Program Description:

Speaker Bio:

JGSGB member Enid Cherenson has been researching her family since college, tracing branches back to 1700s Ukraine, and is a board member of the Kremenets District Research Group. In addition, by collaborating with the director of the Shumsk Town History Museum, she has found invaluable family documents for herself and led the director to produce an exhibit about Shumsk’s lost Jewish community. She has also assisted with editing Shumsk’s memorial book and translated Childhood on the Run into English (additionally researching and annotating it).

Title: “A Bridge Back to My Father’s Hometown: Finding Family History in an unexpected Friendship”

Program Description:

Carolyn Kohlman’s presentation describes her unexpected friendship with a person living in the small German town where her father grew up and which he left in 1936. This woman, passionate about keeping alive its Jewish history, contacted Carolyn via Ancestry, sharing family documents, stories, and insights that were new to Carolyn. In exchange, Carolyn sent her father’s old photos and stories, and they are now again part of the history of the town of Kirchheim an der Weinstrasse, where Jews lived dating back to the late 16th century.

Speaker Bio:

Immediate past co-president and longtime Board member, Carolyn Kohlman is co-director of our society’s award-winning Jewish Genealogy course. She is researching her ancestors in Germany (Palatinate region, Hamburg, Schleswig-Holstein) and in the United States. Carolyn has a particular interest in Holocaust research.