Schelly Talalay Dardashti

Schelly Talalay Dardashti is a journalist, genealogist, instructor and international speaker, who specializes in all aspects of Jewish genealogy (Ashkenazi, Sephardic and Mizrachi0, including genetic genealogy. She is the US Genealogy Advisor for MyHeritage.com, where she also edits/contributes to the MyHeritage Blog . For more than 25 years, she has tracked her families across Belarus, Russia, Lithuania, Iran and Spain, and is the “keeper of the records” for the TALALAY and DARDASHTI families. Her award-winning blog (established 2006) – Tracing the Tribe: The Jewish Genealogy Blog – is currently on hiatus, but still accessed by thousands of people each week for its relevant information. A native New Yorker, she lived with her family for many years in both Iran and Israel, and now resides in beautiful New Mexico. She served as genealogy columnist for the Jerusalem Post (“It’s All Relative, 1999-2005, print/online), and her articles have been published in the NGS Quarterly, Family Tree Magazine, Avotaynu, and a host of other general, Jewish and genealogy publications. She received the 2010 NGS Award for Excellence for “Ties That Bind,” in Family Tree Magazine.