Marie Dallas

Conference Consultant, Marie Dallas

Marie Dallas was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and grew up listening to her Polish grandmother’s stories about her early childhood in Poland.  She has been researching her Polish ancestry for 20 years and is currently raising three daughters with her husband.

Since 1998, Marie has been the webmaster and country coordinator for the PolandGenWeb project, which provides information on how to research Polish ancestry.  She is the administrator for 24 genealogy mailing lists, including Poland-Roots, and 110 genealogy message boards at RootsWeb.

Marie will be available for consultations on Monday during the UPGS conference.

The United Polish Genealogical Societies Conference will be held Friday, April 18 through Monday, April 21, 2008 at the Best Western Salt Lake Plaza Hotel in Salt Lake City, Utah. The tentative schedule has been posted. The final schedule will be posted when available. Registration is now open online and by mail.

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Donna Pointkouski

 

Conference Consultant, Donna Pointkouski

Donna Pointkouski has been researching her family history since 1989 with a focus on Bavaria in Germany and several areas in Poland including the Mazowsze and Wielkopolski provinces.  She also taught a non-credit genealogy course at a university in Philadelphia with her friend, Marie Dallas, who is the province coordinator of PolandGenWeb.  Donna hosts two province pages on PolandGenWeb, Łódz and Śląskie.

Donna has a Master of Arts in English from Arcadia University and has written for several publications including Internet Genealogy and Family Chronicle.  You can read more about her genealogical pursuits on her blog, What’s Past is Prologue (http://pastprologue.wordpress.com).  She has been a member of the Polish Genealogical Society of America (PGSA) since 1989 and recently joined the International Society of Family History Writers and Editors (ISFHWE).

Donna will be available for consultations on Monday during the UPGS conference.

The United Polish Genealogical Societies Conference will be held Friday, April 18 through Monday, April 21, 2008 at the Best Western Salt Lake Plaza Hotel in Salt Lake City, Utah. The tentative schedule has been posted. The final schedule will be posted when available. Registration is now open online and by mail.

Baerbel K. Johnson, AG®

Conference Speaker: Baerbel K. Johnson, AG

Baerbel K. Johnson, AG is a professional genealogist and works at the Family History Library as International Reference Consultant. She holds degrees in Family and Local History Studies and Sociology from BYU, and has more than twenty years of extensive experience in European family history research with emphasis on Germany. She has published a number of journal articles, contributed material for several books, and lectured at various conferences. Her personal interest is in “putting flesh on the genealogical skeleton” by placing each individual within a proper social and historical context.

The United Polish Genealogical Societies Conference will be held Friday, April 18 through Monday, April 21, 2008 at the Best Western Salt Lake Plaza Hotel in Salt Lake City, Utah. The tentative schedule has been posted. The final schedule will be posted when available. Registration is now open online and by mail.

Orvill S. Paller

Conference Speaker: Orvill S. Paller

Orvill S. Paller was born and raised in Salt Lake City , Utah.  He earned a B.A. in International Studies from Brigham Young University (2000) and a M.B.A. from the David Eccles School of Business at the University of Utah (2005).

Upon completion of his M.B.A., Orvill was hired as a Product Manager at MyFamily.com (now The Generations Network) where his focus was on delivering genealogical databases to the company’s website Ancestry.com.

In February 2006, Orvill was hired as a Business Analyst and Collection Management Specialist with the Family & Church History Department (FamilySearch) of the L.D.S. Church .  Among his current responsibilities, Orvill serves as Collection Management Specialist for Minnesota , Wisconsin , Iowa , Illinois , Indiana , Ohio , Michigan , Florida , Romania and Poland .

Orvill’s interest in Poland and Polish genealogy began during his first visit to Poland in 2000.  During that visit, he visited many of the villages of his ancestors in the former Prussian/German Province of Pommern and saw the home that his paternal grandmother was born and raised in.

Orvill’s genealogical research interests include Austria , Hungary , Poland , Germany , Romania , Midwest USA and New England USA.  He has researched in archives in Poland , Austria , Germany , Romania and throughout the United States .

The United Polish Genealogical Societies Conference will be held Friday, April 18 through Monday, April 21, 2008 at the Best Western Salt Lake Plaza Hotel in Salt Lake City, Utah. The tentative schedule has been posted. The final schedule will be posted when available. Registration is now open online and by mail.

Tentative Schedule for UPGS 2008

The tentative schedule for the United Polish Genealogical Societies has been released. The schedule is subject to change as preparations for UPGS 2008 are finalized. The schedule will include two tracks of lectures this year, one on traditional research and one on digital resources.

