Hoffnungstal Odessa Parish Research

Researchers with ancestors from Hoffnungstal, Russia will benefit from a genealogy workshop slated later this month during the 2008 International Convention of Germans from Russia opening July 28th in Casper, Wyoming.

The Hoffnungstal Odessa Parish workshop is scheduled for 3:45 p.m., Thursday, August 31st in Ballroom C of the Parkway Plaza Hotel and Convention Center in Casper, which serves as convention headquarters. Moderating the Hoffnungstal session will be Vincent Humann of Rio Rancho, New Mexico and Murray Gauer of New Westminster, British Columbia.

Wyoming Governor Dave Freudenthal will speak at the convention opening ceremony at 8:30 Thursday. As many as one thousand participants are expected to attend the week-long event, which is a joint meeting of the Germans from Russia Heritage Society of Bismarck, North Dakota, and the American Historical Society of Germans from Russia, which is based in Lincoln, Nebraska.

Vincent Humann's ancestors came to Dakota Territory in the early 1880s from Bessarabia (paternal) and Odessa (maternal). Vince is a native of Eureka, South Dakota and graduated from the South Dakota School of Mines. Vince retired in 2002 as Engineering Group Manager of Laboratory Administration at GM's Powertrain Laboratory in Warren, Michigan. The Humann's then moved to New Mexico, where he became a charter member and past President of the New Mexico Chapter of AHSGR andGRHS, the first chapter to be chartered by both organizations. Heis Vice President of the New Mexico Chapter.

Murray Gauer's grandfather and his family arrived in Canada in 1890 from Birsula (Kotovsk) on the rail line north of Odessa. His great grandparetns were married in the tiny prayer house in Nesselrode (Kulyanik), which is now a southern suburb of Kotovsk. Born in Winnipeg, Manitoba in 1949, Murray has traced his family back through Galicia to the 1600s in Birkenfeld in the Rheinland. He has been involved with computers since the first PCs came out in the 1970s, and he worked for IBM for 32 years before retiring in 2004.