Origins of Names, Geographical Origins and Genetic Origins

We present here overviews of our genealogical origins. There are three types of origins to consider:

 

• Origins of names.

 

Names currently include DREIFUSS, BERNHEIM, HESS, KLESS, GARFINKEL, SCHNEIDER and EISENSTADT

Did you know that although many Sephardic Jews adopted civic surnames before the late 15th century, Ashkenazi Jews only adopted surnames in the early 19th century? This coincided with the granting of certain individual and group liberties to Jews throughout most of the world. The names selected by Jews were often based on geographical origins, patronymic origins, occupations and even physical attributes.

An important concept for genealogists (and one that frequently comes up regarding the many alternative spellings for the name Dreifuss) is that spelling of names was never important until the 20th century. Spelling was not important when many people were illiterate. For example a Jew in Russia in the19th century would frequently speak and might be able to write Yiddish but would often not be able to write it for a Census taker who would write a transliteration of the name in Cyrillic script.

 

• Geographical Origins.

 

We discuss the towns of birth and/or residence of many of our ancestors.

 

• Genetic Origins.

 

Extracting meaningful information from our DNA for at reasonable cost for genealogy is now here although it is probably in the early phases. Here we will try to explain the basics in layman terms how we have benefited from it, where we hope to go with it and some of the evolving studies that are ongoing.  We also present which subgroups of our genealogical data are working on this and how more participation will help us.