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Saturday, August 27, 2016

Hampshire and the First Henwood, A Saxon; History and Ydna

Nadene Goldfoot                                            
There are about 8,546 people in the world bearing Henwood as a surname.  They are living in England, the USA, Canada, South Africa and Australia 

Could it be that the first Henwood was Hengist, a Saxon?  Saxons came from Saxony in NW Germany who had settled in southern England where I found Henwood ancestors in Hampshire.  The tribe of the ATREBATES had lived in Hampshire.  "This was a British Celtic tribe occupying modern Berkshire and Hampshire, along with areas of West Sussex, western Surrey, and north-east Wiltshire." "Closely related to the north-western Gaulish tribe of Atrebates, they were at their most powerful in the first and second centuries BC. The name Atrebates means 'settlers' or 'inhabitants.'"
                                                                               
The Saxons' entrance happened in or just after 410 AD.  What had happened was was a leader of the British at that time, Vortigern,  invited the Saxon Hengist to protect him against some Picts of Scotland who were attacking him. "Hengist (or Hengest) and Horsa (or Hors) are figures of Anglo-Saxon history, which records the two as the Germanic brothers who led the AngleSaxonFrisian, and Jutish armies that conquered the first territories of Britain in the 5th century. Tradition lists Hengist (through his son, whose name varies by source) as the founder of the Kingdom of Kent.  The shingle beaches of Kent have yielded to the keels of Saxon warships.  

Vortigern was a treacherous tribal chieftain.  After the death of the rightful king, Constantine, Vortigern  needed to protect himself against a coming war, so had recruited this outside help.  He sighted the 3 ships in the Channel that were manned by the Saxon leader, Hengist who had been sent to seek settlements of their own.  Their homeland was no longer able to support them.  This happened at least once every 7 years.  They were promised land on which to settle for their military support and they would in return also get part of Lincolnshire, but then Vortigern wanted Hengist's daughter, Rowena in marriage.  In return he would give Hengist the earldom of Kent.  The Earl of Kent of course was not happy to hear about this! 

 The Britons were so angry when they heard about this offer that they made Vortimer, Vortigern's son from his 1st wife,  their king and expelled the Saxons from the shores.  Rowena was so angry that she ordered Vortimer to be poisoned and Vortigern is made king once more.  Hengist calls together many British earls and barons under Vortigern's patronage to  plan a peaceful blending into their societies  of his Saxons in Britain. 

 Everyone came unarmed.  Hengist  was treacherous and had his men carry a long knife hidden in their clothing.  At his signal,  the Saxons pulled out their knives and killed the Briton standing next to him.  Vortigern is banished by the Saxons to Wales and they took possession of England.   This is considered mythology and not accurate history of how the Saxons arrived and was completely transformed in later centuries.  .  

The monk, Gildas, was a recorder of history in about 540 with his "THE RUIN OF BRITAIN" and wrote, still showing hatred of Saxons, "To hold back the northern peoples, they introducted into the island the vile unspeakable Saxons, hated of God and man alike....of their own free will, they invited in under the same roof the enemy they feared worse than death."

Much later,  the West Saxons of Wessex , in a division of the southern part of Britain, divided southern
Britain into Hampshire, Wiltshire and Dorset.

The Saxons were different from the "barbarians" who finally defeated the Roman Empire within Europe.  The Saxons came from well outside the frontiers of the Empire and had completely different customs and social organizations to emphasize kinship and loyalty to relatives.  Their Gods were Norse ones; Tiw, Woden, Thor, Freya and are remembered in our days of the week-Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday.  They are also remembered in English place-names such as Tuesley in Surrey and Wednesbury in Staffordshire.

The Brits showed a strong resistance to the Saxons which culminated in the British victory around AD500  at Mons Badonicus where Geoffrey had King Arthur lead the Brits.  The Saxons moved north and were successful in taking land.Cornwall, where another branch of Henwood have been from, resisted the Saxons until the beginning of the 9th century, so it should be possible that the Henwood line was younger there than in southern England.

