Henwood Facts, Origins and Famous R-M269 People

Nadene Goldfoot                                                                                                                                
                                                                                                       

 Familytreedna out of Houston, Texas,  has a group that is working on the surname of Henard and Henwood  that Steve Henwood belongs to.  So far there are just 6 members.  No other Henwood has been tested that matches Steve.  

 "This project's goal is to determine the origin and relationship of the Henard family. The surname and variants are found in France, Ireland, the UK, the USA, Canada, Belgium, The Netherlands, and Germany. Many common spellings are Henard, Hennard, Hynard, Hinnert, Hinnaert, and Henwood. Several uncommon first names were used by the Henards of Eastern Tennessee, the Henwoods of Cornwall, and the Henwoods of the Canadian Maritimes. Elijah is one of the uncommon names and was used for several generations until the late 19th Century."

Steve's line came mainly from Hampshire, England as I can tell. He hasn't connected with any from Cornwall, which is a peninsula off of the island of England. 

This surname is derived from a geographical locality. 'of Henwood.' There is a tithing of this name in the parish HENWOOD  of Cumnor, Berkshire.  There is also a hamlet of HENWOOD in east Cornwall.  I've found lots of Henwoods on ancestry.com from Cornwall, England.  
The most Henwood have been found in the following places: 

South Africa	1,552  people	1: 34,795 Frequency	4,212
England	1,522	1: 35,480	4,847
United States	1,384	1: 231,409	22,662
Australia	1,107	1: 21,288	2,798
Swaziland	1,019	1: 1,244	142
Canada	913	1: 38,803	4,869
New Zealand	525

There are 8,546 people with this surname in the world.  It would be nice if some more came to be tested with FTDNA.  2,320 are in the UK where Steve's surname originated with his paternal grandfather, Charles Ernest Henwood,  who was from Winchfield, Hartley Wintney Row, County of Hampshire, England.  

                                                      

" Cornwall is a peninsula bordered to the north and west by the Celtic Sea,^] to the south by the English Channel, and to the east by the county of Devon, over the River Tamar."

"Hampshire is a county on the southern coast of England in the United Kingdom. The county town of Hampshire is Winchester, the former capital city of England."

There are 5 people listed that match Steve with dna starting with Hen.  2 different surnames do match with each other.  That gives the prefix of Hen some serious attention.  

Out of these 5, Steve's mother matched with 3 of them, so they could come from her family.  
Out of these same 3, Steve' mother's brother matched with 2 of the 3.  

A possible relative is " Doug Henwood b: 1952, American journalist.

Steve's line of Y haplogroup is called R-M269. It's also called R1b1a2.   "The explosion of R-M269 descendants who (seemingly) went from zero to a solid majority in much of Western Europe over the last few thousand years is probably one of the most interesting events in recent European history. Not many would have entertained such a possibility until a few years ago, but truth is often stranger than fiction.

• Nicholas II (1868-1918), last Russian Tsar had this 
• haplogroup.  

• Charles Darwin, relative Y-DNA

  Charles Darwin belonged to Haplogroup R1b, based on a sample from his great-great-grandson. (assuming paternity being as the family argues)

  John Adams and John Quincy Adams, descendant Y-DNA

  United States presidents John Adams and his son John Quincy Adams belonged to Y-DNA haplogroup R1b. (assuming paternity matches the reported genealogy).

• Franklin Pierce and James Buchanan

  belonged to Y-DNA haplogroup R1b1.

• Spencer Wells

  Spencer Wells, the project director of The Genographic Project, is a member of haplogroup R1b.

• Tutankhamun, 18th Dynasty of Egypt, presumed ancient Y-STR

  Y-STR testing on some of the related male Mummies of the 18th Dynasty of Egypt (ca. 1550–1292 BC) predicted them to belong toR1b-M269 However the Y-chromosome of King Tut (ruled ca. 1332 BC) has never been published, and his DNA profile was reconstructed at Zurich-based DNA genealogy centre, iGENEA, based on some screencaps from a Discovery Channel documentary that may or may not belong to the Pharaoh
• Y-STR extracted from a bloodstained shirt of Nicholas II of Russia (1868–1918) has been predicted as having an R1b haplotype.Testing of descendants of the greatgreatgrandfather Nicholas I of Russia (1796–1855) has confirmed the haplotype. 
• Possible Y-DNA ancestor is Christian I of Denmark (1426-1481) from the influential Royal House of Oldenburg with many branches that rule or have ruled in Denmark, Russia, Greece, Norway, Schleswig, Holstein, Oldenburg and Sweden.
• Update: from Mike Henard: "It seems like they used it to avoid detection during the Acadian Deportation in the mid 1750s. I actually remember seeing that name in Barcelona when I went years ago. It was on a billboard so it caught my attention. I still didn’t know much about my family beyond 1796 at that point. It made me look into the Moriscos as a possible origin of our family. I now know that the first Henard was a landowner near Paris in 1202. He was captured during one of the Crusades  so his name was recorded in a history of the area. 
  
