Travel notes: thoughts and observations from Germany, Belgium and Albania

For the past fifteen months I have been travelling in Europe, staying successively in Greece, Bulgaria, Malta, England, Germany, Belgium and Albania. I'm now back in Germany.

I've published occasional pieces on these wanderings but nothing for more than four months now. Here, then, are some recent thoughts and observations on specific places and on Europe in general.

Economic and social problems are everywhere evident, and are getting worse. The cultural decline (or "forgetting") which accompanies these changes — a long, drawn-out process which seems to be gathering pace — has always disturbed me. And, though it would be a mistake to underestimate the depth and resilience of the cultures of Europe and the values which they represent, forces hostile to these values have created in recent years what feels like a dangerous instability.

The natural world is important to me also, both in itself and in terms of how it has influenced and is influenced by regional and national cultures. In places to which I have a connection and/or feel some kind of affinity, I like to be able to identify at least the most common local species (especially birds, animals and trees). I happened to mention this fact to a knowledgeable English friend (the French adjective moqueuse would fit her well) as we walked in the garden of her home in a picturesque part of southern England. Pointing towards a nearby field she said, “Those are black sheep, those are white sheep.”

I spent the first week of September in Dortmund and found it nondescript and a bit unkempt, but my stay was pleasant. There was a park near my hotel to walk and relax in; easy shopping; very friendly and obliging people; a good U-Bahn network linked to a manageable Hauptbahnhof.

From Dortmund I travelled by train (via Cologne, Aachen and Liège) to Namur, the Wallonian capital, and later to Charleroi. National and local elections were held while I was staying in Namur which I did not follow closely but election slogans, graffiti and general conversation reflected social polarization and were very much in line with recent trends across Europe.

Charleroi isn’t a pretty or prosperous city but where I was based (on Place Verte, a pedestrian precinct only a short walk from the main station) there was evidence of new business investment and no obvious signs of social conflict.

In the mid-1930s, an extreme conservative and corporatist political movement and party, the Rexists (after the Latin phrase for Christ the King), was formed in Belgium by Léon Degrelle. It persisted during the German occupation and Degrelle himself fought for the Germans with the Walloon Legion on the Eastern Front. Rexists played prominent roles in government during the occupation and were a target for the local Resistance. Late in the war, there was much civil violence and tit-for-tat killings between these groups. The only memorial I saw which mentioned the Rexists was a plaque on a presbytery wall in central Charleroi honouring a prominent priest, Pierre Harmignies, who was murdered by Rexists in 1944.

Most war memorials in Belgium commemorate soldiers who died during the Great War. There was one, I noticed, in Queen Astrid Park in central Charleroi at which flowers had been laid. A few metres away stands another, more modest, war memorial featuring the representation of a pigeon with wings outstretched atop a pillar with the simple inscription: AU PIGEON SOLDAT.

I mentioned the pigeon memorial to my unsentimental English friend who subsequently made an oblique allusion to it in an email. She won’t mind my quoting her, I’m sure: “Autumn colours seem to be late this year but I am looking out at oak and ash trees that are turning golden brown and already the pigeons and field fares have stripped the berries from the holly (if only some of the former could be sent to The Front!).”

My recent stay in Tirana was more educational than enjoyable. Though the hotel was good, the surrounding area was not, particularly in terms of pedestrian and other local infrastructure. There was nowhere pleasant to walk and no acceptable public transport (other than taxis). As a consequence I breakfasted in the hotel restaurant every day and spent a lot of time in my room. Fortunately the hotel staff (local people) were friendly and easy to talk to and I had positive encounters with a few other Albanian nationals. One was a young man who was on the same flight as me out of Tirana. I noticed that he went out of his way to help a frail woman whom he didn’t know to alight from a tarmac bus and walk to the crowded arrivals hall at Niederrhein Airport where airport staff took over and ushered her through.

Though most of the people I spoke to in Albania were aware of — and frustrated by — government corruption, I didn’t see much evidence of overt political activism there. Nor did I witness the social and religious frictions which are so evident elsewhere in Europe. No doubt there was a lot going on beneath the surface however — these are just impressions from a three-week visit.

