Nancy Collier Holden, B.A., University of Wisconsin, M.S., Pepperdine University; graduate work in Clinical Psychology and Human Development. Los Angeles Superintendent of Schools: Administrator; Los Angeles Child Guidance Clinic: Special Education; Florence Crittendon, San Francisco: Administrator of Education.

Since her retirement, Nancy has been a volunteer at the National Archives Regional Branch-Laguna Niguel, lecturer on Jewish Genealogy, Native American Genealogy, and Eastern European Genealogy.

She is a Past-President of the Jewish Genealogical Society of Los Angeles and is a Past President of the Jewish Genealogical Society of Orange County; Past Editor of Shorashim, the JGS Orange County Newsletter; Editor of the Svensionys Yizkor Book; the Webmaster for seven Shtetlinks websites for towns in Belarus and the Ukraine; Past Editor of Roots-Key, the journal of the Jewish Genealogical Society of Los Angeles for five years. She is currently on the Board of Jewish Family History Foundation and Vice President Arlington Green Association. In early 2000, Nancy worked as the Project Coordinator for the Belarus SIG. In 2017, she worked with Alan Raskin to revamp the Belarus SIG website, which had grown exponentially since the early 1990s. In 2001 and 2002, she traveled to Eastern Europe with her husband, to visit the shtetls of their grandparents.

“I grew up in New York City. I have lived in California since 1952. I have been working on my family history since 1983 and traveled for many years in the United States collecting stories, visiting cemeteries and viewing photographs as a way of filling in my family lines. I have traced my father’s line back through rabbinic scholars of the eleventh century; my mother’s line to the 1700s, working through the Grodno Archives, Lithuanian Archives, Latvian Archives and Odessa Archives. In the course of this search, I have had to learn to read Hebrew, Rashi script, rudimentary Polish and Cyrillic. I have attended IAJGS conferences in Los Angeles, Boston, Salt Lake City and Washington D.C.”

For the past 11 years, she has helped develop the JewishGen Education curriculum with Phyllis Kramer and taught many of the courses.