<p>Wouldn’t he be 437 if his brother had no children, or 437+N where N is the number of children his brother has? Of course, if some of the 435 before his brother had children, that would also bump them down.</p>
<p>Could it be the Polish L that has a slash through it, and looks like this? → Ł </p>
<p>My original last name has S Ł (rest of name) in it; in English, it is pronounced as SL but in Polish, it was apparently pronounced as SW. I could see how it might be misread as a Z as well.</p>
<p>Greenwitch, too funny. My former MIL was always going on about coming from one of the “First Families of VA.” Yeah, well, guess what. Can you say “convict”? Snort.</p>
<p>I did lots of genealogy years ago, both for H (easy peasy American/English ancestry) and my own Jewish family. Donna’s posts remind me of happy hours spent with microfiche readers looking over ship manifests. Hope to get back to it someday, especially now that so many more town archives have been available electronically.</p>
<p>(And thank you, Donna, for your moving post about how deeply offensive the LDS habit of posthumously baptizing Jews truly is.)</p>
<p>I wish people wouldn’t spread silly stories like that, especially from a garbage newspaper like the Daily Mail. First of all, it’s very reminiscent of the old “Hitler was a Jew” rumors that used to be commonly repeated decades ago, largely based on the theory that “anyone that awful must have been a Jew,” and on unsupported speculation that his father was “illegitimate” and maybe was really Jewish. Second, despite the affirmative statement in the headline, the actual story says no such thing. So the Y-DNA haplogroup of some of his purported relatives (presumably on his father’s side) is more common among Jews and Berbers than among Western Europeans? Big deal. Maybe he was descended from Berbers. Or maybe there was a Jew in his family tree a thousand years ago. Or maybe not. It’s hardly what the story implies, and I think the motives of anyone trying to prove such a thing are suspicious at best.</p>
<p>Hayden, I wasn’t sure if you wanted to share that! :)</p>
<p>Hayden and I have some common ancestors going way, way back! We’re something like 13th cousins or something. Whoddathunk it?!? What blows my mind is that I have any ancestors who were even here then. I had always thought both of my parents’ families came over in the mid-1800s (Irish/English and German/Norwegians). My dad’s mom, who was born in a shack in rural Arkansas and loved geography, history and geneology, is the link to these early colonists, I can only imagine how thrilled she would be that my cousin has found all these linkages.</p>
<p>I also found a death list from a large massacre in Shumsk in 1942, and there were four people with the same last name as DH’s relatives who had left there 35 years previously. It is hard to find info on DH’s side in this country, as many of the men left their marriages, the women struggled and much estrangement ensued.</p>
<p>Sop14’s Mom, not only did we discover the connection through CC, we discovered it on this thread! Check out posts 68 and 81. It turns out we share a gg…grandfather (i.e., a grandfather, but we haven’t counted the generations yet).</p>
<p>By the way, for anyone who’s reading this thread and thinks that genealogists just trace back to find people like Washington or King Edward in their family trees, you can rest assured that is not the case at all.</p>
<p>Genealogy is for anyone who loves history, and feels a special connection when we can identify the actual family that was there and a part of it.</p>
<p>In fact, there are societies for the opposite of kings or presidents. For instance, there is a group called the Black Sheep Society or something like that. To qualify you have to have an ancestor convicted in court of a serious crime like murder or stealing cattle. Remember that for everyone descended from some English lord, there are also descendants of people like Jesse James. Nothing like having a sense of humor.</p>
<p>Everyone is descended from both the royalty and the common criminals who lived generations ago in the general area(s) of ancestry. Of course, some of the royalty of the past may be considered criminals against humanity if they did what they did today (e.g. ordering the slaughter of the entire civilian population of a conquered city).</p>
<p>I am eligible to join one similar society. It’s only open to women who are the direct descendants of women who were executed as witches in Colonial America. Mine was named Alice Lake. My ancestor was executed in Dorchester, MA. </p>
<p>She lost a child who was only a toddler and that child appeared to her in dreams. She made the mistake of mentioning the dreams out loud. The neighbors decided it was Satan appearing to her in the image of her child. Hanged.</p>
<p>I thought I’d try to piggy back off this thread instead of starting a new one: I’m thinking of trying a DNA database. Has anyone done this? Good idea or bad idea? Should I contribute the DNA, or should I ask my brother to do it? If you recommend it, does anyone have experience with one firm over another?</p>