Workshop schedule

All times are in Eastern Daylight Time (UTC-4h)

9:00-9:10amWelcome
9:10-10:30am

Tadeusz Pilat - Greek Catholics in Poland and Family Research

Poland was and still is predominantly Roman Catholic. Most of the Greek Catholics lived in South-Eastern part of Poland. Before WWII this religious group was about 11% of the whole population. Most of the Polish genealogical databases available online are Roman Catholic oriented. Several years ago a private indexing project of Greek Catholic records started. This lecture presents some history of Greek Catholics in Poland and also talks about the uniqueness of this group with an emphasis on genealogical research.

10:30-10:40amStretch break
10:40-11:40am

Justin Houser - Introduction to Ukrainian Genealogy

This talk will present the fundamentals of genealogical research of ancestors from Ukraine and its vicinity, including research methods and sources of records both in North America and Europe.

11:40am-noonStretch break
noon-1:00pm

Paul Woodbury - Introduction to DNA and Genetic Genealogy

DNA testing is a universal genealogical resource regardless of the geographic region in which you are researching. Nevertheless, DNA testing is more prevalent in some geographic regions than others, so applying genetic genealogy methodologies in some areas like Ukraine may require special considerations. One means of overcoming geographic limitations in relation to DNA testing is to pursue targeted DNA testing plans. In this session, learn to craft effective genetic genealogy research questions and objective, apply the four types of genetic inheritance to your objective, and identify the best testing candidates to address your research question.

1:00-1:10pmStretch break
1:10-2:10pm

Michael Andrec - A Historical Overview of Ukraine

"My parents said our family was Ukrainian going way back, but my grandmother always insisted she was Austrian..."

"I thought my family was Russian!"

This talk will try to resolve some of the confusion and conundrums encountered by beginning family historians by describing the changing borders, appearance and disappearance of nations and empires, and migration (both voluntary and forcible).

2:10-2:20pmWrap-up

Tadeusz H. Pilat was born in Silesia, Poland (previously Schlesien, in Germany). He currently resides in eastern Poland and Germany. He pursued Library studies at the University of Maria Curie-Sklodowska in Lublin, Poland, focusing on the history of books and old documents. He specialized in "Supralibros" in Private Collections of the 16th to 18th centuries. In 1999, he was granted the degree of Master of Library and Information Science.

In 2003, Tadeusz became an Accredited Genealogist specializing in Polish research, including all partitions of the former Commonwealth of Poland. This accreditation was awarded by the International Commission for the Accreditation of Professional Genealogists (ICAPGen) http://www.icapgen.org/icapgen/. Because of his study of Information Science, Tadeusz is very interested in creating electronic databases, and he is working on a Lemko Extraction Project http://lemkorusyn.org/index.php. Currently Tadeusz is also involved in a project of early (pre-1830) Mennonite property records in Polish archival repositories. He enjoys traveling to foreign countries such as USA, Denmark, Germany, Czech Republic, Lithuania, Ukraine, Slovakia, England, Russia, Mongolia, and Libya (North Africa) where he lived for a while. In addition to being fluent in Polish, German, and English, he can read Latin, Russian Cyrillic and old German scripts. Tadeusz has given lectures on genealogy in Warsaw and Opole, Poland, as well as San Antonio, Texas, Salt Lake City and New Britain. Tadeusz is a cofounder of the HISTORIAE Genealogical Company located in Poland http://www.historiae.pl/ [so far the website is available only in Polish].

If you have any questions regarding research in eastern Europe please do not hesitate to contact Tadeusz by e-mail <thpilat@gmail.com>  and he will be glad to assist you. Will gladly furnish references in the USA or through the LDS Library in Salt Lake City.

 

Justin K. Houser is a fourth-generation Ukrainian-American on his mother's side, his ancestors having come to the United States from Austrian Galicia in the early 20th century.  An attorney in Central Pennsylvania, Justin has been interested in genealogy from a very young age after hearing stories from his grandparents about the ancestors whom they knew.  Justin has a particular passion for Ukrainian history and genealogy and serves as a member of the Board of Trustees of the Ukrainian History and Education Center in Somerset, New Jersey, as well as on the steering committee of the Center's Family History Group, "Nashi Predky -- Our Ancestors."  Justin is also active in his church, Holy Trinity Orthodox Church in State College, Pennsylvania.

 

Paul Woodbury is a researcher and DNA Team Lead at Legacy Tree Genealogists. In addition to genetic genealogy, Paul specializes in French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, and Scandinavian research and regularly presents on research topics related to these fields. He has extensive experience in client research and has solved hundreds of genetic genealogy and traditional genealogy research cases for clients. He studied genetics and family history at Brigham Young University and he is currently pursuing a Master’s Degree from the University of Utah in Instructional Design and Educational Technology.

 

Michael Andrec has been the archivist at the Ukrainian History and Education Center since 2010. Michael has been tasked with single-handedly bringing the nearly 200 collections containing documents, photographs, ephemera, and recorded sound that the Center had accumulated since the 1960s up to professional standards of arrangement, description, preservation, and accessibility, while at the same time providing reference services, outreach,and web site/social media content. Outside of the archives, Michael is a consultant in statistics and data analytics, programming, and web design and development. He is a member of the Academy of Certified Archivists, the Society of American Archivists, the Mid-Atlantic Regional Archives Conference, the Association for Recorded Sound Collections, the Shevchenko Scientific Society, and recently completed a two-year term as treasurer of the Archivists Round Table of Metropolitan New York.