The country’s Ottoman past has left indelible marks on religious and other practices and cultural links with Turkey and the Levant persist. This despite the fact that, for more than four decades following World War 2, Albania was governed by a hardline Stalinist (and increasingly isolationist) regime.

I did manage to develop a daily walk routine centred on the mainly residential area behind the hotel in which the streets and lanes are set out — and not in a planned way — like a complicated maze with many dead ends. The “river” on the map turned out to smell like a sewer and its banks looked like an unofficial rubbish dump (building waste etc.).

Car wash businesses operated in virtually every significant street (a consequence of the combination of poor roads and parking areas and a car-proud population). Lots of good German cars. The city of Tirana has no metro and the country has no rail network. Peak-hour traffic is horrendous.

Along the back streets in which I walked, women and old men pushed wheelbarrows with mysterious cargoes. There were some grand houses, but most were shabby. Albanian flags were displayed in private homes and businesses, hung from balconies etc.. National day celebrations had occurred just after my arrival but many of the flags had not been taken down weeks later.

The national anthem or hymn to the flag is basically a call to fight — and die. Strangely the focus in the song seems to be on dying rather than on winning. A warrior culture, certainly. “... From war abstains only he who a traitor is born...”

The children seemed unusually well-behaved. Given the many Christmas trees and fairy lights in private homes, I assumed the area I was in was predominantly Christian. But there was also a significant Muslim presence. Though most of the women I saw were unveiled, quite a few wore the hijab.

My main Albanian interlocutor at the hotel was a Muslim married to an Orthodox Christian. She only wore a head-covering when going to the mosque or to church, she said. There was a mosque nearby and, depending on the depth of my sleep at the time, I would hear early-morning prayers (around 5 am).

Though I had used up (in Belgium and Germany) 88 of my allotted 90 visa-free days (per 180 days) in the Schengen zone, I decided to fly to Germany and invoke a little-known bilateral visa-exemption agreement dating back to the 1950s which allows Australian citizens 90 days in Germany irrespective of previous Schengen country visits so long as certain conditions are met.

I entered Germany (as mentioned previously) via Niederrhein Airport, a very small and isolated facility close to the Dutch border which has been misleadingly dubbed Düsseldorf Weeze by Ryanair. (It’s nowhere near Düsseldorf.) Not so long ago the airport was an RAF base known as Laarbruch.

The border police I dealt with there were not fluent in English and I don’t speak German. They scanned my passport and the system indicated that I would have to depart Germany within 48 hours. I tried to put my case and showed them on my phone a brief explanation of the longstanding visa-exemption agreement from an official German source, but the text was in English and the officer did not read it. Three of them discussed the matter between themselves, asking me the occasional question. Then suddenly it was all smiles and thumbs up on their part as my passport was finally stamped and handed back to me but I have no way of knowing what caused the change of heart. Given that the arrangement doesn’t involve a visa or written authorization, there could conceivably be trouble on my departure from Germany and the Schengen zone but I don’t expect there will be.

It was very cold and almost dark by the time I boarded a local bus which took me from the airport to a train station in a small town nearby (Weeze). And it was completely dark when the train to Düsseldorf arrived. I enjoyed the warmth of the train for the hour-long journey, secure in the knowledge that my hotel was within easy walking distance of the Hauptbahnhof. No more checkpoints or complicated connections.

Travelling independently and (to a certain extent) off the beaten track does pose challenges but so far they are proving manageable. And on this latest journey it was gratifying to realize that others (including younger people and native German speakers) did not necessarily know what I knew or had figured out. Once or twice I was able to help rather than being the one asking for advice or directions.

Having spent a month in Düsseldorf and having quite enjoyed getting to know the city (or parts thereof), I have now bought a train ticket to Dortmund. (I had been planning to stay longer in Düsseldorf actually, but there is a big trade fair coming up and hotel room rates are rising rapidly.)

Future movements are uncertain but the plan to stay in Germany until the spring still looks attractive.

Do many common East Anglian surnames indicate Jewish ancestry?

I wrote an earlier post incorporating material from some emails I received from a resident of East Anglia about the Jewish presence in England and Wales which dealt with affinities between dissenters and Jews. That post was mainly about Wales; this one (based on information from the same informant) is focused on East Anglia.

