Gary Mokotoff was the first recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award of the International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies (IAJGS). His books include the award-winning Where Once We Walked, as well as How to Document Victims and Locate Survivors of the Holocaust, and Getting Started in Jewish Genealogy. He is known for his application of computers to genealogy. Among his accomplishments are co-authorship of the Daitch-Mokotoff soundex system; and the JewishGen’s “Family Finder”, “Family Tree of the Jewish People” and the “Consolidated Jewish Surname Index”. He has co-chaired three International Conferences on Jewish Genealogy. He is/was on the Board of Directors of various organizations, including the International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies, JewishGen, Federation of Genealogical Societies, Association of Professional Genealogists, Jewish Book Council and Association of Jewish Book Publishers. He is co-owner of Avotaynu, a company that publishes books of interest to Jewish genealogical researchers as well as the journal AVOTAYNU.

Gary passed away on August 31, 2025.