I am very pleased to announce that Nancy Collier Holden, who has Belarus
roots, has accepted the very important position of the Belarus SIG Research
Coordinator. A former Special Education teacher, Nancy has an advanced
degree in Supervision and Administration, has done graduate work in Clinical
Psychology and Human Development, and has had extensive extensive
administrative experience. Since her retirement, Nancy has lectured on
Jewish genealogy and served as a volunteer at the National Archives Regional
Branch in Laguna Niguel, California. She is also a past president of the
Jewish Genealogical Society of Orange County and a past editor of the
Society's newsletter.

In addition to all the above, Nancy is the current Editor of the Svensionys
Yizkor Book and Editor of RootsKey, the newsletter of JGSLA. Nancy is also
the webmaster of five ShtetLink pages, including Svir, Svisloch, and the
Ukraine agricultural colonies which were populated by people >from Belarus.

Nancy grew up in New York City and has lived in California since 1952. She
has been working on her family history for 19 years and traveled for many
years in the United States collecting stories, visiting cemeteries and
viewing photographs as a way of filling in her family lines. Nancy has
traced her father's line back to the 1400=B9s and her mother's line to 1700,
working through the Grodno Archives, The Lithuanian Archives and the Latvian
Archives with wonderful results. In the course of this search, Nancy had to
learn to read Hebrew, Rashi script, and Russian well enough to be able to
decipher names and places and rudimentary biographical information.

Among her many duties, Nancy will be managing the SIG's research efforts,
providing guidance to project leaders, developing and maintaining a list of
SIG volunteers, and being the liaison to the JewishGen Research Vice
President.


The members of this SIG are most fortunate to have someone of Nancy's
caliber heading up the SIG research efforts. I know Nancy will do an
outstanding job and hope that you will show your appreciation by
volunteering your time and talents to the SIG. You can contact Nancy at
<nholden@interserv.com>. Please don't wait to be asked, volunteer to help
the SIG today. If you can't spare the time, please make a financial
donation to the Belarus SIG and JewishGen by going to:
http://www.jewishgen.org/JewishGen-erosity/belarus.html today.

Please welcome Nancy to the Belarus SIG leadership team and start the New
Year off by making a commitment to volunteer your time to the SIG and make a
financial donation to support adding more material to the SIG website.

Shanna Tovah,

Dave

David Fox
Mail to: davefox@jewishgen.org
Belarus SIG Coordinator
Arnold, MD USA
http://www.jewishgen.org/belarus