March 12 is the Big Day!

In less than one week, my book will go live on Amazon! The eBook is available now for preorder, but it won’t be downloaded to your device until March 12, the official date of publication.

I want to remind everyone that this blog also serves as a companion to the book. You can navigate through the chapters using the menu tabs. Even if you don’t plan to read the book, there is a lot of information contained on this blog. Reading the affidavits and memorandums written by Paul and Sigmund are fascinating on their own. It was these documents that led me to delve deeper into the documents that sat for years in a suitcase in my mother’s attic.

I just returned from RootsTech 2024, the world’s largest genealogy conference, which is held annually in Salt Lake City, Utah. I had multiple goals for this trip: learn about new innovations, get some research done at the Family History Library, and begin spreading the word about my book. I had moderate success with all!

In the future, you can expect to see more AI generated images on my posts, especially since I am having more luck with words being spelled correctly. According to Steve Little, whose talk I attended the first day, adding correctly spelled words to AI images shouldn’t be a problem for much longer. he thinks the technology should resolve that issue within the year.

My biggest success related to the book was in the Expo Hall at the table for the International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies (IAJGS.) I had stopped there on Day 2 to drop off some business cards, but decided to go back the next day and actually talk to someone about my book. So glad I gathered my courage and did that. There were four people staffing the booth listening as I explained that I had written a novel about my family’s Holocaust experiences. I also shared that I developed a blog as a place to see all the relevant documents and sources related to the book. They all seemed interested (or at least were very polite!) and one person really loved that I made a point to provide my source material.

It took me 3 tries to get Microsoft Image creator to create this image. It’s not perfect, but it’s close. Here’s the prompt I used: “*Create an image that shows people talking at vendor table at a genealogy conference. The only word should be sign with the word “IAJGS” Do not add any other words*.” Like a child, AI does not always respond well to the words “DO NOT…”!!

I pulled my author’s copy from my bag and asked if any of them (no pressure!) might be interested in reading the book and writing a review. To my delight, one them, a world-renown Jewish genealogist, said she would!! I’m not making her name public, just in case she doesn’t follow through. She did seem genuinely interested though. We ended up talking about the Fragebogen, the Emigration Questionnaires required of Viennese Jews to indicate their emigration plans in 1938-39. Both of us found some amazing information in the forms submitted by our ancestors. If you had relatives in Vienna during that time who were hoping to leave, here’s the link to the collection on MyHeritage,: Austria, Vienna, Jewish Emigrant Applications, 1938-1939. I’ll probably send her an email in the next week, telling her how much I enjoyed chatting with her.

This week, my marketing tasks include sending a few more press releases to local media and working on my Book Talk for the Woodbury Library (April 3 at 6:30 p.m.) Also, my girls should receive their advance copies of the novel in a few days. I hope they like the book!!