Speaker: Lara Diamond

In recent years, Ukrainian genealogical resources have become more readily available, both online and in archives. This talk will cover the wide variety of online resources available to research one’s Jewish ancestors who lived in what is modern-day Ukraine, as well as those available to local researchers. Contrary to popular belief, most records were not destroyed, and researching Ukrainian ancestry is very possible. The status of Ukrainian research as of the date of the presentation will also be noted.

Lara Diamond began researching her own family around 1989. She has traced all branches of her family multiple generations back in Europe using Russian Empire-era and Austro-Hungarian Empire records. Most of her personal research is in modern-day Ukraine, with a smattering of Belarus and Poland. She has done client research leading to their ancestors in many parts of the former USSR, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Romania and more. Lara leverages her mathematics background and her endogamous Ashkenazic genome to augment document-based research with genetic genealogy and teaches how others can have successes in genetic genealogy in endogamous situations.

Lara is president of the Jewish Genealogy Society of Maryland and leads JewishGen‘s Subcarpathian Research Division. She has lectured around the country and internationally on Jewish and Eastern European genealogy research as well as genetic genealogy. She also runs multiple district and town-focused projects to collect documentation to assist all those researching ancestors from common towns.