welcome!

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This history could not have come about without the posthumous help of many in the Breakstone and Bregstein families who endeavored to compile early histories and who sought, through newsletters, memoirs, and reunions, to keep the family together. I am also grateful to the multitude of cousins who took the time to talk and to share their memories and memorabilia with me. 

In addition to, literally, hundreds of family members who wrote to me or talked with me over the years and shared their stories, pictures and family connections, I would especially like to acknowledge my great-aunt, Jessie Trattner, who started me on this venture in the early 1970s by providing me with early stories of the Bregsteins; Rabbi Earl Stone, who created extensive charts of his family’s branch as did Barbara Shapiro; Dr. Irv Breakstone and his sister, Annette Pizer, who, as children, attended the earliest family reunions and thus were of enormous help in identifying family members in photos; and Philo Bregstein, indefatigable world traveler, who has discovered cousins throughout the globe and whose tireless investigations in Lithuania have yielded rich fruit. 

Above all, there is my late collaborator, Dr. Walter Miller. The Bregstein/Breakstone family tree that can be found at the address, below, is largely his creation. The hundreds of hours in which he spent carefully and meticulously entering data into the computer made it possible for us to track the ever-growing number of family members we uncovered. Over our fifteen years of working together via phone and email, he consistently created superb order out of chaos, proposed working hypotheses that invariably were proven correct, and set the highest standards for our documentation efforts. He was truly, a wonderful genealogical co-partner, cousin, and friend.

For fuller information about our family shtetl of Panemune, visit
https://kehilalinks.jewishgen.org/aukstoji_panemune/ 

For a family tree of over 4,000 family members, visit  http://jeffmarx.tribalpages.com/

To connect with current family members, visit our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/groups/30254635139

If you have any additions, corrections, or comments, please write to me at
Rabjmarx@gmail.com

Rabbi Jeffrey A. Marx

Los Angeles, October, 2022