  I have a very different DNA group from your son but one that is also found in Cornwall. I checked your son’s markers and he may be in the sub group R-Z12 downstream of R-M269. My group is R-DF85 and is found below R-M22. Some intensive tests are being run on my kit again because my most distant ancestor comes from an area known to be related to a Celtic tribe that lived in Cornwall, Brittany, and Scotland/Ireland. DNA testing is illegal in France and not everyone there is really interested in it. I still haven’t had a response to the message boards again but hopefully someone will happen to stop by and respond. I know it can take years on some of those boards.
  
  Mike Henard

Resource: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornwall
http://forebears.io/surnames/henwood
http://dienekes.blogspot.com/2014/02/recent-radiation-of-r-m269-males-in.html

Where Did the Name "Henwood" Come From?

Nadene Goldfoot                                              

Nadene Goldfoot
I may have surgically operated on the surname of Henwood a little too deeply, but it is an interesting name.  I find it hard to picture the significance of a wooden hen unless it was a sign used to sell eggs.  So I looked the surname up in my book, Finding Our Fathers-a guidebook to Jewish Genealogy by Dan Rottenberg, and this is what I found.

The first syllable, HEN, is a surname related to GRACIAN.  That looks like a Spanish name.  Back in 1492 when Columbus sailed the ocean blue, the Spanish Inquisition was also starting.  It was a time that Jews had to either convert or leave.  Some didn't leave for various reasons;  too old, had a business they didn't want to leave, etc.  So the decided to go through conversions in Catholicism but stay Jewish anyway.  They hid their true religion and its practices, like not eating pork, lighting candles on Friday night to start the Sabbath, and other things.  They were called the nasty word, "Marranos," which today we say Anusim.

GRACIAN was a prominent Spanish family descended from Judah ben Barsilai.  Members lived chiefly at Barcelona from the 13th through 16th centuries.  Most used the name HEN.  Jewish Encyclopedia has 14 biographies.  It is related to NASI, TRABOT.

WOOD, the 2nd syllable could be showing a union of 2 families of Hen and wood.  They are related to HAYS.
HAYS was a Dutch family that emigrated to America in early 18th century.  Jewish Encyclopedia has a family tree and numerous biographies.  Also see records of Myers, Hays and Mordecai Families from 1707 to 1913.  Related to WOOD.

Sephardi Jews from Spain were living in Holland.  Many had business there..  As a result of the Alhambra Decree and the Inquisition, many Sephardim(Spanish and Portuguese Jews) left the Iberian peninsula at the end of the 15th century and throughout the 16th century, in search of religious freedom. 

Some migrated to the newly independent Dutch provinces which welcomed the Sephardic Jews.

I've thought that possibly my ex-husband's ancestors had been Marranos who lived in Holland, but my son's DNA test results show no Ashkenazi or Sephardi DNA.  I'm not sure if I transfer his results into GedMatch some would show up under a higher magnifying or not.  Family Tree is pretty good at finding such minute things.  23 and Me found I carry 2.9% of Neanderthal genes.  I'm quite positive that Family Tree could have found some Sephardi DNA.  Come to think of it, they should have showed that as I am Ashkenazi. and the results didn't mention that, either!    Hmmm.  Well, it was a stretch.  I did trace Henwood back 13 generations from my ex-husband  to Medstead, Hamshire, England with John and Ann Henwood born 1538.   Now, where were they 46 years earlier in 1492?

Not that there is any actual connection, but Wes, my ex-husband, did move to Central America in his middle and senior years and study Spanish,  probably until his dying day there in Honduras.   .

Update: 9/7/15:    There are 8,546 Henwoods in the world.

Resource: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sephardic_Jews_in_the_Netherlands
http://forebears.io/surnames/henwood
http://www.britishsurnames.co.uk/surname/henwood/stats   very interesting website