The language of English gets nothing from its Celtic roots but almost everything to its Germanic roots.  The Celtic language was replaced by English because the English Celts were simply wiped out or driven to the hills according to Bryan Sykes, researcher of DNA.
                                                                             
Saxons were then fighting against the Danes who had invaded and went on endlessly when King Aethelred ordered a massacre of all Danes in England in 1002.  It was an impossible task in those days but caused hysteria and violence.  The Danes living in Oxford, took refuge in a church which the citizens burned down, causing all the deaths.  The King of Denmark, Sweyn,  intervened at this attempted ethnic cleansing,  so then invaded England in 1013.  His son, Canute or Cnut, crushed the Saxon resistance in 1016 and became King of England!   He had to divide his time between Denmark and England.  Cnut died in 1035 and his son Harold took over for a few years until his death when his brother Harthacnut reined for 2 years before dying in 1042.  Then the Saxon king, Edward the Confessor, was king.  On October 14, 1066, King Harold's Saxon army were attacked by William, Duke of Normandy and his  heavy cavalry. This was the famous Norman Conquest.   Harold was killed by an arrow.  His men did not surrender but fought to the death and were all killed.  William had been given a claim to the English throne by Edward who had no children and had promised it to William.
                                                                                 
After the Norman Conquest of 1066, estates had insisted that men adopt surnames. 
 The reason given was so they could be told apart and that inheritance of land tenancies from father to son could be properly controlled.  By the end of the 13th century, the practice had spread throughout the land, and practically everyone in England had a forename and a surname.
                                                                             
"The surname Hen was first found in Sussex where the family held a family seat before the Norman Conquest of 1066.  The first Hen family lived in the parish of Heene, part of Worthing in the county of Sussex.  it could also be from HENRY.    "It's an English name, a habitational name from any of various places so named, as for example Henwood in Cornwall, in Linkinhorne parish, which is named from Old English henn ‘hen’, ‘wild bird’ + wudu ‘wood’, or Hen Wood in Wootton, Oxfordshire (formerly in Berkshire), which is named from Old English hiwan ‘religious community’ (genitive plural higna) + wudu.
Source: Dictionary of. " 13, Oxford University Press

                                                                           
The Ydna haplotype of our Henwood  whose grandfather was Charles Ernest Henwood of Hampshire is R1b1a2 or R=(M 269), now called R-L48.  It is the Western Atlantic Model Haplotype WAMH.  The farthest we have gone tracing the ancestor is  to John Henwood of 1538 in Medstead, Hampshire, England..


 Charles Ernest Henwood

1   Charles Ernest Henwood b: February 06, 1897 in Winchfield, Hartley Wintney Row, County of Hampshire, England
.. +Queenie Dorothy Disney b: December 25, 1899 in Hornchurch, Romford District,  Essex County,  England

Resource; Book:  Saxons, vikings, and Celts-the genetic roots of Britain and Ireland" by Bryan Sykes
 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_conquest_of_England
https://www.houseofnames.com/hen-family-crest




Saturday, January 23, 2016

Origins By GedMatch: Eurogenes J Test

Nadene Goldfoot
Steve's paternal grandfather was a Henwood and his grandmother was a Disney.  Steve's mother is Ashkenazi Jewish with the maiden name of Goldfoot, so his DNA reflects this. Her father was Jewish and her mother had converted.   I used the same test I had for myself and my brother. His father's parents came from England for the past hundreds of years.  .   Here are the results.  I would have guessed that 50% of his DNA or more would have been from England.

1. His largest % shows almost 1/4 of his DNA comes from North Central Europe with 23.40% North Central Europe  which lies between Eastern and Western EuropeNorthern Europe is the northern part or region of Europe. Geographically, northern Europe consists of (from west to east): Iceland, the British IslesScandinaviaNorthern GermanyFinland, the Baltic States and Northwest Russia. . His maternal ggrandmother was from Sweden.  That would be north central Europe.  That's why we have a high % here.  Also, his maternal grandparents include Goldfoot who was from Lithuania and Russia.  
Central Europe brown on left with peninsula is United Kingdom and across from it is Netherlands, and green Germany, red Poland, then Belarus, North Sea is white

2. Atlantic States is 21.31%  USA along Atlantic seaboard -recent genes.  It comprises the British Isles (Great Britain and Ireland), Iceland,Belgium, the Netherlands, the central and northern regions of Portugal, northwestern and northern Spain (including theSouthern Basque Country), the southwestern and western portion of France (including Northern Basque Country), western Scandinavia, and northern Germany.

