Jane G. Haldeman to speak to Jewish Genealogical Society of Illinois on Feb. 18

Genealogist Jane G. Haldeman will speak about "Researching Jewish Ancestors on Ancestry Library Edition" at the Sunday, Feb. 18, 2018, meeting of the Jewish Genealogical Society of Illinois. Her presentation will begin at 2 p.m. at Temple Beth-El, 3610 Dundee Road, Northbrook, Ill.

JGSI meeting facilities at Temple Beth-El will open at 12:30 p.m. for those who want to use or borrow genealogy research library materials, get help with genealogy websites or ask genealogical questions before the main program begins at 2 p.m. For more information, see https://jgsi.org/event-2727778 or phone 312-666-0100.

Ancestry.com is one of the largest genealogical websites and has a wealth of documents including European and Jewish records. Ancestry Library Edition is available at some public libraries with many of the Ancestry.com subscription documents including some worldwide records. This presentation will focus on European and Jewish records, the similarities and differences between the subscription and library editions of Ancestry, and the wealth of Ancestry resources available at the library.

Jane Gwynn Haldeman is a professional speaker with more than 25 years of research experience and owner of It's Relative (www.itsrelative.net), a genealogical service business. The Chicago area-based genealogist lectures on a wide range of topics locally, at national conferences and via webinar presentations. She enjoys speaking about topics including family history technology and genealogy research methodology. She is the author of "A Genealogist's Guide to Springfield, Illinois."

Jane's passion for genealogy began in 8th grade with a school assignment. She wrote to her grandparents that the assignment had to include "our parents' names, grandparents, great grandparents' names, and so on as far as we can go." She is still trying to finish that assignment.

She has been very active with the genealogical community in Illinois. She has been president, Illinois State Genealogical Society; president, Fox Valley Genealogical Society; registrar, Fort Payne Chapter NSDAR; and registration chair, Federation of Genealogical Societies 2016 Conference in Springfield, Ill. Jane is a member of the Association of Professional Genealogists and the Genealogy Speakers Guild.

At each regular JGSI monthly meeting, its "help desk" operates from 12:30 to 1:45 p.m. Member volunteers access online databases and answer genealogical questions one-on-one for members and visitors as time allows.

The JGSI library has more than 800 volumes of interest to Jewish family historians. Many are available for borrowing by JGSI members for a limited time. All are available for perusing from 12:30 to 1:45 p.m. at each regular monthly meeting.