New Bet Shalom Jewish Genealogy Group helps you find your roots

By Maura Lerner Fisher

Growing up as a second-generation American, I’m embarrassed to admit how little I knew about my eastern European roots. I was told that my grandfathers were from Russia and my grandmothers from Austria and Hungary. As it turns out, none of that is true.

My grandparents Harry and Anna Lerner, ca. 1912. I recently discovered that they were born in what is now Ukraine in villages about 170 miles apart; both immigrated to America as young children with their families in the 1890s.

In fairness to my grandparents, it was true when they left Europe — in the 1890s on one side, and on the eve of World War I on the other. But after a century of shifting borders, it would take me until this year, 2023, to discover where they actually came from— and what happened to the villages and relatives they left behind.

If you’re a fan of PBS’ Finding Your Roots, you know how seductive — and fraught — it can be to start exploring your family tree. That’s one of the reasons I helped start the new Jewish Genealogy small group at Bet Shalom, along with Rabbi Locketz, an amateur genealogist himself, to provide a forum to learn from one another and share our struggles and successes.

There’s a reason that interest in genealogy has been booming, especially for American Jews. Old records that once seemed lost to history, or buried in archives a world away, have found their way to the Internet. And so have a wealth of Jewish genealogy websites offering guidance and resources for beginners and others (such as the Minnesota Jewish Genealogical Society, MNJGS.org).

Sara Jane’s great grandmother Sarah Katherine Pitts Lee Sommers, a woman of legend in her family.

“I think genealogy sort of feeds our need to identify who we are and how we fit in the world, how we came to be,” said Dr. Sarah Jane Schwartzenberg, a member of Bet Shalom’s Jewish Genealogy group who has been researching her ancestry for years. “I love reading history, but I found that when I read history and I can visualize my ancestors in it, it’s much more exciting.” Sarah Jane is one of several veteran genealogists who have been sharing their expertise at our group meetings, which are open to any Bet Shalom members interested in exploring their family history.

Bill Wolpert is another of our resident experts. “I love talking about it,” said Wolpert, who has traced his roots back to “about 1695.”

Early on, it could be extremely tedious for amateur and professionals alike, haunting libraries, scrolling through microfilm, traipsing to Salt Lake City to explore the Mormon Church’s legendary genealogy archives, which formed the basis of Ancestry.com. “Now,” says Wolpert, “I can do in probably 10 minutes to a half hour what might have taken me several months.”

One of his distant cousins, whom he met through a genealogy website, even amassed a database of 15,000 names on their shared family tree. Of course, he notes, you can’t always trust what you find on the Internet. “So you take everything with a grain of salt.”

At our meetings, which are held roughly four times a year, we explore topics like: What to do when you hit a ‘brick wall’? What are the upsides and downsides of DNA testing? At our next meeting on August 27 we’ll talk about ways to research relatives lost in the Holocaust.

If you’re interested, please contact me at Mauraf19@gmail.com or add your name to our email list by contacting ajia.collins@betshalom.org.