Starting with the day in 1905 when Joseph and Bella Bolker and five of their children stepped off the steamship Brandenburg onto American soil, this book explores the Bolker family and their relatives. Concentrating on stories of a collection of courageous, adventurous, strong, hard-working, persistent, intelligent, and sometimes surprising people, the book traces the family back to 18th and 19th century Poland and Ukraine and then forward in time as they built new lives in America, France, Israel, Canada, and elsewhere. Related surnames include Baker, Becker, Berman, Bernstein, Bolkier, Branszczyk, Brown, Cohn, Gelb, Kohn, Singer, Solomon, Ungrest.