SHARE Fair Will Kick Off International Conference

March 20, 2013 Boston -- The first day of this year's International
Conference on Jewish Genealogy will feature a new version of the Special
Interest Groups (SIGs) and Birds of a Feather (BOF) Fair. Now called the
SHARE Fair, an acronym for SIGs and BOFs, Historical Societies, Archives,
Repositories, Eminent Jewish Genealogical Societies, the expanded event
will include a broader range of participants.

The conference will take place in Boston >from August 4-9, at the historic
Boston Park Plaza Hotel. Over 1,000 family researchers, >from beginners to
experts, are expected to attend.

Twenty-one SIGs and nearly 30 BOFs will be participating in the
Conference. The SIGs that will be at the SHARE Fair (as of March 3) are:
Bessarabia SIG, French SIG, GerSIG (German Jewish), Gesher Galicia
(Galicia), H-SIG (Hungarian), JRI-Poland (Jewish Records Indexing -
Poland), Kremenets District Research Group (Ukraine) Litvak SIG
(Lithuania), LARG (Lodz Area Research Group), ROM-SIG (Romania),
Sub-Carpathia SIG, UK SIG (United Kingdom), and Ukraine SIG.

The BOFs are: Bolechow Jewish Heritage Society, Bukovina BOF (Czernowitz -
Sadagora Area), Canadian BOF, DNA Project Administrators BOF, Friends of
Jewish Dokshitsy, Geni.com Jewish Genealogy Portal BOF, IGRA (Israel
Genealogy Research Association), Jewish Polesie BOF, Kobrin Uyezd Jewish
Research Group, Kolbuszowa Region Research Group (Poland), Lublin and
Zamosc Area BOF, Mac Users BOF, Next Generation Jewish Genealogists,
Novogrod-Volhynsky (Zvhil) BOF (Ukraine), Rohatyn District Research Group
(Ukraine), Suchostaw Region Research Group, and Svencionys District BOF.

The Fair will be held on Sunday, August 4th >from 1:30-5:00 pm, so
attendees can find out what is available locally and make plans to visit
the places of interest during the week. Local groups participating include
the New England branch of the American Jewish Historical Society (AJHS),
the New England Historic Genealogical Society, the Boston Public Library's
Map Collection, the Vilna Shul, City of Boston Archives, the Jewish War
Veterans, Documenting Old Maine Jewry, and the Jewish Genealogical Society
of Connecticut partnering with the Godfrey Library.
During the week of the Conference, the SIGs and BOFs will hold individual
meetings for their groups, many with speakers and meals. Some repository
groups like the AJHS will make their restricted databases available in the
Resource Room during the week for attendees to examine their holdings in
detail.

At the opening plenary session on Sunday evening, the keynote speaker will
be Aaron Lansky, founder and president of the Yiddish Book Center. Mr.
Lansky is responsible for revitalizing the study of Yiddish literature and
language and motivating hundreds of young scholars to study and teach
Yiddish. He has saved over a million Yiddish books since he started
collecting them as a 23-year old graduate student in 1980. His mission to
rescue Yiddish literature earned him a MacArthur Foundation Genius Grant
in 1985.

The remaining four and a half days will feature 250 programs on a rich and
varied range of topics. The program Committee is putting the final touches
on these and will announce them shortly.

So plan to arrive in time to enjoy these important first-day events.
Register today to take advantage of the early registration discount, which
expires on April 30th. For more information or to register, visit
iajgs2013.org.

Co-hosts of the conference are the International Association of Jewish
Genealogical Societies and the Jewish Genealogical Society of Greater
Boston.

Florence Schumacher
Publicity Chair
33rd IAJGS International Conference on Jewish Genealogy