FEEFHS - 2010 Salt Lake City

FEEFHS The Federation of East European Family History Societies Home Page | Conferences

Speakers -- FEEFHS Salt Lake City 2010

	Thomas Kent Edlund Granite, Utah Latin Script Cyrillic Script Maps Russian Empire Research Russian Empire Research Thomas K. Edlund, president of FEEFHS, is a specialist in East European languages and manuscripts. As a professor of family and local history at Brigham Young University, he teaches curricula in East European genealogy, micro-regional history, and paleography. He has authored many books on language and genealogy, including The Lutherans of Russia, Die Ahnenstammkartei des Deutschen Volkes, Medieval Latin for Family Historians, An Introduction and Index to the German Minority Census of 1939, and A Compendium of Nahuatl Dialectology. He served as editor of the FEEFHS Journal from 1998 to 2008.
	Kahlile Mehr Centreville, Utah Using the Family History Library Gazetteers Balkans/Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia Baltics/Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania Kahlile B. Mehr, AG, MLS, MA (Family and Community History), has 25 years experience at the Family History Library as a manager of user guidance, collection development specialist, supervisor, and cataloger. He has visited archives in Spain, Portugal, Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Bulgaria, Armenia, Albania, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia, and Moldova. He has published twenty articles and a book on family and local history topics.
	Dee Semon West Jordan, Utah Reading Ethnic German Records U.S. Sources to Cross the Ocean Dee Semon has had 36 years of experience extending the family lines back to the 1500's in France, Belarus, Schlesien (Silesia-Poland), West Preussen (Pomerania-Poland), Bohemia, Moravia, the Bavarian Pfalz, and Wuerttemburg. Born into a family who spoke Polish (Belarus dialect), Czech (Moravian dialect) and Russian (Belarus dialect) at home, she also worked with French, German and Italian while pursuing a Bachelor of Music degree in Vocal Performance at the University of Illinois. She served as Research Chair for the German Research Association of San Diego and currently as the Public Relations Secretary, E-News Editor, and Research Chair for FEEFHS has expanded her genealogical knowledge. She authored with her husband, Don Semon, FEEFHS Treasurer, a 799 page book entitled The Uebele Family 1574-2004. She speaks regularly at Family History Expos in Arizona, Colorado, and Utah, which keeps her busy.
	Dave Obee Saanich, British Columbia Researching the Germans from Russia On the Road in Eastern Europe Dave Obee is author of Destination Canada, the ultimate guide to Canadian immigration records. He is also author of Making the News, published by the Times Colonist in Victoria, British Columbia, in 2008 to mark the 150th anniversary of the newspaper. It is a comprehensive history of Vancouver Island, drawn from old newspapers. Dave is also the co-author (with Sherry Irvine) of Finding Your Canadian Ancestors: A Beginner's Guide, published by Ancestry in 2007. He has compiled seven other books for Canadian genealogical sources, and has given more than 250 talks at seminars and society meetings since 1997. Dave runs CanGenealogy, a Canadian link site, and Volhynia.com, dedicated to the past and future of the region in the northwest corner of Ukraine. He is one of the owners of Interlink Bookshop and Genealogical Services of Victoria, B.C., which runs the Genealogy Unlimited website. Dave has visited 19 countries in Europe during 15 visits, as well as Japan and Peru. He has a keen interest in the world war battle areas in France, Belgium and Luxembourg. He served as president of the Federation of East European Family History Societies from 2004 through 2007.
	Marek Koblanski Salt Lake City, Utah Polish Research 1 Polish Research 2 Marek Koblanski, AG, was born and raised in Poland. He was a student when martial law was imposed in 1980. In 1984, as a student at the Technical University in Wroclaw, he left Poland for Germany, where he studied in Munich. In 1987, he arrived in the U.S. as a refugee. He continued his education at Westminster College in Salt Lake City, from which he has earned his B.S. degree in 1990. When studying in the U.S., he began working as a genealogist. In 1991, he was accredited in Polish research. He is an independent genealogical researcher and consultant, has conducted research in Poland and Ukraine, and has spoken previously to several genealogical societies.
	Sylvie Pysnak Bountiful, Utah Austrian Empire Research Hungarian Empire Research Sylvie Pysnak, AG was born and raised in the Czech Republic. She is currently employed by the Family History Department of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as a Slavic Research Consultant in the International Research Consultation Unit at the Family History Library. Sylvie is accredited in Czech research, has a working knowledge of many Eastern European languages and has researched on-site in the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Poland. She has been writing publications and has taught at various conferences since 1998. Sylvie and her husband Bernard live in Bountiful, Utah, and are the parents of four children and the grandparents of two grandchildren.
	Barbara Bell Salt Lake City, Utah Gothic Script Barbara Bell was born and raised in Germany. She received a BA from Brigham Young University, Provo, UT and a Masters Degree from the University of Birmingham, England. She is a certified and accredited genealogist in German research. She has published genealogical articles and texts and lectured at various conferences here and abroad. Barbara is married to Dr. Mark E. Bell. They are the parents of five children and grandparents of nine.