The Pluis Family In April 1852, in Bialystok, Poland, Hyman, or Chaim Isaac/Chajem, Pluis (also Plues, Pluss, and

Plus) was born. He grew up and moved to Moscow. He met Fannie (also Faega), born 1859. They married in 1873 and had 8 children. Four died young in Moscow. Hyman boarded the ship California in Hamburg, Germany and arrived in New York on August 15, 1892. In 1895, Fannie and the three surviving daughters: Jennie, or Jean, born 1881, Esther, born 1884, and Lottie, also Sadie, born 1886, arrived in New York on July 9 on the ship Phonicia, also from Hamburg. In 1896, the eighth child is born. Her name is Francis, also called Freeda. Soon after, Fannie dies. The children grow up. Freeda marries Frederic Shaller, moves to Uruguay and is never heard from again. Jennie marries a man with the last name of Bander, Esther marries Evan Messinger, Lottie (Sadie) marries Samuel Bess, and Hyman dies. And since Hyman and Fannie had all daughters, the family name died out, but their descendants are part of the Bess family.

The Bess Family Sometime in the early 1860's, in a remote log cabin in the forests of what is now Kiev, Ukraine, a baby boy was born. His name was Yerachmeal Bess, also called Rachmeal and Rachmiel. (Bess was also spelled as Bas, Bass, Bes, Besz, and Wajs at various times). He was born to a father by the name of David and an unknown mother.

Yerachmeal moved to Vilnius, Lithuania after his parents' deaths for an unknown reason. He married Yenta (or Yente) Polia and they had 5 children: Libby, Joseph (or Josef/Jenyek), Esther, Samuel (At different times in his life he was called different things: in Lithuania, Schepzel Bess, in America Samuel Bess, and in Poland Szepsel Szlamowicz Wajs), and Gitel. Joseph was born in 1884, Esther in 1889, and Samuel on July 4, 1891. (Libby's and Gitel's birth dates are unknown, but we do know that Gitel was the youngest) The Bess family lived right outside of Vilnius. At the time, right up to Vilnius from the west was part of Poland. The area in which the Bess family lived in was called Orlei, or Orjzen, Poland in the Grodno Byalistock sector. No place by this name exists today. The Bess children grew up and moved away. Samuel Bess moved to Copenhagen, Denmark sometime in his late teens, and lived there alone and unmarried for a few years. Joseph Bess departed from Liverpool, England on a ship to the United States on December 28, 1904. He arrived at New York on January 5, 1905. The ship records say that he was 21 years old and unmarried. He immediately bought a house in New Haven, Connecticut. Libby and Esther went to join Joseph in America when they traveled on the ship Carmania, also from Liverpool. It arrived in New York on September 7, 1909. They lived with Joseph for a little while before they each bought their own houses in New Haven. Libby later married Joseph Kirshner and had two children, Nettie and Annette. Joseph married Bessie Oken, and they had five children: Meyer, Bertha, Daniel, Sylvia, and Harvey. Each child married and had multiple children. Esther married Joseph Swyrski, but they had no children. Samuel Bess left for America from Rotterdam, the Netherlands on the ship Potterdam

sometime in 1910 and bought an apartment in New York City. He met and married Lottie Pluis. They moved to West Haven. They had four children: Annie, or Anne, born January 7, 1915, Joseph, born in March 1920, Jennie, or Jean, born September 1913, and Ida Lou, born August 14, 1919. Lottie died in September 1961, and Samuel died on July 22, 1972. Jennie married Ben Levine and moved to Arizona, Annie married Chester Nastahowski, they moved back to New York City, and Joseph died in his early thirties from cancer. (He was a bachelor.) Ida married Harry Ginsburg on October 29, 1939 after eloping on September 5 of the same year. For the rest of their lives, they celebrated two anniversaries. Ida and Harry buy a house in New Haven, Connecticut after they marry. They have 4 children: Saundra Lee, born August 2, 1943, Marlene Rhonda, born May 8, 1953, Cheryl Ann, born August 17, 1954, and my grandfather, Robert Allen, born February 24, 1942. Cheryl marries Joseph Bell, Marlene marries Steve Mednick, Saundra (or Sandy) marries William David Carlson, and Robert marries Sharon Potash. That ends the Bess family line, because Samuel Bess and Lottie Pluis had three daughters who all took their husbands' names. But their descendants are part of the Ginsburg family.

*(You may be wondering what happened to Gitel. When her siblings immigrated to the United States, she was too young, so she stayed behind with Yerachmeal and Yenta. At the time, the siblings in the United States were dirt poor, and there was

never enough money for Gitel, Yerachmeal, or Yenta to come to the United States. In early 1939, Joseph received a letter. It was in Yiddish, and only a few years ago it was roughly translated. It said: 'The Germans are massing on the border. We have failed to get exit permits. This will probably be the last time you will hear from us'. And it was. There are records that the Nazis murdered them in 1939 by a firing squad. Their remains are buried in a mass grave in Lottsz Cemetery in Poland.)

