Interested in getting your pedigree data into the SGGEE database?

 One of the big benefits of membership in SGGEE is the pedigree database that may show you how your family is related to others and lead to new clues for your research. To take advantage of this database, however, you need to prepare your data according to SGGEE guidelines before submitting.

Gary Warner, the long-time overseer of the MPD (master pedigree database) is presenting a two-part workshop on how to do this during the Sunday afternoon breakout sessions. He's prepared a detailed handout and sample Legacy file on how to prepare your data.

 

Gary STRONGLY RECOMMENDS that anyone attending his workshop review it several days before attending. You'll get the most out of the workshop that way. It looks like a lot, but read his note on page 1 to focus on the material he intends to cover. You, too, can add your family data to the MPD!

 

Click the links to download:

• HANDOUT
• SAMPLE LEGACY FILE

 You can sign up for the workshop when registration opens -- just a few days away.

Convention schedule to download/print

We know many people like to have a printed copy of the convention schedule. Here is a link to one you can print as desired.

Have you marked your calendar?

 Our schedule and speakers are now confirmed. See below for an introduction to our speakers. Registration will open Sept. 1, and in the meantime you can save the dates!

SGGEE 2022 ... Friday, Sept. 23-Sunday, Sept. 25

All sessions are scheduled in the Pacific Daylight Time zone. Make sure you check the start in your time zone so you join at the right time. Here's a time zone tool you can use.

Friday, Sept. 23

9 AM - 10 AM PDT: Three small group Question & Answer sessions based on the virtual programs given earlier this year. If you have questions from attending or viewing the recordings, join the "breakout" room to talk with the presenter. (The links will take you to the recordings, which are available to members only.)

Choices are:

• Edie Adam on border changes 
• Earl Schultz on DNA projects 
• Sigrid Pohl-Perry on databases in Polish archives
  

Saturday, Sept. 24

Our theme for the convention is "crossing borders." So we invited speakers who are experts in regions that surround Poland and Volhynia -- the core area SGGEE covers.

• 9 AM PDT-9:15 PDT Opening and welcome
• 9:15-10:15 Dave Obee (Ukraine)
• 10:30-11 Annual General Meeting
• 11:15-12:15 Donna Schilling (Pomerania)
• 12:30-1:30 Perry Buffie (Galicia)
  

Sunday, Sept. 25

• 9-10 PDT Carolyn Schott (expanding German research)
• 10:15-11:15 Cynthia Jacobson & Owen McCafferty II (East Prussia & Lithuania)
• 11:30-12:30 Small group "breakout" rooms giving you a chance to ask questions on the topic
  
• Gary Warner, submitting SGGEE data Part 1
  
• Karl Krueger, SGGEE databases
• Ray Bloch, SGGEE Journal
• Sigrid Pohl-Perry, research tips & tricks
• 12:30-1:30 small group session repeated
• Gary Warner, submitting SGGEE data Part 2
  
• Karl Krueger, SGGEE databases
• Ray Bloch, SGGEE Journal
• Sigrid Pohl-Perry, research tips & tricks

SPEAKER: Donna M. Schilling

Donna M. Schilling has been the editor of "Die Pommerschen Leute," a quarterly publication of Pomeranian Special Interest Group (PSIG), since June 2019. The former president of PSIG met Donna at the first International German Genealogy Partnership convention in 2017 in Minneapolis where they did presentations, and invited her to be active in PSIG, helping the-then editor. She has enjoyed this very much and has learned a lot about Pomerania, her maternal family’s homeland.

She and her late husband enjoyed many trips to Pomerania, participating in two "heimat treffens" or homeland trips with former residents of Pomerania now living in Germany after WWII. They traveled to Germany a total of six times, taking their son to see his ancestral homeland on their last voyage together there. Donna wrote a book after those experiences about her ancestral homeland, hopefully giving others hints about researching and networking. Her book is German Genealogy Research in Pomerania: With Specific Examples of Kreis Schlawe Research, Family Roots Publishing Company, 2017.

