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San Francisco Bay Area Jewish Genealogical Society

Jewish Records Indexing Party

Sunday, February 19, 2017, 12:00 noon to 5:00 p.m.

Oakland FamilySearch Library

4766 Lincoln Avenue

Oakland, CA 94602

Pay it forward, fellow genealogists! If you’ve ever enjoyed finding records easily by using a search form on JewishGen, FamilySearch, Ancestry, or many other genealogy sites, you have been a beneficiary of indexing. Indexing is the result of volunteers reading images of old records and typing the information into a searchable format.  You know how FamilySeach has an annual worldwide indexing event to make a big push on transcribing their online records?  We’re doing the same kind of thing, but on a smaller scale.

The San Francisco Bay Area Jewish Genealogical Society has taken on the task of creating an index for the old burial records from San Francisco’s Sherith Israel synagogue for the 1850s through 1906. We expect that these records will uncover currently unknown death dates for this period, one that is notoriously difficult to research due to record destruction after the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire. So we need REAL PEOPLE to read the records and type the information into Excel spreadsheets.

We will provide the snacks, computers, and instruction on this valuable and essential service. The records are handwritten, but we’ll help you learn how to read them. If you can’t stay for the whole afternoon, we will be happy to have you for as long as you can help. We will be giving out prizes for most records entered, longest time spent working, and a few more categories we have yet to think of. Don’t miss this opportunity to make burial records accessible to genealogists around the world! The ancestors you find may be your own!

We would like to have an idea of how many people will be coming (so we can buy the right amount of food!), so please send a message to vicepresident@sfbajgs.org to let us know that you’ll be there.

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