creation

    A few years ago, I had exhausted all my sources to recreate the Pokross(originally Pokrassa) family tree. My family originated in Gorodishche, Cherkassy District, Ukraine and settled in Fall River Massachusetts. Much of the family left Fall River  and achieved fame and fortune, i.e. they went to New York and New Jersey. 

    In an attempt to locate any "lost" relatives  I decided to contact everyone that had the name Pokrassa, which I thought was rare.  I already had a few contacts via the jewishgen.org family finder. Mark Lewis of London had made some inquiries, although lacking information for him, I gave him advice on how to do his own research.  I had also heard from David Brandon.  I contacted David who lived in Israel, who referred me to  his son Jonathan in Massachusetts. Jonathan told about  a family history report by Miriam Weiner that a cousin of his had commissioned. In the report, my great great grand-parents Meier and Sarah were mentioned..in the year 1848! There were records for the birth of two of their children including my great-grandfather Pincus. The report, had been commissioned by Mark Lewis.  He didn't know where his Pokrasse family originated so he asked Miriam Weiner to search the archives for multiple towns.  IMark had followed  and gone far beyond my advice, and uncovered much information about his family as well as mine. 

     I then turned to the internet to find other people with the same name. There were t 20 pages of Gary Pokrassa, who is an officer in a publicly held corporation, before I could find anything else. I contacted  Gary who was passionate about his genealogy. Gary was a pack rat, which is very important for genealogy. He remembered he had received a lettter twenty years previously and soon sent me a copy of a letter from Alan Hait along with Alan's family tree. Alan explained to me that when he was in college in Philadelphia, he went to the public library, looked through phone books from throughout the United States, and sent a letter to each one Pokrasssa, Pokross, etc that he found.  Among those was my mother's first cousin David Pokross. Alan also started to tell me about Pokross celebrities.  Although I thought the focus on celebrities was silly, in retrospect I realized that the interest it showed in all thing Pokrassa was what led me to broaden my parochial concerns  from my own family to all Pokrassa families.

    I was ready to create a web site, but what to call it?  Jonathan Brandon had sent me an e-mail on December 11, 2006 with the subject "You say Pokross, I say Pokrassa." This phrase rattling around my brain for six months until, finally, yousaypokrassa went live with just four families. 

    I searched  Skype for people whose names included "Pokras" and contacted each one with a chat message referring them to the web site. Gary was soon reunited with his "lost" family. next: Gary Pokrassa Family

Aaron Ginsburg