My informant – who has Jewish ancestors himself and whose home town is near the Norfolk/Suffolk border – talked about the demographics of his area, alluding (for example) to former East London families who were resettled there in the 1950s. But his main interest is in long-standing residents of the wider region. Noting the history of towns in the area as wool and cloth trading centres closely tied to the Hanseatic League of northwestern and central Europe, he spoke of “classic medieval Semitic faces” resembling (as he put it) “the church gargoyles which I have always believed to be an early example of anti-Semitism, as are most […] representations of Satan.”

These speculative and impressionistic observations raise interesting questions about the identification of Jews with the demons of conventional religion.

Most forms of anti-Semitism, however, were less extreme, and Jewish stereotypes have varied from place to place and from time to time. The medieval view was different from modern stereotypes. (In the Middle Ages, Jews were normally depicted as having red hair, for example.)

My East Anglian informant notes that historically there was a high proportion of nonconformists (or dissenters) in the local population. Amongst them at one time was my great-great-grandmother, Caroline Sturgeon, who was born in the village of Coney Weston in Suffolk.

Was Sturgeon originally a Jewish name? I suspect so, but my evidence is circumstantial. The fish in question is mainly known as a source of caviar, but the flesh is also eaten. Sturgeon flesh was popular, especially amongst European Jewish communities, despite doubts concerning its kosher status. There was, in fact, a bitter dispute about the fish between orthodox and conservative Jews during the 19th century.

What’s more, some of our Sturgeons had very unusual Old Testament-based given names.

There are still Sturgeons in the area, and Hinderclay church has Sturgeon burials. Winfarthing churchyard was also mentioned as having a lot of Anglo-Jewish names. (“Perhaps as trades people there were sufficient funds to afford the burials skewing the apparent ratio proportions to general population.”)

One reason for the relatively high proportion of nonconformists amongst the local population in past centuries was that the immigration of professional weavers from Flanders and Wallonia was encouraged. They mostly belonged to nonconformist Protestant sects and many would have had Jewish origins. They were known locally as “strangers”. (See the history of Strangers’ Hall in Norwich.)

I referred in my previous post to George Eliot’s novel, Silas Marner: The Weaver of Raveloe. The main character – from the North of England – travels to the Midlands. He is presented as having an alien appearance and as belonging to a dissenting sect. And his mother’s given name was Hephzibah.

Richard Cobbold’s Biography of a Victorian Village was recommended to me. It describes the Suffolk village of Wortham circa 1860 and includes details of each family and their means of living.

According to my informant, most of the shop surnames in his area were English names which are known to be commonly indicative of Jewish origins. (Most of them, he said, appear on a list which I published some time ago.)

And so to the East Anglian names he happened to mention in his letters (apart from Sturgeon)…

“Bird names Crow(e), Bird, Swan, Heron, Starling, Dove, Finch and Wren are in my experience wholly Jewish.”

Also noted as local families claiming Jewish ancestry were Raven, Eagle, Sparrow, Partridge and Crane.

Harries was also mentioned as Jewish and Simmonds (which is another name in the East Anglian branch of my family) as probably Jewish.

My correspondent also listed some other names which (he said) might be worth looking at. I haven’t had time to check them yet, but my first thought is that most of these names would probably not have any significant Jewish connections. But I may be wrong. The names are: Bradbury, Bradley, Bush, Clarke, Comer, Flowerdew, Fuller, Hines, Ives, Leeder, Mills, Oakes, Potter, Scoggins, Strudwick, Ward and Wright. Also mentioned were three other bird names: Drake, Gosling and Nightingale.

If you have any thoughts on any of this, please don’t hesitate to comment or send an email (engmar3 at gmail dot com).

Jews and Dissenters in England and Wales

A correspondent with Jewish ancestors who lives in East Anglia and has family connections to Wales has provided some fascinating information about the Jewish presence in England and Wales as well as offering speculations about the significance of particular surnames. This is the first of (probably) several posts summarizing the main points of our discussion.

One recurring theme was the possible links between Jews and nonconformists (or dissenters from the established Church of England). My correspondent told of an encounter with a Welsh-born woman who had been raised "chapel" (i.e. as a nonconformist Christian) but who was, in effect, a crypto-Jew. Crypto-Jews were common especially amongst Sephardic populations, but I was surprised that the phenomenon persisted in Great Britain until well into the 20th century. This Welsh woman had been outwardly conforming to the standard (Christian) culture of her environment, but was well aware of her Jewish origins. She recalled that after Sunday school at her chapel, the pastor (who was obviously Jewish himself) had given her extra lessons so that she could "carry the torch" of Jewish lore, religion and identity to the next generation.

