Re: [Cz-L] Our Roots

Hi Andy, what a fascinating narrative to probe into he swiss cheese of our
past...

greetings from Amsterdam!

Sylvia

On Sun, Apr 22, 2012 at 9:07 AM, andy halmay <andy_venivici_at_yahoo.com>wrote=
:

>
> The dominating subject here for the past week or two has been genealogy,
> which is always fascinating. One of the problems in genealogy is that we
> show too little interest in it in our youth and by the time our interest
> peaks, all relatives who could have helped us get perspective have deceas=
ed.
>
> A distant cousin of mine showed up here after my mother died and told me
> of all sorts of relatives I have around the world including a branch that
> moved to Italy and converted, leaving me with a Catholic priest as a
> distant cousin. I would make up for that with an adopted cousin-in-law (a
> new category) as head of state of Israel. Mother=92s sister, my aunt Hil=
da,
> married a man named Schlosser and adopted his daughter, Leah, who married
> Yitzhak Rabin. So there!
>
> Later I began to realize that my cousin informant may have mixed up some
> family names. She thought my grandmother had been a Rauch but I later
> recalled that she had been a Hermann. So the priest connection may be
> fantasy. Once when I called her with some Cz questions, I was redirected
> by the operator to her son's telephone. I didn't know him. He informed
> that she had died. Naturally I was upset and when I asked what it was tha=
t
> did her in, he said, "It was nothing serious." When you get this kind of
> answer from a branch of your family, you tend to discount much of what th=
ey
> say.
>
> My maternal grandfather, Adolph Todres, died at age 27 when mother was tw=
o
> years old. All I know about him is that he was very handsome (from
> pictures) and that grandmother loved him very much and told her daughters
> what a wonderful man he was. Also, I was once told (vaguely) that his
> ancestors had come from Spain, presumably during the Inquisition.
>
> In the late 1980s, in preparation for a Columbus Quincentenary project in
> 1992, I did research on the Age of Discovery and Columbus. Here I came
> across the story of the Jew Luis de Torres who sailed with Columbus on th=
e
> first voyage as a translator and interpreter. Luis spoke Spanish, Hebrew=
,
> Aramaic, etc., and he would have been in the first lighter sent out from
> the Santa Maria anchored offshore. He was the first Jew to set foot in th=
e
> new world and because he would have wanted to impress the sailors and
> justify his position as a linguist and translator, he would not have
> addressed the local aboriginals with =93Buenos Dias.=94 Being Jewish, he=
 most
> likely addressed them with =93Shalom.=94 Thus the first word by a Europe=
an to
> a North American Indian was most likely, =93Shalom.=94
>
> Simon Wiesenthal, I am told, came to a similar conclusion in his book
> Sails of Hope.
>
> Now Columbus, himself, has been claimed to have been Spanish (Colon) and
> Italian (Colombo) and Jewish. And if as great a historical figure as
> Columbus leaves the historians and genealogists in confusion, what chance
> have we insignificant mortals?
>
> But since Todres and Torres are similar, I became excited about the
> possibility of being descended from Luis de Torres and thus did more
> research. It turns out that he converted to Catholicism before they
> sailed, possibly a pre-condition, and he settled in Cuba probably never t=
o
> return to Europe.
>
> Thirty odd years ago when I visited Santo Domingo in the Dominican
> Republic, some of Columbus bones had been interred in a crypt inside a
> stately 500 year old cathedral. On the floor of the cathedral there were=
 a
> number of grave stones from the 1500s laid flat on the floor. One of the=
se
> contained the remains of a Catholic woman named =93Cohen.=94 In their ru=
sh to
> convert, apparently, some didn=92t bother changing their names.
>
> Now it has come to my mind that the most famous individual ever to be bor=
n
> in Romania, Vlad Tepes, the Impaler, Prince Dracula, may also have been
> Jewish. If you Google him and add =93portrait=94 to your search you will=
 find
> a painting of him with a large mustache. As I stared at his face I got t=
he
> sense that I had seen him before and then I imagined him without that
> mustache. The resemblance was pronounced. He looks like George Gershwin=
.
> I once met the illegitimate son of George who was the spitting image of h=
is
> father and while their expressions were usually mild as opposed to
> Dracula=92s fierce look, the resemblance was striking. We have to remembe=
r
> that illegitimacy is also part of genealogy so since we are all from the
> same country, take a good look in the mirror. Do you have any resemblanc=
e
> to Dracula? No? Good. Relax.
>
> Where do I come from, please let me see
> What were they like who came before me?
> Will I be proud to learn of my past?
> Or will I regret that I probed and asked?
> Here am I now, but soon I=92ll be gone
> What is the meaning?
> Why carry on?
> Where do I come from?
> I=92ve got to know
> I=92ve got to dig it up and find my roots
> To get perspective before I go...
>
> Happy searching
> Andy
>
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Received on 2012-04-22 10:48:31