PaulSkolnick.com

Rebecca all dressed up for the Homecoming Dance at her school on Sept. 25, 2010.

I thought I was ahead of the curve last week when I willed myself into figuring out how the slideshow software worked so I could post the promised pictures of Rebecca.

She liked the effort, she told me, and she liked the result… pretty much.  The first 16 pictures were cool, she said, but why had I picked the one of our photo outing in Ybor City rather than one I’d snapped earlier the same day when she was in the dress she wore to her school’s Homecoming Dance.

Hmmm.  I had to admit she’d raised an excellent point.  She’d looked radiant in her dress, a portrait of the exuberance of youth.  And the picture had come out nicely.

But I’d dumped those shots into a folder with the ones we’d taken later that night and forgot until she mentioned it that it was even there.

So to make amends, here’s a bigger-than-normal picture of Rebecca in her Homecoming dress.

And I’ll make a mental note to search the folder a little more carefully the next time I’m rummaging around for a photo.

It generally takes me a couple of days to recover from a JLOP outing, and our adventure in Hollywood Friday night-Saturday morning was no exception.

JLOP — for those not in the know — is the ultimate self-styled group.  It’s a bunch of people who get together, most often extemporaneously, or at least on very short notice, for the purpose of taking pictures.  It almost doesn’t matter what we’re taking pictures of; it’s more important to us that we do it.

When we first got together, we decided to share our pictures on a Facebook group.  And to start a Facebook group, we needed to have a name.   That was a challenge, because the whole point of the get-togethers was that they would have no organization at all, and coming up with a name required a modicum of organization.

Bryan Frank, who has been blogging with words and pictures for the better part of the decade at Coolshots and whose work in paragraphs and in pixels is definitely worth a visit, came up with the name.  He also came up with the motto: “It’s not a club!”

So there I was at 11:30 Friday night standing on the corner of Hollywood and Vine.  As I heard a police bullhorn ordering people out of a nightclub a hundred yards north of me because the fire marshal had declared it over its capacity, I got a text message from Erik Oginski telling me he’d been in error, that the meeting spot was actually Hollywood and Highland.  That was about eight blocks west of where I was.  (What was that I said about not having any organization?)

Anyhow, pandemonium ensued, as it so often does on Friday night in Hollywood, and the walk up the boulevard was really an opportunity to start capturing the evening in all its glory.

There’s a slideshow of my better shots up now.  I challenged myself by trying to get everything I could without using my flash.  Still, in the JLOP gang of ruffians, I’m a piker, in terms of equipment as well as talent.  The full gallery of JLOP shots is on Facebook, which will underscore everything I just said.

Still, it’s fun sharpening my skills and seeing what others see.

Shmuel Zanvil Feuerstein

Thanks to many photos that made their way to me in the last few days, I’ve been able to begin illustrating the Feuerstein and Hoffman family trees.  These photos show up alongside a person’s name and biographical information in the graphical version of the family tree.

You can see them here: Feuerstein Graphical Family Tree and Hoffman Graphical Family Tree.  The same information is in a different layout, known as a text tree.  Those are here: Feuerstein Text Family Tree and Hoffman Text Family Tree.

SO WHAT’S THE DIFFERENCE?

There are actually many, but the text tree is a straight list of who’s who, indented by generation.  It is pages long.  Its advantages are that you can readily see all the data, you can print the pages and get a coherent output, and the text pages can be read and indexed by search engines.

The graphical tree has a much nicer layout.  It looks like a tree, with one generation arrayed beneath its parents.  Pictures are displayed for the people we have pictures of.  It’s easier to see who’s connected to whom, and how we’re all connected together.  The drawbacks to the graphical tree are also pretty substantial.  You control magnification by clicking on the tree or by a menu at the bottom, and that’s difficult for some visitors to deal with.  The graphical tree is based on a computer system called Adobe Flash, which means it can’t be seen on iPads, iPhones, or Blackberries.  And the graphical tree, because it’s basically a picture, can’t be indexed by the search engines.

SO WHAT’S SO NEW?

Well, for visitors to the Feuerstein pages, I’ve added photos to the graphical tree for much of the BRAUN family.  (Avruhum Feuerstein > Shmuel Zanvil Feuerstein > Abraham “Abe” Feuerstein > Sylvia (Feuerstein) Braun.)  I was able to grab many of the faces from a photo Sylvia’s son, Robert Braun, emailed to me late last week of a family get-together on the south shore of Long Island last spring.

