As genealogists, we depend on gravestones to give us at least basic information about a decedent: name, for example, and perhaps years of birth and death. What happens when the gravestone doesn’t match other documents – how do you discover the facts? How do you interact with a cemetery to find graves when the gravestone isn’t in their database?

Dr. Janette Silverman is a professional genealogist, heading up a team of researchers specializing in Eastern European and Jewish genealogy at AncestryProGenealogists®.
Janette began her journey into her own family's history more than 40 years ago, with her dad, hoping to answer some questions about their family 's early days in the U.S., never thinking that they would be able to trace parts of the family back to 18th century Europe. What began as a hobby turned into an obsession and ultimately led to a shift in her career from Jewish education to genealogy. Her doctoral dissertation, "In Living Memory" was based on her genealogical research into four branches of her own family, putting into historical context their experiences as they made their way from Eastern Europe to settle in the U.S. from the 1880s until the 1920s. She was previously the chair of the Phoenix (Arizona) JGS, lead co-chair of the 2016 IAJGS conference in Seattle, Washington, and a JewishGen volunteer. She speaks virtually and in-person at conferences and for smaller groups all over the world, has been published in Avotaynu, APGQ, Tennessee Historical Quarterly, Gesher Galicia, and Genealogy-at-a-Glance. Her book Stories They Never Told Us was published in August 2024.