SPEAKER: Donna M. Schilling

Donna M. Schilling has been the editor of "Die Pommerschen Leute," a quarterly publication of Pomeranian Special Interest Group (PSIG), since June 2019. The former president of PSIG met Donna at the first International German Genealogy Partnership convention in 2017 in Minneapolis where they did presentations, and invited her to be active in PSIG, helping the-then editor. She has enjoyed this very much and has learned a lot about Pomerania, her maternal family’s homeland.

She and her late husband enjoyed many trips to Pomerania, participating in two "heimat treffens" or homeland trips with former residents of Pomerania now living in Germany after WWII. They traveled to Germany a total of six times, taking their son to see his ancestral homeland on their last voyage together there. Donna wrote a book after those experiences about her ancestral homeland, hopefully giving others hints about researching and networking. Her book is German Genealogy Research in Pomerania: With Specific Examples of Kreis Schlawe Research, Family Roots Publishing Company, 2017.

"Why Did Germans Leave Pomerania, and Where Did They Go?"
In this presentation, Donna plans to answer these questions, with references to their daily lives.