The Ginsburg Family Y'huda Ginsburg was born in Gnzburg, Germany sometime in the early 1840's. (At the time, surnames were not commonly used, so if you were from Gnzburg, your last name was Ginsburg.) He married Celia Chernok, also from Gnzburg. At some point in the late 1850's or early 1860's, the Jews were driven out of Gnzburg. Y'huda and Celia fled east. After moving around southwest Russia for several years, Y'huda Ginsburg and Celia Chernok settled in the border town of Chernikov, Russia-Ukraine. They had one child, Morris Ginsburg, also known as Moshe, born on April 15, 1884. Morris married Keile/Keila Elkin, more commonly Kate. Y'huda and Celia died in Chernikov, and Morris Ginsburg and Kate Elkin left for America from Liepaja, Latvia on the ship The Kursk. They bought a home in East Haven, Connecticut. They had 7 children: Meyer, Isadore (also Izzie/Irving), Bella, Celia, Sophie, Gary, and Harry, my great-grandfather, born September 15, 1914. Morris died on March 14, 1944, probably by inhaling gunpowder when working at a gun factory during the war, and Keile died soon after. Meyer married Marion,

Isadore married Doris Strumpf; they had four children: Beth, Linda, Karen, and Judith, Bella married Morris Sachs, Sophie married Joseph Goby, Gary married Patricia Filene; they had two children: Kenneth and Lori, Cecelia never married, and Harry married Ida Bess. Harry and Ida move to New Haven, Connecticut. They have 4 children: Saundra Lee, born August 2, 1943, Marlene Rhonda, born May 8, 1953, Cheryl Ann, born August 17, 1954, and my grandfather, Robert Allen, born February 24, 1942. Cheryl marries Joseph Bell, Marlene marries Steve Mednick; they have two children: Alexander, born June 1981, and Lauren, born January 25, 1984, Saundra (or Sandy) marries William David Carlson; they have two children: Marcie Beth, born June 26, 1963, and Michael Bennett, born February 14, 1966, and Robert marries Sharon Potash. (Michael later marries Lisa Perel and they have three children, Benjamin Wade, Daniel Nicholas, and Alana. Marcie later marries Alan Paul Link and they have two children, twins, Arielle Rose and Jesse Samuel, born October 3, 1991.) Robert and Sharon Ginsburg move to West Haven, Connecticut after marrying. They have two children, Amy Michelle, born January 9, 1971, and my mother, Candice Ivy, born September 8, 1967. Amy marries George Brockman and moves to Washington D.C. They have two children: Felix and Celia. They later move to Olympia, Washington State. Candice marries Mitchell Burd. Candice and Mitchell move to New York City after marrying. They have one child, Zachary Harrison Burd, (Me) born December 13, 2000. Candice, Mitchell, and Zachary move to Maplewood, New Jersey after 3 years in New York City. Another baby is born, Emma Sylvie Burd, born February 24, 2004.

And that is the history of my family up until now.

Analysis I interviewed my grandfather, Robert Allen Ginsburg. He was a lawyer, but he is now retired. He knows quite a bit about my family's history. Almost all of the information above is from him. He spent quite a lot of time and money researching his (and my) ancestors, before I had even gotten assigned this project. He was delighted to have someone to share the information with and I was only too happy to oblige.

My grandfather says he loves America. He says that he does not understand why people complain every day about 'our beautiful country'. He has traveled all over the world, from Mexico to China, and he says we have it better than any other country. We have freedom, rights, and representation. But my grandfather says the best thing about America is that we don't have to stay trapped in a certain place in society; that we have the mobility too move up the chain. That is what my grandfather believes being an American is all about. My grandfather is very connected to American history. One thing that he was connected to was the Digital Revolution, also called the Information Age and the Computer Age. He says he read a book twenty years ago that talked about how major companies would leave the United States for cheaper labor, and that the only thing the United States would have is technology, more specifically computers. He didn't know that word; he had to look it up in the dictionary. Computers then were

the size of entire shopping malls and did less than an average calculator today. Ten years later, it all came true. My grandfather says that this new technology changed how businesses are run and how people live their lives. Another event my grandfather was connected to was the Second World War. When the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, it was the start of World War 2 for America. My grandfather was born during World War 2, and his father was almost drafted. Only his status as an oilman, which is a wartime occupation, saved him from being drafted. But the scary part is that the ship my great-grandfather would have been on when being deployed to the Pacific was sunk by the Japanese navy. There were no survivors. Another event in history is the Vietnam War. My grandfather says that this might have been the biggest event in his life. He was almost drafted, and he lost many friends during this war. The war was also unpopular, and it paved the way for many social changes in the United States. Also, most recently, there was 9/11. My grandfather says that 9/11 was one of the most influential events in recent history. It started the War on Terror and provoked the United States to have a much more imposing Middle Eastern military presence in the years to come. And lastly, when Martin Luther King made his historic march on the White House in 1963. My grandfather says it had a huge effect on him. When he saw the march on TV, he got right in his car and drove down here to watch history in the making. My grandfather believes that the march, and the Civil Rights Movement in general, changed America more than any other event in American history.

My project might be valuable to a historian because I have very detailed information, like birth dates, death dates, marriage dates, and immigration dates. If a historian needed very detailed information for a very specific topic, my project would be good for them. Although my project is very detailed, it still has limitations. For instance, the fact that I have almost no information about my great-great-great-greatgrandparents' generation. There were simply no records at the time, but it is still a limitation. Also, sometimes people would just disappear off the map. You could find nothing about them in records or anywhere, but then thirty years later they would show up again. It is another major limitation. My family's experience might be different than others' because at some points of time, my family was very poor, (Early 1900's) and at other times my family was very wealthy. (Late 1900's) My family also moved around a lot while some other families might have stayed in the same place for several generations.

I believe that being an American means always having a chance at upward mobility; that if you pursue your self-interest and work hard, you can become better off socially and economically. America represents hope, freedom, and a fresh start to immigrants now and to my family who came here so many years ago. America is a land of opportunity. No matter how poor you are, in America, everyone has a chance to rise to the top. I believe that is what being an American is all about.