.

Dan Rabinowitz gave his second talk of the day, this time on Vilnius: Traces of the Jerusalem of Lithuania. This is an almost 800 page book by Irina Guzenburg that is designed as a comprehensive guidebook to the city. There is a version in English, published in 2021,that includes several tours, with detailed information. This looks incredibly useful and I definitely want to try to get my hands on a copy.

The last talk I went to on Tuesday was titled My Mother’s Life in Cuba - In Her Own Words by Martin Fischer. Mostly, this had to do with poverty and moving from house to house because of it. While it had interesting material, the presentation annoyed me because I hate when people just read their slides verbatim.

A large group of conference attendees went to a baseball game that night. I pulled out my Hebrew language Nationals ball cap for the occasion. Here’s a picture of me wearing it, sitting next to a statue of Johnny Appleseed. who spent the last 10 years of his life in Fort Wayne and is allegedly buried there.



As for the ball game itself, the Fort Wayne TinCaps are the High-A affiliate of the San Diego Padres. They beat the West Michigan Whitecaps, who are affiliated with the Detroit Tigers. Here’s a picture of Parkview Field. which was nice enough but had very limited vegetarian food options. (I got a slice of cheese pizza for supper.)



Day 4 of the conference was Wednesday. I started with another Breakfast with the Expert. This one was with Jude Richter from the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. Our table had a good discussion on what resources you can use only on site.

The first presentation I went to was by Debra Kaplowitz on Using Pre-1826 Polish Parish Records in Jewish Research. The basic point was that there was no civil vital records registration in Congress Poland until 1826 and vital records were maintained by Catholic parishes. Those records also include things like manufacture and sale of alcohol, which was a a trade dominated by Jews. There may be some things in these records that are worth looking at.

I walked over to the Allen County Public Library where I watched a short movie, The Ice Cream Man about a Jewish ice cream parlor owner who was targeted by Klaus Barbie shortly after the Nazi invasion of the Netherlands. It was interesting and very moving.

I stayed at the library and did the (somewhat overwhelming) library tour, followed by some time using some of their resources. I spent some time looking at the 1896-1897 directory of Bulawayo (in present day Zimbabwe) but that appears to be too early to find information about my Meltser family who I have reason to believe went there.

I went back over to the conference center for the IAJGS annual meeting. The big (and disappointing) news was that next year’s conference will be virtual. They are also trying to plan some sort of events in association with the 250th anniversary of American independence. After the meeting, I sat down with my cousin, Fred, and we compared trees.

The day ended with the annual banquet. The banquet speaker was Daniel Horowitz, a retired Smith College professor (as opposed to the Daniel Horowitz of My Heritage). He gave an amusing talk about bears, primarily teddy bears and Paddington Bear.

Which brings me to Thursday, which was Day 5. I slept in a bit. The first talk I went to was by Banai Lynn Feldstein and had to do with Morse Code: Favorite Tools on Steve Morse’s web Site. Like many people, I most use stevemorse.org for searching immigration records and finding enumeration districts (EDs) for the U.S. federal census. The key new thing I learned is that there is now an interactive map of Manhattan on the ED finder.

Tammy Hepps gave a very entertaining presentation on The Dark Side of the Census No One Told You About. Her examples included an enumerator who didn’t understand exactly where his district was, so recorded the area on the wrong side of a major road and another enumerator who just made up at least 40 entire families. She also discussed several strategies which can help, such as searching by address instead of name, looking for names of other family members or neighbors, and using the Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps.

Suzanne Fialkoff gave a talk titled Find Your Ancestors in These Little-Known Publications. Some of the resources she discussed include the American Jewish Yearbook, synagogue yearbooks, industry publications (such as Fur Trade Review), Who’s Who in American Jewry, and state and local historical societies.

Finally, it was time for my presentation His Own Teeth, which was part of the Family Journey Showcase. I didn’t have as many listeners as I’d hoped for, but those I did have were responsive and thought the story (which has to do how my grandparents met) was charming.

Overall, I enjoyed the conference and thought it was worth my time. I had some travel issues the next day, but I’ll write about that (and why I spent the weekend in Chicago) in another post.