Some nine months ago, Karen Diamond set off with a checklist of people to talk to. As her audio recorder filled with interviews, her list of names grew larger and larger.
Diamond’s project was to capture the oral histories of local Jewish people. She then used the more than 100 interviews in combination with the Jewish Federation of Greater Chattanooga’s archives and Hamilton County burial records to piece together the massive “Everything’s Relative” family tree, which is now on display at the center.
Diamond, program chairwoman, has worked on these kinds of large projects for more than a decade, she said. This project, though, was one of her most ambitious and genealogy was not something she had studied before, she said. She made connections and documented her work on a spreadsheet and large sheets of paper using multicolored markers.
“This one, it was a one-man band,” Diamond said. “As I got going, it was so much fun.”
Once the spreadsheet was done, Diamond was left with a question.