Friday, April 18, 2008

6:30pm-8:00pm – Welcome Hospitality / Conference check-in
8:00pm-9:00pm – The First Polish Community- Panna Maria or Parisville?  Sonja Hoeke-Nishimoto, AG, Ceil Wendt Jensen, MA, CG

Saturday, April 19, 2008

8:00am-8:30am – Conference Check -in
8:30am- 9:30am – Skype Conference with Poland- Tomasz Nitsch/ Łukasz Bielecki, PhD
9:45am-10:45am – Skype Conference with Wm Fred Hoffman
11:00am- 12:00pm – Track 1: Blogs; Track 2: Using the FHL

12:00pm-1:30pm – Lunch Break

1:30pm-2:30pm – Track 1: Footnote: Primary documents; Track 2: TBA
2:45pm-3:45pm – Track 1: Footnote  a  Web 2.0 site; Track 2: Finding Your Polish Village
4:00pm-5:15pm – Track 1: Online groups; Track 2: Intro: Polish Research

5:15pm-7:30pm – Dinner Break

8:00pm-10:00 pm – Our Polish Story  documentary (2007)

Sunday, April 20, 2008

8:30am – Mass or services of your choice
9:45am-10:45am – Skype Conference with Poland (Tomasz Nitsch)
11:00am-12:00pm –  Track 1: Skype Community (Tomasz Nitsch); Track 2: Military Records

12:00pm-1:30pm – Lunch Break

1:30pm-2:30pm – Track 1: Gadgets & Gizmos; Track 2: 2007  Trip to Poland
2:45pm-3:45pm – Track 1: Ancestry FTM, Ancestrypress; Track 2: FHL recent visit to PL Archives
4:00pm-5:15pm – Track 1: BYU Digital Family History; Track 2:  Maps

5:15pm-7:30pm – Dinner Break

7:30pm-9:00pm – Launch of the Pol-Am Database Project
9:00-10:00pm – What’s new with PGS?  Nationwide report (PGS officers)

Monday, April 21, 2008

Research at the Family History Library- Consultations Available
6:30pm-7:00pm – Hospitality
7:00pm-10:00pm – Conference Banquet, Keynote Speaker: Stephen P. Morse

The United Polish Genealogical Societies Conference will be held Friday, April 18 through Monday, April 21, 2008 at the Best Western Salt Lake Plaza Hotel in Salt Lake City, Utah. The tentative schedule has been posted. The final schedule will be posted when available. Registration is now open online and by mail.

Stephen J. Danko, PhD

 

Conference Speaker: Stephen J. Danko, PhD 

Steve Danko was born in Albany, New York, has lived in Vermont, Nebraska, and Oregon, and now resides in San Francisco, California. He earned a Ph.D. in Botany and Plant Pathology from Oregon State University.

All of Steve’s grandparents were Polish immigrants, which has led Steve to concentrate on 20th Century American Records and 18th and 19th Century Polish Records. His research in Poland has led to a appreciation for European History and Languages.

Steve writes a daily genealogy research weblog (blog) on the Internet, where he posts images of the documents important in his personal research and discusses the relevance of those documents in documenting his family history. In the course of writing his blog, Steve has reconnected with lost cousins in Poland, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

Steve is currently studying for a Professional Learning Certificate in Genealogical Studies from the National Institute for Genealogical Studies. He is a member of the National Genealogical Society, the California Genealogical Society, the Polish Genealogical Society of America, the Polish Genealogical Society of California, and the San Mateo County Genealogical Society.

At UPGS 2008, Steve will be speaking on:

Genealogy Blogs: New Ways to Disseminate Genealogy Information on the Internet

One of the newest ways to publish genealogical information on the Internet is by the use of weblogs, commonly called blogs. Genealogy blogs include a wide range of subjects, including genealogy news, methodology, family history, and research diaries. Setting up and maintaining a blog is surprisingly easy and can provide benefits for your research in ways that other methods of disseminating genealogical information may fall short.

Genealogy Gadgets and Gizmos: New Technology to Help in Your Research

New hardware, software, and on-line technology make finding, recording, and sharing information faster and easier than ever. Many of these advancements have found their way into genealogical research, enabling even a moderately technology-capable genealogist to take advantage of these new gadgets and gizmos. New technology enables genealogists to have access to their family history data from anywhere in the world, avail themselves of genealogy education at times and places of their choosing, collect documents and information more easily, and prepare professional-quality family books without the professional price.

The United Polish Genealogical Societies Conference will be held Friday, April 18 through Monday, April 21, 2008 at the Best Western Salt Lake Plaza Hotel in Salt Lake City, Utah. The tentative schedule has been posted. The final schedule will be posted when available. Registration is now open online and by mail.

Stephen P. Morse, PhD

Stephen P. Morse, PhD: Conference Banquet Speaker 

Steve Morse is an amateur genealogist who has been researching his Russian-Jewish origins.  Several years ago he developed some web-based searching aids which, much to his surprise, have attracted attention worldwide.  He has received both the Outstanding Contribution Award and the Lifetime Achievement Award from the International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies, the Award of Merit from the National Genealogical Society, and the first ever Excellence Award from the Association of Professional Genealogists.

In his other life Morse is a computer professional with a doctorate degree in electrical engineering from New York University. He has held research positions at Bell Labs, IBM Watson Research, GE Corporate R&D, and Compagnie Internationale pour l’Informatique in France. He has been involved in development at Intel Corp, Alsys Inc, and Netscape. He has taught at CCNY, Pratt Institute, UC Berkeley, SUNY Albany, Stanford University, and San Francisco State. He has authored numerous technical papers, written four textbooks, and holds four patents. He is best known as the architect of the Intel 8086 (the granddaddy of today’s pentium processor), which sparked the PC revolution 25 years ago.

The United Polish Genealogical Societies Conference will be held Friday, April 18 through Monday, April 21, 2008 at the Best Western Salt Lake Plaza Hotel in Salt Lake City, Utah. The tentative schedule has been posted. The final schedule will be posted when available. Registration is now open online and by mail.