"Why Did Germans Leave Pomerania, and Where Did They Go?"
In this presentation, Donna plans to answer these questions, with references to their daily lives.

SPEAKER: Dave Obee

Dave Obee is a journalist and genealogical researcher who has written a dozen books and given more than 700 presentations at conferences and seminars in Canada, the United States and Australia since 1997.

Dave’s mother was born in a colony northwest of Zhitomir. He has visited that area several times, starting in 1995, and has also been to some of his ancestral areas in Poland, where his mother’s ancestors lived before Volhynia.

For six months in 2021 and 2022, Dave enlisted researchers in Zhitomir to obtain documents that were not available the last time he was at the archives. The work was completed in the middle of February, with 250 documents photographed on his behalf.

One week later, the Russian invasion started and the archives were closed. Since then, Dave has been sending money to his contacts in Ukraine, who are using it to buy medical supplies for the hospitals in Zhitomir, as well as other items that are short supply. (To help, contact Dave at daveobee@gmail.com)

Dave is editor and publisher of the Times Colonist daily newspaper in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. He has worked as a journalist in British Columbia and Alberta since 1972, and has been researching family history since 1978.

Dave has received several honors over the years, including an honorary doctorate by the University of Victoria for his work as a historian, genealogist and journalist, as well as national and provincial awards for community service.

He was a member of the services consultation committee at Library and Archives Canada in Ottawa for four years and is on the advisory committee for Ancestry’s Canadian site. Dave is a columnist for "Internet Genealogy" magazine .

"Driven by Faith: The Baptists and Mennonites in Ukraine"

Ethnic Germans went to Ukraine for two major reasons: economic opportunities and the chance to practice their chosen religions. The Baptists and Mennonites were after religious freedom, and they found it in Ukraine, although that freedom did not last. There are similarities between the two faiths, but also major differences, especially in terms of research possibilities for today’s genealogists.

SPEAKERS: Cynthia Spurgat Jacobson & Owen M. McCafferty

Cynthia Spurgat Jacobson, a founding member of the International Association of Germans from Lithuania (IAGL), has always been intrigued by the surnames that end in "-at". Her extensive research resulted in a 600-page fully cited book, The Three Spurgat Families from Wylkowiszki, in 2010, a 200-page Addendum in 2015, and a 2022 addendum, mostly focused on family members who did not emigrate. She maintained the blog, G-GLISP, German Lutherans in Suwalki Province from 2012 to 2021. As editor in chief of the "Die Weite," the IAGL semi-annual publication, she writes and edits articles.

Owen M. McCafferty started his genealogical research as a teen-ager, searching his maternal grandfather. What began as a simple search turned into a passionate search and lead him to become an accomplished researcher with a specialized interest and expertise in the ethnic Germans from southwestern Lithuania. In addition to founding the IAGL, Owen is also an active transcriber and translator for the IAGL’s online index of Lutheran church records from Lithuania, helping to index tens of thousands of records in an effort to help others learn more about their ancestor’s history.

"How Germans Came to East Prussia and Lithuania"
 
Migration patterns are important to family researchers. The variety of people who settled in East Prussia and Lithuania will be included. This presentation will also review a history of the duchy of Prussia, the Lithuanian-Polish Commonwealth, the Kingdom of Prussia, New East Prussia, (later southwestern Lithuania) Congress Poland, and the Russian Empire. A demonstration of the free online database www.germansfromlithuania.org from the International Association of Germans from Lithuania will explain how to find your family on the website, locate an inventory of the records, introduce non-church records, review a translation guide, and provide a free issue of "Die Weite," the semi-annual journal.

 

 

Speaker: Perry R. Buffie

Perry R. Buffie has a B.A. in psychology from the University of Minnesota, and a Doctor of Chiropractic from Northwestern Health Sciences University. He was trained as a medic by the U.S. Army Academy of Health Sciences.

