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Archiver > ALT-GENEALOGY > 2000-08 > 0965280975


From: "Richard A. Pence" <>
Subject: Re: on Genealogy Warning
Date: Thu, 3 Aug 2000 01:36:15 -0400


"borray" <> wrote in message
news:Q43i5.553619$...
> The reason for the namechange is clear to me.
> That ancester wanted to become a member of the citycouncil,
> and exaxtly on the date he became a member he changed his
> name. The documents before, he used borray and after he used
> borra.

I would suggest to you that in the early 1600s the significance of this is
that on the date the city got a new council it also got a new clerk - and
the new one simply spelled the name differently than the previous one.

> Also out off those days I have the laws that forbid the jews in
> that city to have those kind of public functions.

To sustain that theory, you would have to demonstrate that (1) there were
disticntive Jewish (Borray) and non-Jewish (Borra) in the city, that (2)
this distinction was generally known and (3) a change in how the name was
spelled was all that was necessary to move from one group to the other. I
don't think so - but stranger things have happened.

> My problem starts in 1600, but I cannot find in the 'Sephardic
> connection' of those days the name borray . I used copernic
> 2000 to find borray all over the world and I discovered a few in
> north-america and I heared from them that they came from
> south-america and I found a man in Israel with the name borray
> who told that the name came from Syria and was used by
> Jewish and some Arabic families.

> This is the point I stand now, do you have any suggestions?

Pieter:

My suggestion would be to abandon attempts to discover earlier generations
by surname matching. The number of paths this type of research can take your
down are endless and seldom, if ever, fruitful.

The only accurate way to determine ancestry is to trace back generation by
generation. I suspect that in your case, you may be close to reaching the
proverbial "brick wall" because you have reached a time when few written
records were kept (except for the highest nobility) and, further, a time
when surnames were just being adopted in many cultures. I certainly am no
scholar of Jewish naming patterns, but I recall reading, for instance, that
in Russia those of the Jewish faith used only their Jewish given names until
mandated to adopt surnames following the revolution of 1917. (It might be
worth it to examine the laws regarding surnames if any such exist.)

Regards,
Richard A. Pence, 3211 Adams Ct, Fairfax, VA 22030
Voice 703-591-4243 Fax 703-385-0971
Pence Family History <http://www.pipeline.com/~richardpence/&g

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