The Massachusetts Genealogical Council annual seminar and meeting is April 26th, 2008 at the LaCava Building at Bentley College in Waltham, Massachusetts from 8 A.M. to 5 P.M. The New England Historic Genealogical Society (NEHGS) are providing our main track speakers. Please see our Program 2008 page to download the conference flyer and registration form.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Michael Brophy
781-738-2671
Genealogist Cracks Holocaust Hoax, Discovery Highlights Need for Open Records.
Sharon Sergeant will speak about how she cracked a hoax at the Massachusetts Genealogical Council Seminar on April 26 at noon, at the LaCava Center, Bentley College, Waltham, MA. Sergeant is the genealogist who uncovered the twenty-year multinational fraud by Misha Defonseca, author of “Misha: A Mémoire of the Holocaust Years” and “Surviving with Wolves”, an international bestseller and the subject of a French feature film,
The European press was rocked when, on February 28, the beloved author confessed that her story, translated into eighteen languages, was a fraud. The author had claimed to be a Jewish “hidden child” who had lost her identity in the Holocaust.
“The international scope of this case underscores the need for open records available to the public for inspection. Without this right, researchers are not able to protect the public from frauds of this type,” according to Barbara Mathews, CG, President of the Massachusetts Genealogical Council.
Defonseca's native Belgium closed vital records in 1955. When open records in Massachusetts provided new information, they pointed a pathway to Belgian records that were not sealed. When the combined records showed the fraud, Belgian officials decided to release additional sealed documents.
“Once we began releasing the records we had found, the Belgian press took it from there. Within days of receiving the correct name, date and place of birth of the real Monique De Wael, journalists contacted several people who remembered Monique well.” The author wasn’t Jewish and had spent her childhood in Belgium, not wandering across Europe, witnessing the historic tragedies of other people’s lives, as she had claimed.
“She had no choice but to confess,” says Sergeant. “There was a solid trail of who she really was.” The documents included a baptismal record and first grade registration with De Wael’s first husband’s sister, unearthed through the efforts of Sergeant and her team.
“The genealogical methods used are the same techniques that can be used to uncover other frauds or solve every day mysteries in anyone’s family history,” Sergeant explains. “We were guided by a photo time line, verified by photo detective Maureen Taylor of Norwood, Massachusetts and California based forensic genealogist Colleen Fitzpatrick. We worked with real Jewish hidden children. The internet allowed us to work quickly with people on the ground in Belgium and access the records in public libraries and archives.”
Among the many other speakers at the Conference who will be discussing genealogical tools and methods are Joshua Taylor and Michael Leclerc from the New England Historic and Genealogical Society; and Michael Brophy and Bernard Couming from the Massachusetts Genealogical Council.
The Annual Conference is an all day event sponsored by The Massachusetts Genealogical Council and is open to the public. The registration cost of $75 includes a continental breakfast and luncheon buffet. Registration forms for the presentation are available at the Massachusetts Genealogical Council’s website: www.massgencouncil.com.
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Contact:
Michael Brophy, Publicity Director
Massachusetts Genealogical Council
781-738-2671
FAX (781) 878-0720
mbrophy@brophygen.com
