College Archives: Overlooked Treasure Chests for Jewish Genealogists

Cynthia Gensheimer 

Sunday April 16, 2023

 10 AM to 12 PM

  9:30 AM to 10 AM Schmear, Schmooze, and Share

  On ZOOM 

Many Jewish immigrants sent their children to college as soon as they could—and these colleges and universities now hold valuable untapped resources for the genealogist. 

Learn what you might be lucky enough to find, even if your ancestors didn’t graduate. Hear about treasures that Cynthia discovered in her nationwide archival research—treasures unearthed in student records, college yearbooks, and student publications—as well as alumni records and publications. By visiting archives, you may find photos, student and alumni correspondence, or even a scrapbook or diary. Explore these resources to learn more about an ancestor than cold statistics. 

BIO:

Cynthia Francis Gensheimer is a PhD economist who began her career analyzing tax policy at the Congressional Budget Office and then taught economics at Vassar College. When she headed a strategic planning process at the Jewish Community Foundation of Greater Kansas City, she decided to look to the past to try to understand how to motivate Jews to be more philanthropic. Drawn in this way to the study of American Jewish history, she has focused most recently on the educational lives of late 19^th and early 20^th century Jewish women and is now writing a book about the first Jews who attended the Seven Sisters colleges. She has published in American Jewish History and the American Jewish Archives Journal and spoken widely, including for a Zoom program hosted by JewishGen.

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