by Jeffrey Mark Paull | Oct 2, 2018 | Family History Center
We are extremely fortunate that our Polonsky ancestors immigrated to America between 1905 and 1914, prior to World War I. Immigration to America was dramatically curtailed after 1914, and very few Russian Jews were permitted entry to the United States after that...
by Jeffrey Mark Paull | Oct 1, 2018 | Family History Center
The patriarch of the Polonsky family in America is Nathan Polonsky (c. 1863–1929). Nathan’s birth name in Russia was Menakhem Nahum Polonsky. Nathan was most likely born in the town of Shpola, in the Zvenigorodka uezd (district) of the Kiev guberniya(province) of the...
by Jeffrey Mark Paull | Sep 30, 2018 | Family History Center
As discussed in the preceding chapter, the patriarch of our branch of the Polonsky family in America was Nathan Polonsky, born around the time of the American Civil War, in Shpola, Russia. He and his wife Bessie Polonsky represent the first generation of the Polonsky...
by Jeffrey Mark Paull | Sep 29, 2018 | Family History Center
Unlike any era America has known, the 1940s were characterized by a generation of young people united by a common cause and values. Tom Brokaw wrote of them in his book, The Greatest Generation, calling them: “… the greatest generation any society has produced.”...
by Jeffrey Mark Paull | Sep 28, 2018 | Family History Center
In the spring of 2008, when I began assembling a basic family tree in preparation for my son Joshua’s Bar Mitzvah, I did not know any of my cousins outside of my own (Paull) branch of the Polonsky family. Never before had I met any member of the Adler, Chaber,...
by Jeffrey Mark Paull | Sep 27, 2018 | Family History Center
Given how close the Polonsky family was for three generations in America, it is difficult to fathom how an entire generation has grown up having virtually no interaction with their second cousins. This chapter explores the dynamics of our family, to better understand...