It is well-known that some synagogues were built in the Welsh chapel style; but it seems that even some Christian chapels had strong Jewish links.

Some of my ancestors were Pembers. George Hawkins Pember was not a direct ancestor but he came from precisely the same part of England as my Pembers – the cathedral city of Hereford (which is, as it happens, only 16 miles from the Welsh border). G.H. Pember was a theologian and religious author associated with the Plymouth Brethren. A scholar of Hebrew, his focus was on Old Testament prophesies etc.. I suspect that the Pembers were originally Jewish and that the name may derive from the Jewish name, Pemper. This is speculative however.

I am reminded here also of George Eliot's novel, Silas Marner, which I have written about previously. The word 'Jew' isn't mentioned but Silas is depicted as having an alien appearance and he has stereotypically Jewish traits. He is a weaver, and (as I will be discussing in a subsequent post) Jews were strongly associated with the textile business. He doesn't attend church and is totally unfamiliar with the rites and rituals of the Church of England. He is portrayed as belonging not to a specifically Jewish community but to a weird religious sect on the fringes of society. The author later wrote the novel, Daniel Deronda, which explicitly deals with the problems faced by Jews in Victorian times.

[Llanelli Synagogue was built in typical Welsh chapel style.]

Sephardic Jews in England

A correspondent from Florida writes: "... [M]y ancestry includes English people named Abram (and originally Abraham) from the North Meols area. When I took my DNA test there were no Eastern European genes, but there was Iberian."

The area in question (North Meols, Lancashire) is, on the face of it, not a very likely place to find Jewish families, being rural and having Norse connections. But the name Abram/Abraham is usually Jewish and the Iberian DNA supports this.

One of the main points I have made in previous posts is that I believe that the extent of Jewish immigration into Britain, especially from Spain and Portugal, has been seriously underestimated.

There is arguably little surviving documentary evidence of these migrations, but genetic research is providing new data which will enable us to build a much more accurate historical narrative, one which may well change the way many of us perceive our cultural and ethnic identities.

Assimilating Jews in England and Ireland

A few more thoughts on Jewish migration to Britain [from my Google+ Collection, Jewish Identity]. My focus (for personal reasons) is on those who made the move before the middle of the 19th century.

One point I want to raise relates to a topic that came up recently in a comment on my blog post 'English Jewish surnames'. A commenter mentioned that his/her gentile great-grandfather had been lodging with a Jewish family in Birmingham and married a daughter of that family. They moved to Hertfordshire and became Christian spiritualists.

My speculation is that assimilating Jews were often drawn to nonconformist or marginal sects rather than mainstream churches. The 19th-century novelist George Eliot had a sympathetic interest in Jews, and explicitly wrote about them in Daniel Deronda. But I am also thinking of an earlier book of hers, Silas Marner. The book doesn't mention Jews or Judaism but the main character is obviously being presented as a Jew. I won't go into detail but he is described as having an alien appearance and as belonging to a slightly weird, quasi-Christian sect and as being unfamiliar with the rituals of the Church of England. He is a weaver by trade. (Jews were often involved in textile-related businesses, including weaving.)

Another point... Russell is a Norman name and one would normally expect families with this name to trace their roots back to the Norman invaders of the 11th century. But, in following up some Russell ancestors of mine, I came across a reference (in a book called The Families of County Dublin) to some Russells who lived in Dublin in the 18th century and who were merchants and weavers. Significantly, they were neither Catholics nor Episcopalians (the majority of Irish people were Catholic and there was a large Episcopalian minority). These Russells were Quakers.

There were also some notable Russells who were very active in Cork, merchants most of them. At least one was a draper. Some had links with Lisbon and one at least had business interests in (and travelled to) Brazil. This suggests to me that they were Sephardic Jews who had Portuguese roots, and that they may have simply adopted the name Russell and may not have had any connection to the Normans at all. (Russell is sometimes said to be a possible Sephardic name, but I don't have reliable information on this.)