Etel (Maulbeer) Feuerstein

And for visitors to the Hoffman pages, I’ve added photos of the newest member of the family, Lucas Jake Salzman, born in August.  (Avruhum Feuerstein > Shmuel Zanvil Feuerstein > Mary Feuerstein > Milton Hoffman > Marilyn (Hoffman) Apostolico > Andrew Katz > Lindsay (Katz) Salzman > Lucas Jake Salzman.)  That’s eight generations — an impressive feat!

LIKE TO SEE YOUR PICTURE?  YOUR GRANDKIDS’ PICTURES?  WE CAN DO THAT!

All you have to do is make the picture available.  Is it on Facebook?  Friend me and I’ll be able to grab it.  Is it on your computer?  Email it to me and I’ll add it.  Is it on paper?  Scan it, have it scanned, or send it to me and I’ll scan it for you.

In the days to come, I hope to be adding more photo galleries — collections of pictures — to the blog.  You’ll be able to enjoy the pictures in a larger format than you can now see in a post, and the captions will give them some context.

Rebecca at just over 1 year

Okay. I figured it out. Actually, it’s a little more complicated than that, but I tinkered under the hood, swapped out the faulty parts, and got a full 17-shot slideshow made.  I called it “Rebecca… then and now.”

You can see it here or by going through the menus to PaulSkolnick.com > Photos > Rebecca… Then and Now.

Rebecca with her trusty lens, a few minutes after midnight on her birthday, September 26, 2010, in Ybor City, Tampa, FL

It’s hard to believe I’m 36 hours into this blog and haven’t yet mentioned my daughter, Rebecca.  That wasn’t my intent.

Actually, I’d decided to launch all discussion of Rebecca with a whole album of photos detailing some of the bright spots of her fifteen years.  But the software won’t cooperate.  I’ve tried a few different plugins that are supposed to display photos as an album, and even provide an option to turn the album into a slide show.  But the program isn’t cooperating.

So I’ll start off with this one.  Rebecca is turning into a capable lenswoman and I hope, once the software difficulties are ironed out, to display a good many of the photos she takes on their own so you can all join me in applauding her eye.

As with so many other things, that’s “still to come.”

And I promise a complete album of photos OF Rebecca, as well as ones BY her, just as soon as I can get the code to cooperate.

Among the many new things on this site are complete and up-to-date graphical and text family trees for the descendants of Avruhum Feuerstein.

These trees haven’t appeared online before.  Hence, I’m “introducing” them.

The graphical trees are Flash-based… which means they won’t work on an iPad, an iPhone, or a Blackberry.  They will work on Android-based mobile devices, as well as on Apple and PC computers, both desktops and laptops.

I could be cavalier and claim to have done the thousands of hours of research that went into these family trees.  But truthfully, almost everything on both pages was researched by Bill Feuerstein of Thousand Oaks, CA.  I know this because Bill tracked me down by email more than five years ago to get some dates for my branch.  I suspect he has been in touch with many of you as well.

Bill’s grandfather, Abraham Feurstein, was the brother of our ancestor Zanvil Samuel Feuerstein.

William J. "Bill" Feuerstein, at a family picnic in Beverly Hills, CA in July 2005

For years, Bill visited research repositories and the Family Research Centers operated by the Mormon Church and methodically developed this map of the Feuersteins.  He was kind enough to share it with me for posting here.

SO WHAT’S THE POINT OF HAVING ALL THESE NAMES?

There are several points, actually.

One is to give each of us documentary proof of who we are and where we come from.  Each of us knows some cousins, but I doubt anybody — except for maybe Bill — knew previously just how many of us there are, and just how far-flung.

Another is to create a central, lasting spot where each of us can have access to this history and where we can share it with our children.

And then there’s the possibility there are Feuerstein descendants out there we don’t yet know about.  Having the text-based family tree online means that search engines will index those names.  A Feuerstein descendant anywhere in the world might Google his own name, maybe his grandmother’s name, and see the connection to us.

IT LOOKS SO PERMANENT

Yes, it does.  But family trees are vibrant, changing things.  Despite Bill’s precision, I suspect there’s something wrong in your listing.  Maybe it’s your middle name.  Maybe there’s a blank where your date of birth should be.  Email me what needs to be changed and I’ll update the central database.  I hope to be able to post updated trees every couple of months.

And wondering why there’s no picture next to your name?  It’s probably because I didn’t have ready access to one.  If you can email me a picture, I’ll include it.  If you have a shot on your Facebook page, just let me know and give me permission to include it on the tree.

