Family Story Finder

The sweep of family history across the generations

Action at a distance
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Stan's Mathematica notebooks document his later work and speculations

Helga at the Theodor Herzl School
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Amid the chaos of the Nazi period, the Zionist school in Charlottenburg taught skills and values that lasted a lifetime

In the Signal Corps in New Guinea
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Stan strung transmission wires in the South Pacific during World War II.

Janis Brenner—a Ratner in motion
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An innovator in modern dance and choreography since breaking in with the Murray Lewis Dance Company in the 1980s. The Ratners moved geographically. Janis moves artistically.

Mel Brenner
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Mel accomplished many things in life, but his life’s greatest moments happened during the Battle of the Bulge

Mössbauer man—Stan makes his mark in physics
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Stan's innovations in Mossbauer spectroscopy.

Ringel vs. Ruby in World War I
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Herman Ringel and Walter Ruby wore opposing uniforms in the Great War

Sputnik in the backyard
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Watching Sputnik at night from our back yard in a suburb of Pittsburgh is one of my earliest memories.

The family secret behind grandfather's desk calendar
  • July 22 1939 -

A surprising artifact discovered after a parent's death leads to a series of discoveries and a new pastime in genealogy

The Klein family in the 1940s
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Leon Klein continued to work for American Spirits as its upstate New York sales representative

The physics experiment that went wrong
  • 1951 - 1958

How and why did Stan Ruby's important post-graduate research go wrong, and what impact did it have on his career in physics?

The problem with anti-ballistic missiles
  • October 6 1968 - March 10 1969

Stanley Ruby entered the public debate over nuclear missile technology in 1968-69.

The Ringels in Berlin—time of prosperity
  • 1881 - 1931

From 1880s to the 1930s, the Ringel family prospered in the garment trade in the German capital. Herman made men's outerwear.

The Rubys in Israel—1961 sabbatical
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Our family’s amazing year of discovery and connection