The Masliansky family in Yekaterinoslav, Russia, 1892
(Yekaterinoslav is now Dnipropetrovsk in Ukraine.)

Left to right: the mother Yetta/Etta Masliansky (then 32 years old), Batya/Bessie/Beatrice (2), standing Pinchas/Phillip (10). the father Reverend Zvi Hirsch Masliansky (36), Fruma Gittel/Fanny (7), Hannah/Annie/Anna (10). and Bertha (12).

Not shown in the above family picture is the oldest son, Chiam/Herman, named for his father's father. A ship's passenger list shows that he departed Hamburg Germany for New York City in July 1892, only 16 years old. (Many, perhaps most, young Jewish men would leave at that age to avoid conscription in the Russian army.) Reverend Masliansky left Russia in 1894. On July 1, 1895, after a speaking tour in Eastern and Central Europe he sailed, without the family, from Le Havre. France to New York City. Yetta and the other children would follow, arriving in New York City in 1896.

Many Jews took new names as they left Europe or adjusted to life in America. Zvi Hirsch Masliansky did that too. He chose "Harris" as his new first name. It is rarely used in stories about him, but found on the 1990 US census, and on his passports.

Masliansky did not spend much time in Yekaterinoslav (Dnipropetrovsk). He would consider himself as having come from the city of his birth and youth: Slutsk in Belarus.