Website Working Group

We are hoping to meet once a month via Zoom. Currently the last Monday of the month at 8pm.

First Meeting:

Current Members

• Celia Molvin
• Adi Molvin
• Judy Mendel
• Sami Rahamin  
• Maureen Turim
• Mark Newmark
• Scott Wilensky
• Tami Blumenfield
• Evan Schapiro 

Background / History

The goal is to keep a central repository/website for the Newmark/Glusker family history.

• Family Tree-
  • The tree is maintained in Family Tree Maker. Currently by Judy. This is proprietary software This is proprietary software and somewhat difficult to maintain. Many geneolagy resources such as Ancestry.com require membership/payment.
  • There is a public domain geneology site called WikiTree.com. It uses the wiki model, and allows anyone to make changes/additions/view. The positives are that other families/geneolagists can also add info. The negative is a loss of control, and also maintaining privacy.
  • No matter what we choose, it does require training and time.
• Website
  • Nili has built several websites for the family. The most recent version, using WordPress, kept getting hacked. It also required a significant amount of time from Nili to edit/update.
  • Evan has proposed a wiki-based website (this one). Wiki allows anyone to edit. We can restrict this to family members we authorize.
• Facebook
  • There is a family only Facebook page. This seems like a good place for info about the current generation. And use the other resources for documenting the older generations

Resources

1. We have some wonderful resources that we shouldn't lose, and can be the basis for our website.
2. Nili's past website work
3. Max's oral history given to Leonard and transcribed
4. Mark Newmark wrote a history of the Newmark family that incorporated Max's history, info from Leonard, and additional research
5. Oter family photos, home movies, oral histories

Website Working Group Goals

Work together to build the various resources, share work, and identify those in next generation to maintain it

Meeting # 1: August 25, 2025

Working Agenda

• General discussion of role of facebook/website/family tree (wikitree)
• Skills/time/desires
• Wiki training/users  
• Convert old site to wiki
• Reunion lists
• Wiki tree updates/role?
• Photos – strategy
• Other
• Plan for Next Meeting

Minutes/Action Items

Attendees:  Maureen, Mark, Celia, Adi, Evan

Next meeting:  September 29, 2026

The consensus was that we would individually work on projects of interest for the foreseeable future.

An emphasis will be on:

• Preserving resources (e.g. digitizing and organizing photos)
• Creating models and standards that can be used as examples for others in the future to create similar resources.
• Making it fun and allowing all to take on projects of personal interest.  Worry about “formatting/web” later.

Here are the projects that folks will work on and report on progress at the next meeting :

• Maureen
  • Look into digitizing her audio tapes of interviews with relatives
  • Look into digitizing 8mm movies from past reunions
  • Conduct interviews with family members on memories (first up: Celia)
• Adi
  • Investigate and propose standards for how we will name/label photos.  
  • Think about/arrange family discussions about memories, etc.  Some Zoom, some hybrid?
• Mark
  • Develop a documentary with focus on time in Russia, Max and Leonard’s return visit, etc
  • Work on a “profile”  of the various family small town stores
• Evan
  • Look into digitizing the old photos that he had brought to the reunion,
  • Create some samples of the old 8mm family films, including before and afters of AI and advanced cleaning techniques
  • Monitor emails and maintain a central repository summary
  • Send out invites to next meeting as a calendar invite
• Celia
  • Send to Evan your list of family reunions (I added this after the meeting)
• ALL:
  • Contribute to the running list of the family stores

Email Discussion Follow-up Summary

(A recap of various email threads after the meeting)

• Tami Blumenfeld sent a link to an old commercial for Kahn's Clothing in Milwaukee from 1984: https://youtu.be/mqRZd3OH5tE?si=KvkxVNz-1h6TEuDD
• Judy wrote that family legend has it that Sam rented garage space in Chicago to Al Capone ( when Sam lived there and delivered ice and coal) before moving to Chicago.
• Maureen recommended a book: A Fever in the Heartland: The Ku Klux Klan's Plot to Take Over America, and the Woman Who Stopped Them by Timothy Egan about the KKK In Indiana
  • Judy wrote that more family lore is that the Grand dragon of the KKK lived next door to Mae and Sam
  • I thought I had heard stories of the KKK having their meetings in Sam's store basement?
• Mark sent a request to the family mailing list requesting photos of family stores . The list of locations so far is:
  • Attica, IN
  • Chalmers, IN
  • Chilton, WI
  • Denmark, WI
  • Kingman, IN
  • Lafayette, IN
  • Lexington, KY
  • Menomonee Falls
  • Milwaukee, WI
  • Newtown
  • Pine Village, IN
  • Plymouth, WI
  • Stone Bluff, IN
  • Veedersburg, IN
  • Waukesha, WI
  • Wyandotte, MI
  • Yeddo, IN
• Judy suggested using Slack for discussions instead of email. We may want to do this going forward depending on the amount of email traffic.

Working Pages

A list of projects in progress, ideas for future, or simply repositories for documentation email thread summaries, and/or future use so they don't get lost. For now, these will be maintained by Evan.

Obituaries

Family Stores

Newmarks in Florida

Newmarks in California

Family Videos

Maureen's Interviews

Resources