Genealogy 101: Finding Your Ancestors Without Leaving Your Kitchen (In Person)

Please join Sisterhood@TBE for a wonderful evening at The Vilna Shul, Boston’s Center for Jewish Culture, located on Beacon Hill. The event will begin with a private tour of The Vilna Shul, followed by dinner and a presentation by fellow TBE congregant, Marilyn Okonow: Genealogy 101: How to Find Your Ancestors Without Leaving Your Kitchen! Marilyn’s presentation will provide insight into her work as a genealogist, including helpful Internet sites and examples of documents that she has found for herself and others. You will be amazed at the documents and resources available- you just need to know where to look!

We will gather and schmooze at The Vilna Shul beginning at 6pm, the tour will begin at 6:30, followed by dinner and the presentation.

We will arrange carpools from TBE to The Vilna Shul for all interested attendees. Parking is being made available to us free of charge at the parking garage located at the Charles River Plaza/Cambridge Street Garage at 175 Cambridge Street. Entrance to the underground garage is between Flour Bakery and AT&T, near the intersection of Blossom Street and Cambridge Street.

The $18 fee to attend this event is to cover the cost of the dinner. As always, we do not want cost to prohibit attendance, please reach out to Susan Karon directly, if you require assistance.

The Vilna, located on historic Beacon Hill, is the last-remaining immigrant era synagogue building in Boston and now serves as a center for Jewish culture and communal engagement. The Vilna Shul offers opportunities to connect and explore culture, experience the arts and engage in big Jewish ideas.

TBE Congregant, Marilyn Okonow, an avid genealogist, was the Outreach Coordinator for the Jewish Genealogical Society of Greater Boston for ten years. She began her research in earnest eleven years ago; she now has 2500 family members in her family file. She traveled to Poland in April 2010, when she visited her ancestral towns on her mother’s side and found her great-grandfather’s birth record from 1862. She traveled again on the Vilna’s Mission to Lithuania and Poland in 2018, and had the opportunity to see old synagogue remains similar to the Vilna in architecture. Marilyn is co-founder of the Vilna Shul Genealogical Project. Together with fellow genealogist David Rosen, over the past 6 years, they have located over 500 living descendants of the original Vilna Shul founders from the early 1900’s in the West End of Boston.