Alternatively Portuguese Jews could have married into an established Russell family of that region, but I have found no evidence of this.

English Jewish surnames revisited

[This page remains active with the names list being periodically updated and comments welcome.]

As I have mentioned previously, some of the names of my (English) forebears would seem to indicate Jewish origins, and I would like to make a few general comments on the topic of Jewish immigration and surnames in the English-speaking world.

It's difficult to find good information on the history of Jewish assimilation in England. Jewish leaders naturally see the preservation of their religious and cultural heritage as paramount and often speak disparagingly of those who, over the centuries, intermarried with Christians and adopted Christianity or drifted away from religion altogether. And many who write on Jewish history take a similar line: Jewish culture and tradition are what they are interested in.

The stigma associated with assimilation is understandable, as it was only a strong sense of community that kept Jewish beliefs and customs alive in a world which lacked a Jewish homeland. But, as a consequence of the focus on synagogues and communities which maintained their religious heritage, I suspect that the standard histories of Jews in England underestimate the real number of immigrants with Jewish origins, in particular those descended from Jews from the Iberian peninsula. There were particularly significant migrations during the 16th and 17th centuries.

Many people are interested not so much in Jewish religion and culture as in their own family histories, or, for that matter, in the ethnic history of their country. They see assimilated Jews not in terms of their ancestral religion or culture but rather as individuals who contributed to the broader culture of the country in which they chose to live.

New methods of genetic analysis* are revolutionizing the way we trace our ancestors. For the present, however, most of us rely on traditional records and, where records do not exist, on names and the clues that names can give of ethnic or geographic origins.

Unfortunately, Jewish naming practices make it very difficult for researchers. In many parts of Europe, Jews maintained their traditional practice of assigning patronymics and were slow to adopt the practice of giving permanent family names. For this and other reasons (such as the lack of a homeland, persecution and discrimination), Jews have been more inclined to adopt new or modified surnames than most other peoples.

Of course, in English-speaking countries, certain surnames - often German or Hebraic – are well-known as indicating Jewish origins. [A fairly good list is here. And here is a good explanatory article on the origins of Ashkenazic last names.] But Jewish immigrants often modified foreign-sounding names or chose English surnames, and some names were favored over others.

I have compiled a list of surnames based on my own (limited) knowledge and research. I emphasize that these names do not necessarily indicate Jewish origins, and some are more strongly indicative than others. I have excluded almost all Biblical (Hebrew), Polish and most German and other obviously non-English names and intend to refine the list over time, deleting names with only tenuous claims to be here and adding others. Comments and suggestions, either via this site or to my email address**, are welcome.

