Save the Date: International Jewish Genealogical Societies Conference – Philadelphia This Summer!

The International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies (IAJGS) will be holding its 44th annual conference at the Sheraton Philadelphia this summer from August 18 – August 22. JRI-Poland will have a noticeable presence at the conference beginning with a table at the SHARE Fair event on Sunday afternoon (August 18th) where it will be possible to chat with some of our most experienced volunteers about our organization and your Polish ancestral towns.

As of this writing, the conference has not selected proposed lectures yet, but the format is usually to kick off the conference with a couple of Polish-centric events such as the popular JRI-Poland luncheon, several general sessions on JRI-Poland, a hands-on computer workshop and several birds-of-a-feather (BOF) sessions which are volunteer-led sessions for researchers with an interest in the same town or gubernya. You can learn more about the conference at IAJGS2024.org 16.

Some groups like the Ostrów Mazowiecka Research Family have been meeting for over 25 years. The Lublin-Zamość BOF has met for 21 years. Warsaw and Kremenets groups are other towns that meet regularly at these IAJGS conferences.

The JRI-Poland luncheon often serves as a meeting place for people from various areas to cluster together and talk about their shared geographical areas. In recent years, we have set stations around the luncheon room highlighting the geographic areas that we thought would be the most popular. These have included: Warsaw, Prussia, Galicia, Białystok, Łódź, Łomża-Suwałki, Lublin-Zamość, Będzin-Sosnowiec and Radom-Kielce-Sandomierz.

The list of Birds-of-a-Feather is usually posted by late spring on the conference program/schedule website. If you are interested in attending a birds-of-a-feather group, please contact your town leader or area coordinator and see if something is being planned. To find your favorite town’s primary contact, use the TOWN EXPLORER feature on the JRI-Poland.org website.

Hope to see you in person in Philadelphia – August 18-22, 2024!