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Hats Off wrote:But I do have a cousin who is in prison after being charged with murdering his common law wife and her daughter.

Did that case ever get settled? I don't think I ever learned the results.

Haven't heard anything recently.

Some Mennonite names are also Ashkenazi surnames. Garber, Wenger, Lehman, Roth, Bomberger are a few that come to mind.

According to the Wenger Book there was an oral tradition among earlier generations that the Mennonite Wengers were originally Jewish. If Familytreedna is to be believed I have about 3% Ashkenazi/Iberian/Middle Eastern aDNA so there may be something to it.

There is a dark streak in our family which I can trace back five generations in family photos to the Lehman side, which made we wonder if we have some Native admixture. (Strangers often assume that my sister is Metis.) However FTDNA finds no sign of that in my genes, but rather about 25% Southeast European which probably accounts for it.

My wife on the other hand tests out 2% Native American and East Asian, which sounds about right since she is French Canadian.

temporal1 wrote: if i understand you, this is something i've wondered about, i.e., when folks "set sail" for (America) they would gather at certain locations to board ships. i've wondered if it was common for people to become known as coming from these points of departure, rather than their true prior residence? .. they may have been at the point of departure for days-weeks-months (?) ..

Not likely. Nobody would depart for America from the Isle of Wight, there simply were not the facilities for provisioning a ship for a journey across the Western Ocean. And nobody has ever suggested that my family originate from "Gravesend" (from which the ship "James" and many, many others carried immigrants to the Western colonies.)

haithabu wrote:Some Mennonite names are also Ashkenazi surnames. Garber, Wenger, Lehman, Roth, Bomberger are a few that come to mind.

According to the Wenger Book there was an oral tradition among earlier generations that the Mennonite Wengers were originally Jewish. If Familytreedna is to be believed I have about 3% Ashkenazi/Iberian/Middle Eastern aDNA so there may be something to it.

There is a dark streak in our family which I can trace back five generations in family photos to the Lehman side, which made we wonder if we have some Native admixture. (Strangers often assume that my sister is Metis.) However FTDNA finds no sign of that in my genes, but rather about 25% Southeast European which probably accounts for it.

My wife on the other hand tests out 2% Native American and East Asian, which sounds about right since she is French Canadian.

It should be noted that Ashkenazi Jews are all descended originally from proselytes and have no direct connection to the Children of Israel of the OT.

gcdonner wrote:

haithabu wrote:Some Mennonite names are also Ashkenazi surnames. Garber, Wenger, Lehman, Roth, Bomberger are a few that come to mind.

According to the Wenger Book there was an oral tradition among earlier generations that the Mennonite Wengers were originally Jewish. If Familytreedna is to be believed I have about 3% Ashkenazi/Iberian/Middle Eastern aDNA so there may be something to it.

There is a dark streak in our family which I can trace back five generations in family photos to the Lehman side, which made we wonder if we have some Native admixture. (Strangers often assume that my sister is Metis.) However FTDNA finds no sign of that in my genes, but rather about 25% Southeast European which probably accounts for it.

My wife on the other hand tests out 2% Native American and East Asian, which sounds about right since she is French Canadian.

It should be noted that Ashkenazi Jews are all descended originally from proselytes and have no direct connection to the Children of Israel of the OT.

You're referring to the Khazar hypothesis, the idea that the Ashkenazim are descended from Khazar converts in Eastern Europe? Most reputable historians have dismissed this idea, and it's also been exploited by anti-Semitic groups. Genetic studies show no substantive evidence of this - instead, they show that Ashkenazim and other groups of Jews share a common Middle Eastern ancestry. So I don't think we should want to lend unnecessary credence to myths used by antisemites.

I've done some research of my ancestry on Ancestry.com. I haven't found a lot of diversity - nearly all paths lead back to Switzerland, and maybe a couple to Germany. The most interesting thing I found was that I'm descended from at least three of Jacob Hochstetler's children (the family in the Hochstetler Massacre). Also through both my dad and my mom I'm descended from someone known as the Widow Barbara Yoder, who lost her husband at sea on the trip to America in 1742.

buckeyematt2 wrote:Also through both my dad and my mom I'm descended from someone known as the Widow Barbara Yoder, who lost her husband at sea on the trip to America in 1742.

Ah, then we are approximately 7th cousins.

Perhaps this might be a little off topic, but I was at the grocery store standing in line and while I was waiting I was looking at the candy bar section. Now I know the history of the Hersheys and their Mennonite roots, but then something else dawned on me, Mr. Goodbars. Does anyone know if Hershey named this candy after a Mr. Good of the Good Mennonite family?

Haystack wrote:Perhaps this might be a little off topic, but I was at the grocery store standing in line and while I was waiting I was looking at the candy bar section. Now I know the history of the Hersheys and their Mennonite roots, but then something else dawned on me, Mr. Goodbars. Does anyone know if Hershey named this candy after a Mr. Good of the Good Mennonite family?

According to the Hershey Archives,

Actually, it was Mr. Hershey who really came up with the name. Someone said, 'That's a good bar.' And his (Mr. Hershey's) hearing being a little bad, he thought they said, Mr. Goodbar. So he named it Mr. Goodbar.