Abrams, Adams, Albert, Allen, Alexander, Alpert, Ames, Amsterdam, Angel, Ansell, Archer, Arnold, Asher, Asherson, Astley, Avery, Baker, Ball, Banks, Barber, Barkin, Barnard, Barnett, Baron, Barr, Barret, Barrett, Barron, Barrow (sometimes from Baruch), Bart, Barton, Bass, Batt, Beck, Becker, Beer, Belcher, Bell, Bellman, Belman, Belmont, Benedict, Bennet, Benson, Bentley, Bernard, Berry, Bickel, Bickell, Bickle, Bird, Bissell (from German Biesel, or Yiddish), Blond, Bloomfield, Black, Blacker, Blackman, Blackwell, Bland, Blank, Block, Blue, Bolton, Booker, Bookman, Bowman (from Bauman(n)), Brand, Bray, Brayer, Briar, Brice, Brier, Brill, Brilliant, Briscoe, Brock, Brody, Brooks, Broomfield, Brower, Brown, Buckley, Burstin, Bush, Byrd, Cain, Cap, Cape, Capp, Carpenter, Carr, Carter, Chandler, Chaplin, Chester, Chetwynd (an old English name adopted by some families), Cline, Cobb, Coe (from Cohen?), Cole, Coleman, Colman, Cook (from Koch?), Cooke, Cooper, Cope, Copeland (from Kaplan), Copland (from Kaplan), Cove, Cowan (from Cohen), Crane, Crawford, Cripps, Crossman, Crouch, Cutler, Darley, David, Davidson, Davies, Davis, Diamond, Dove, Draper, Durant, Eastman, Ellis, Ellman, Elman, Elton, Fain (from Feinman(n) or Feinstein), Faine (from Feinman(n) or Feinstein), Falk, Feldman, Finch, Fine (from Feinman(n) or Feinstein), Finniston (from Feinstein), Firestone (from Feuerstein), Fish, Fisher, Foreman, Forman, Forster, Foster, Fox, Frank, Franks, Fredman, Freedman, Freeman, Froman, Gardner, Garfield, Garland, Gilbert, Glass, Gold, Golden, Golding, Goldsmith, Good, Goodman, Goodwin, Gordon (from Grodno, Lithuania or from the Russian word gorodin (townsman)), Gould, Gray, Green, Greenfield, Greenwood, Grey, Gross, Hacker, Hale (as variant spelling of Ashkenazic Halle), Halperin (from Heilbronn, Germany), Halpern (see Halperin), Hancock, Harding, Harman, Harris, Harrison, Harlow, Hart, Hartman, Harvey, Harwood, Hayman, Heller (from Halle, Germany), Helman, Hendler, Henry, Hering, Herring, Hickman, Hill, Hiller, Hilton, Hodges, Holden, Holder, Holland, Hollander (from a town in Lithuania settled by the Dutch?), Holman, Holt, Holton, Hook, Hooker, Horn, Horne, Horner, Horton, Horwich (from town in Bohemia (Horowitz/Horovice)), Howard (from town in Bohemia (Horowitz/Horovice)), Hurwich (see Horwich), Hyams, Hyatt, Hyman, Ivory, Jackson, Jarvis (sometimes from the Eastern European Javitz, as in the case of the family of the American philosopher Judith Jarvis Thomson), Jewel, Jewell, Jones (from Jonas or Jonah), Kane, Kay, Kaye, Kennard, Kerr, King (from Koenig), Kline, Knight (possibly from Sephardic names Cabalero/Caballero/Cabaliero = knight or horseman), Lambert, Landon, Landis, Lane, Lang, Langer, Langerman, Langley, Langman, Lawrence, Lawson, Leavit, Leavitt, Lee, Leigh, Leonard, Leslie, Lester, Levin, Levine, Levett, Levitt, Lewin, Lewis, Libson (eastern Ashkenazic metronymic), Lincoln, Lipson (eastern Ashkenazic patronymic or in some cases variation of Lipschitz (Polish town)), Lipton, Little, London, Long, Lott, Low, Lowe, Lowy, Lucas, Lyon, Lyons, Lytton, Mack, Mander, Manders, Mann, Manson (from Mankiewicz), Marchant, Marcus (from Marx), Marks (from Marx), Marlow, Marlowe, Marshall, Marty (Sephardic), Mason, Maurice, Maxwell, May, Mayman, Merchant, Michael, Michell, Miller, Millman, Milman, Milner, Mitchell, Montague, Morris, Moss, Moyse, Myer, Myers, Nelson, New, Newman, Newmark, Nichol, Nicholl, Nicholls, Nichols, Nobel, Norman, Oliver, Paley, Palmer, Park, Parker, Parrish, Parsons, Paul, Pavey, Pearl, Pearlman, Peavey, Peavy, Peck, Pember (from Pemper), Perkins, Perry (from Pereira), Pepper, Peters, Phillip, Phillips, Pine, Pinner, Pinter, Pittman, Platt, Polk, Pollard, Pollock, Pool, Poole, Porter, Portman, Posner, Powers, Price, Priest, Prince, Rae, Raine, Raines, Randall, Ray, Raye, Raymond, Raynor, Reed, Rees, Reid, Rendel, Rest, Rice, Rich, Robbins (see Robin), Robert, Roberts, Robertson, Robin (from Reuben, Rabinowitz, Rubinstein, etc.), Robins (see Robin), Robinson (see Robin), Ronson, Rose, Rosefield, Ross, Roth, Rothman, Rothwell, Ruby, Russell (sometimes indicative of Sephardic heritage), Sacks, Salmon, Salman, Sams, Sand, Sanders, Sandler, Sands, Sassoon, Saunders, Saville, Saxon, Sefton, Selwyn, Sharman, Sharp (from German Scharf (= sharp-witted); or perhaps Shapiro), Sharpe (see Sharp), Shaw, Shayne, Sher (Ashkenazic, from word for scissors or shears as used by tailors), Sherman, Sherwood, Shields, Shinwell, Shore (from Schorr), Short, Silk, Sills, Silver, Silverstone, Simkin, Simkins, Simmonds, Simmons, Simon, Simons, Simpkin, Simpkins, Sims, Sinclair, Singer, Singleton, Sless, Sloman, Smith, Snell (from the German name Schnell), Snider (from word for tailor), Snyder (from word for tailor), Somers, Sommer, Sommers, Speed (from the German name Schnell), Spelling, Sperling, Spurling, Stainer (from Steiner?), Stanley, Stark (from Yiddish Shtark = strong), Starr, Sterling, Stone, Strong (translation of Yiddish Shtark?), Sugar, Summers, Sumner, Swan, Swann, Swanson, Syme, Symes, Symonds, Taft (from Tugendhaft), Tate, Taylor, Temple, Trilling, Tucker, Turner, Uren, Vale, Waddell, Walker, Wall, Waller, Walt, Walter, Walters, Ward, Wardle, Waterman (from Wascherman or Wasserman(n)), Watt, Watts, Webber, Weller, Whaley, White, Whiteman, Whitman, Wideman, Wiley, Winner, Winston, Winters, Winton, Wise, Wolf, Wolfson, Woolf, Worley, Yarrow (from Yaroshavitz), Yates, Young, Younger.



