Reclaim The Records will be focus of March 22, 2026, JGSI hybrid meeting lecture

“Suing the Government for Fun and No Profit: Learn about Reclaim The Records” will be genealogist Brooke Schreier Ganz’s lecture topic for the Sunday, March 22, 2026, Jewish Genealogical Society of Illinois hybrid meeting. Her talk will begin at 2 p.m. CDT via Zoom and at Temple Beth-El, 3610 Dundee Road, Northbrook, Illinois. She will be speaking remotely, and her talk with be displayed on the screen at Temple Beth El for those who attend in person.

A registration/RSVP link will be available soon. 

The JGSI meeting facilities at Temple Beth-El will open at 12:30 p.m. CDT for those who want to use genealogy library materials, get help with family history websites or ask genealogical questions before the main hybrid program begins at 2 p.m. CDT.

Reclaim The Records is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization that uses advocacy, activism, lobbying, and litigation to reclaim free public access to historical records held by the government. The organization has filed more than 20 lawsuits against local, state, and federal agencies, archives, and libraries since its founding in 2015, acquiring and publishing more than 60 million totally free records that are then shared freely with the community. Learn more about them and their work at www.ReclaimTheRecords.org.

Brooke Schreier Ganz is the founder and president of Reclaim The Records, and was the first genealogist to successfully sue a government agency under a federal or state Freedom of Information law. She is a techie and web developer turned open records advocate and non-profit founder. She is also a long-time genealogist and has built free open source records search platforms for multiple genealogical groups, including the All Israel Database for the Israel Genealogy Research Association (IGRA) and the All Galicia Database for Gesher Galicia, enabling the free publication of millions of records for other groups. She is a multi-generational New Yorker on every branch of her family tree, but lives in California with her family.

For more information about JGSI, visit our website. For more information about membership benefits, click here.