Judy Baston, LitvakSIG Board Member and Moderator of the LitvakSIG Discussion Group, was born in Oakland, California. Her father was born in Eisiskes (Eishishok), Lithuania, and a number of photos of Judy¹s BASTUNSKI, KAGANOVICH and KAPLAN grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins from Eisiskes are in the Tower of Life exhibit at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. Judy has been researching her family¹s history for 20 years, and she has traveled to Lithuania, Northern Belarus, and Poland. Since her mother was born in Lomza Gubernia, Poland (making for an occasional heated discussion about Yiddish pronunciation around the dinner table), Judy also serves on the Board of Directors of Jewish Records Indexing-Poland.

Judy has been a presenter on genealogy resources at conferences of the American Jewish Historical Society, American Library Assn. and the California Library Assn. She has published several articles in Avotaynu, including "The Morgenthau Mission to Poland to Investigate the 1919 Pogroms," "Finding Jeremiah," and "Shtetl-Based Jewish Genealogical Research," and in the San Francisco Bay Area Jewish Genealogical Society¹s ZICHRONOTE, "From Vilnius to Vilna: Learning About My Father's Brother's Families in the Vilna Ghetto."

Since 1992, when she retired from her position as Regional Public Affairs Coordinator of the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, Judy has been involved with the Jewish Community Library in San Francisco. She lives in San Francisco with her cat, Malka.