A long-time history enthusiast, Dr. Buffie has returned to university, where he has obtained a master’s certificate in European History and is now nearing completion on a Master of Arts degree in European History from American Public University. His interest lies primarily in Eastern Europe.

He currently serves as the president of Galizien German Descendants, Inc., an international society dedicated to the research of the German colonists in the Austrian crown land of Galicia.

"The Josephine Colonies of Austrian Galicia"

Also known as the Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria, the Josephine Colonies of Austrian Galicia existed from 1772 until the end of the First World War. Within Galicia were numerous colonies of German settlers, invited by the Habsburg emperors. This discussion will explore concepts such as:

• Where was Galicia and how did it come into being?
• Where did the German colonists emigrate from?
• Why did they emigrate and how did they get to Galicia?
• What was the long-term fate of those immigrants?  
  

Speaker: Gary E. Warner

Gary has been ardently involved in genealogy since 1971 when he finally discovered that his father was not born with the surname Warner, but instead the surname Jaeger.  He later discovered that his paternal grandfather used both the surname Jaeger and the surname Geiger, sometimes both in the same official document!

In July 1998, Gary went to the first meeting of many people who wanted to form the society that is now SGGEE.   He volunteered for the steering committee and because he was not quick enough to volunteer for another committee position, was elected the chairman of that committee.  He helped that committee form SGGEE that first year, and with his son, Matt Warner, set up the SGGEE website and acted as webmaster for the first 7 years of the existence of SGGEE.  Gary was President of SGGEE from 1999 to 2000.

He also has been, from the beginning, the SGGEE Databases Manager, and spends time almost every day in merging the Master Pedigree Database (MPD) and collating many of the other SGGEE databases.  He has also submitted his digital data to Ancestry and Family Search, and his DNA results to Ancestry, Family Tree DNA, and Gedmatch.

Gary is a registered civil engineer who has finally retired. In his extended family of siblings and cousins (including his mother’s Latvian kin), he is one of only two who is actively pursuing family history, and the only one actually doing research in Europe.  He has, however, trained all of his known relatives to send him updates on all births, deaths and marriages in the extended family.   It seems that most people want their information written down somewhere so that they can be remembered, even if they do not want to do the recording themselves.   

"Preparing for and submitting data to SGGEE for the Master Pedigree Database"

Gary will be leading a back-to-back presentation on the many elements for getting your pedigree data into the SGGEE database. Also covered will be hands-on work with a Legacy sample file, and how to use some of the source websites that are now available to us.

Speaker: Carolyn Schott

Carolyn Schott has researched her German ancestors for 20+ years, following their wanderings through Eastern Europe before arriving in the U.S. She is a founder of the Black Sea German Research Community (www.blackseagr.org), a former board member of the Germans from Russia Heritage Society (GRHS), and author of the book, Visiting Your Ancestral Town. Her writing has received several awards from the International Society of Family History Writers and Editors.

Schott's research has required her to research records in the U.S., Germany, Ukraine, Moldova, and Poland. The Black Sea German Research Community is a website dedicated to helping people with hard-to-find information on their ethnic German ancestors who lived in areas bordering the Black Sea.

Carolyn has been speaking on genealogy-related topics since 2007 and has been a regular speaker at the Germans from Russia Heritage Society, the American Historical Society of Germans from Russia meetings, the International German Genealogy conventions, and genealogy societies in Washington.

"Expanding Your German Research Beyond Ancestry and FamilySearch"

All genealogy roads seem to lead to FamilySearch and Ancestry. But sometimes it pays to take a less well-traveled road when researching your German ancestors. We’ll discuss some of the powerful resources available for German researchers beyond the “standards”— such as the online Meyers Gazetteer, Archion, Matricula, Compgen.de — reviewing each resource and how to navigate them even if you don’t speak German.