3. Western Mediterranean countries is 12.74%  , France, Italy, Spain, Algeria, Tunisia , and for our history, most likely it was Italy as Jews from Jerusalem went there.   We connect to the famous biblical commentator, RASHI, who was from Troyes, France.

4. Ashkenazi Jewish is 10.65%.  Jews live and lived in Israel (2.8 million), Germany (200,000), Russia (194,000-500,000_ and Poland (25,000).  Our history is from these areas in the Pale of Settlement.  .                                                                                           
                                             
maternal grandfather, Maurice Goldfoot b: 1908 Oregon

Great grandfather-Nathan Goldfoot b:1870  Lithuania
Ashkenazi Jew
5. Southern Baltic States is 9.66% These are  Baltic states  as they are near the Baltic Sea.  
Baltic states [Credit: Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.]
Northeastern region of Europe containing the countries of EstoniaLatvia, and Lithuania, on the eastern shores of the Baltic Sea. It also includes Finland, N. Scandinavia, Romania, Belarus, It could also come from Lithuania as it is most south and the Goldfoot/Goldfus lived in Lithuania at least back to the 1700s.  .  
6. Eastern Europe is 8.96%        Regions used for statistical processing purposes by the United Nations Statistics Division which classifies Azerbaijan, Armenia, Cyprus, Georgia, Kazakhstan, and Turkey in Asia:
  Northern Europe  Scandinavia
  Western Europe  France, Germany, Austria, Czech, Poland, many Jews here
  Eastern Europe  Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Lithuania, Latvia, many Jews here
  Southern Europe  Spain, Italy, Bosnia, Serbia
His maternal great grandmother, Zlata Jermulowske, came from Lithuania and Poland with his ggrandfather  coming from Lithuania.  

7. Eastern Mediterranean is 6.88% with Israel, Turkey, Egypt, Jordan, Libya, Syria, Liberia, Greece and Cyprus, and our origins would have been Israel. 

                              

8. Western Asian countries is 4.21% The term is sometimes used for the purposes of grouping countries in  statistics
West Asia
The total population of Western Asia is estimated at about 300 million as of 2015.  It overlaps with Middle East excluding Egypt.  As a geographic concept, "Western Asia" includes the Levant, Mesopotamia, the Arabian peninsulaAnatoliaIran,Armenian Highlands and South Caucasus. The Sinai Peninsula belongs to Western Asia.  Some records include "include the nations of Turkey, Iran, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Lebanon, Syria, Qatar, Kuwait, Jordan, Iraq, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Cyprus, Oman, and Yemen as part of West Asia.  Our history would come from what they call the Levant which includes Israel.  
9. Middle Eastern countries is 1.99% with Israel being our origin, and could be from the Q also originating in Turkey.  At some time in history could also come from Persia, the home of Queen Esther (Iran today).  


10. Siberian heritage  is 0.16%  This comes from his maternal grandfather, Nathan Abraham Goldfoot's Ydna of Q1b1a with origins of Siberia thousands of years ago.  We were the perfect people to come to Lithuania as Q1b1a, right out of Siberia, Mongolia, parts of Turkey, and into the Pale of Settlement held by Russia.  Of course this trip took thousands of years and I think had to have deviated into Israel around Ur in Iraq.  The % is so small because this was where it all started on the Goldfoot side so very long ago.  
                                                                 

Saturday, July 25, 2015

Henwood Facts, Origins and Famous R-M269 People

Nadene Goldfoot                                                                                                                                
                                                                                                       Family Crest Image (JPG) Heritage Series - 300 DPI





 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 Africa1,552  people1: 34,795 Frequency 4,212
England1,5221: 35,4804,847
United States1,3841: 231,40922,662
Australia1,1071: 21,2882,798
Swaziland1,0191: 1,244142
Canada9131: 38,8034,869
New Zealand525

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 "Family Crest Image (JPG) Heritage Series - 300 DPI 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

Wednesday, June 10, 2015

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