The Northeast Indiana Jewish Genealogy Society is excited to welcome Schelly Talalay Dardashti and Maria Apodaca both representing the Society for Crypto-Judaic Studies. This free virtual program will take place on Sunday, February 18, 2024, beginning at 2:00pm.

• 2:00pm: “The New World: Migration, DNA, and Genetics,” Schelly looks at events in Spain and Portugal which contributed to the New World migration of conversos/bnai anusim, supported by DNA and genetic evidence.
• 3:30pm: “And it Only Took 500 Years” Maria will share her family’s story whose beginning stems from 1598 in New Mexico when Captain Juan de Onate brought the first colonists to what was then, New Spain. Her family had previously been forced to convert to Catholicism and, as her family’s historian, Maria became interested in DNA.

Schelly Talalay Dardashti is a journalist and a genealogist. She is the US Genealogy Advisor for MyHeritage, and has traced her Ashkenazi, Sephardi and Mizrahi families across Iran, Spain, Belarus, Russia, and Ukraine for decades. An early proponent of DNA for genealogy, she co-admins several DNA projects at FamilyTreeDNA. The former Jerusalem Post genealogy columnist ("It's All Relative," 1999-2005), she created the award-winning "Tracing the Tribe - The Jewish Genealogy Blog," and "Tracing the Tribe - Jewish Genealogy on Facebook.

Maria Apodaca presents her family’s history and traditions along with her own personal journey. Her paternal Y-DNA is J2-M172 with the Cohen Modal Signature and her research goes back to Diego Blandin Gonzales (b.1558 Coimbra, Portugal; d.1598 Nueva Espana). As the first returnee in her family, she is active in Jewish community life. She is a founding member, Centro Sefarad New Mexico; board member, Society for Crypto-Judaic Studies; steering committee member, JGS of New Mexico; speaker, Road Scholar speaker on New Mexico's conversos and crypto-Jews; and has presented at numerous conferences.

Registration is required to attend this free virtual program. The link can be found at the NEIJGS website at www.NEIndianaJGS.org/upcoming-events/.

Thank you to the Harry W. Salon Foundation, the Louis and Anne B. Schneider Foundation, and the Allen County Public Library Genealogy Center for their continued support of NEIJGS programming.

Additional information about the NEIJGS can be found on our website at www.NEIndianaJGS.org, or our Facebook Page, https://www.facebook.com/NEIndianaJGS/. Please contact Pamela Friedman at vp@NEIndianaJGS.org for more information.