* I suspect that DNA analysis is going to present an unwelcome and challenging picture for those who wish to maintain a simple concept of Jewish ethnicity. Of course, it is well known that the population groups which have formed the Jewish people over the centuries have been geographically divided and genetically diverse, so it will come as no surprise if there are no clear genetic markers for Jewish ethnicity. What DNA analysis will do, however, is to indicate how particular populations have maintained continuity or merged with neighbouring populations.

** engmar3 at gmail dot com.

*** It is difficult to know whether to include here such common English names as 'Harris' which in the majority of cases is not Jewish, but which has been adopted by Jews. Preliminary Y-DNA results may be of interest. Y-DNA results for Harris (based on 465 samples) reflect standard Western European/Scandinavian patterns (haplogroups R1b1 and I1), though there are also instances of haplotypes characteristic of Eastern European, Mediterranean, Middle Eastern and African populations. But even names which are more identifiably Jewish (e.g. Silver) are often associated with the R1b1 haplogroup.

**** Note an interesting surname change in the late nineteenth century from Raby to Simmonds.

English Jewish surnames

[See also 'English Jewish surnames revisited'.]

My late father had a special interest in Jewish history and a very positive attitude towards Jews (unlike his brother whose belief in an international Jewish conspiracy was unshakable).

My paternal grandparents and great-grandparents were either Roman Catholics or members of the Church of England and there was no suggestion of any awareness of Jewish ancestry. But, oddly, virtually all my father's friends were either Jewish (surnames: Pittman, Babel, Mossenson ...) or had surnames which are often indicative of Jewish ancestry (Miller, Bloomfield, Rees ...).

Even his barber was Jewish (of German origin) and, when Dad retired due to ill health, the hairdresser (whose shop was near his office) gave him a card with a touching note in which he referred to himself as my father's "devoted Freund."

I never talked to my father about these matters as I only began to take an interest in them after his death. Was he aware of the possibility of Jewish ancestry? Perhaps. Did his Jewish friends suspect that his family was Jewish or part Jewish? This is very possible. In an early photograph my rather anti-Semitic uncle bears an uncanny resemblance to Franz Kafka!

In fact there are surnames in my family tree, mainly on my father's side, which do suggest Jewish origins. Beck, Fisher and Langman, for example.

English names have been adopted by Jewish immigrants over the centuries. The migrations of the 19th and 20th centuries are well known. Earlier waves of Jewish immigration are less well documented. Many descendants of Sephardic Jews from the Iberian peninsula settled in the British Isles in the 16th and 17th centuries and gradually assimilated into the Christian mainstream.

Amongst the names of my forebears which I am looking at in this regard in addition to the names mentioned above are Davis, Lester, Harris, Michell, Moyse; and also English, Pember, Russell, Sturgeon and Ward. I am not just relying on names, however. Family stories also give some support to the idea of Jewish connections.