Justice Sotomayor chatting with Chris

We had a big honor in my family the week before last — my wife Chris was sworn in as a member of the United States Supreme Court Bar.  For most attorneys, the honor is ceremonial.  But what a ceremony it was!

We left our hotel for the Court at seven in the morning, had breakfast in a private conference room there, got a free-wheeling, informative, and humorous orientation from the Clerk of the Court, Gen. William Suter, who really ought to be listed as one of Washington’s great attractions.

The swearing-in itself was performed promptly at 10 am by the  Chief Justice, with six other justices in attendance.  (Justices Thomas and Breyer did not attend.)  It was the justices’ only public event of the day.

At ten minutes after 10, we were ushered back into the private conference room and Justice Sonia Sotomayor came to greet the group from the Beverly Hills Bar Association.  Someone apologized when several flashes went off as the Justice entered.  She waved off the apology, saying that after appearing before the Senate, this one was easy.

Justice Sotomayor chatted easily with the attorneys, some of whom shared with her stories about how she had inspired them or, in one case, a client.  Even though I’d prepped Chris for weeks with the one question I wanted to hear the Justice speak about — what it was like to throw out the first pitch in Yankee Stadium — Chris didn’t ask it.

Catching Up with the Capitol Family

MEET-UP WITH THE MISHPUCHAH

We had another big honor that day — a chance to have dinner with cousins Jim Ostroff and Wendy Shapiro.  (Though we’re in regular contact, the chance to actually sit face to face and talk has been way too scarce for way too many years.)

Though various kinds of stress and fatigue cut short the actual restaurant part of the visit, we did get a chance to sit for quite some time in the lobby of the Willard Hotel and catch up in ways that just don’t work all that well on the phone or in email.

Besides being cousins, Jim and I have been close friends since early childhood, and it has largely been through his infectious enthusiasm for, and careful study of, genealogy that I became interested in chronicling matters of family.

Checking Up on the First Family

AND THEN THERE’S THE TOURIST STUFF

Yes, we did a fair amount of that as well — spending hours at the Newseum, walking the City, looking at monuments, and as long as we were in the neighborhood, making sure all was right with the Republic.

Welcome to the new and dramatically improved PaulSkolnick.com.

I’ve spent several weeks trying to come to grips with the vagaries of HTML, CSS, and PHP.  No, it’s not Greek.  It’s way worse than that — it’s Geek!

Finally, I think I have something workable… at least for starters.  I can tweak and tuck and modify as we go, but I didn’t want to let any more time pass before I put something up.

So what’s here?  Quite a bit of stuff, actually.

GENEALOGY ARCHIVES

Follow the menu through GENEALOGY and you’ll see pictures of my four grandparents — and links to graphical as well as text-based family trees of their lineage.  As I learn more about each of these lines, I’ll be updating the trees and posting them.  That way, what you see here will always be the most up-to-date information I have.

Additionally, I’ve included a special menu link to the STROBER line (under the SKOLNICK heading).  My father’s father’s mother was a STROBER, and for years I’ve been working with various cousins around the world on building this line out.  There are now more than a thousand names on this tree, many of them with photos and at least partial histories.

If you’d like to do it without the menus, here are direct links:

GRAPHICAL TREES:  Skolnick Tepper Hoffman Feuerstein Strober

TEXT TREES:               Skolnick Tepper Hoffman Feuerstein Strober

WHAT’S NOT HERE… YET

There’s quite a bit of stuff on the to-do list for the site.  Perhaps most prominent is starting to find a way to display the thousand or so photos I’ve collected, and the hundreds of scans of original documents.  Part of the problem is technological — I’m looking for the best way to display and share the material so that all family members can call it their own.

If you haven’t yet contributed the keepsakes you may have put away, now is a good time.  If you’ve gone to the trouble to scan the stuff, or to have the stuff scanned, I can take it as email attachments.  You can also send me a CD or DVD of the files.  If it’s not scanned, I’m still interested.  We’ll work out a secure way to ship it here and I’ll scan it myself and send you back the originals.

YOUR PART

Yes, you have a prominent role.  But it doesn’t take much to fulfill it.  Use the site — look often at what’s here, because it will be changing frequently.  Feel free to comment by using the box at the bottom of this (and every) post.  Be in touch with me by email.  Be in touch by telephone.  Be in touch in any way you’re comfortable with.

So here’s to the relaunch.  And away we go!