German Group: Two Speakers

The Southern California Genealogical Society's German Interest Group welcomes two speakers for its meeting on Saturday, November 16, from 1 to 3:45 p.m. PST. The first speaker will be Fritz Jungling, who will present "The History of the German Language, Its Dialects, and What They Mean for the Researcher."  His presentation will be followed by Walt Sturrock, who will present "Polar Opposites: Inuit and Scottish Cousins Living Worlds Apart Discover Each Other."

About Fritz Juengling

Fritz Juengling, Ph.D., AG, earned a BA in secondary education and a BA in international studies with a German emphasis, graduating with honors from Western Oregon University. He attended the University of Minnesota, where he received his Master’s and Ph.D. in Germanic Philology with minors in both English and Linguistics. The highly specialized field of Germanic Philology combines languages, linguistics, paleography, and history.  In completing the programs, Fritz demonstrated competence in English, German, Medieval Latin, Dutch, and Norwegian and took courses in fourteen other languages, Latin and Greek philology, and both Latin and Middle English paleography.

Fritz has taught all levels of German, including Medieval German literature and Old English (Anglo-Saxon) at the college level and German, English, and Latin at the high school level. He is an accredited genealogist for Germany through the International Commission for the Accreditation of Professional Genealogists. He is a European Research Specialist focusing on German, Dutch, and Scandinavian research at the Family History Library.

About Walt Sturrock

Walt has been an artist, photographer, and instructor for over 30 years. He has illustrated six children's books. Walt moved to California in 1995 when he started with Disney Animation on the movie The Hunchback of Notre Dame. He worked there for 14 years as an instructor, Manager of Computer Training, and Technical Director. Walt currently works as a webmaster, instructor, and technical illustrator for a leading aerospace company.

Walt began his genealogy work as an offshoot of his love of history, photo restoration, and family. In an effort to make sense of the thousands of photos that his family was giving him to scan and restore, he created a comprehensive family tree and database that he could reference when identifying the 100,000+ photos in his collection. He is now "addicted" to genealogy research and has become the family historian.

Questions? Contact Allene or Melanie at germaninterest@scgsgenealogy.com