True. On reflection, my response was colored by my dislike for Allen.
I’d believe it. I didn’t find out I was 1/32 Cherokee on my dad’s side until I was 28 and about to get married. I suspect, but don’t know, that my maternal grandfather’s parents were a Protestant/Catholic couple (though, AFAIK, he was raised Lutheran- he certainly was one as an adult). Things like having non-white or Jewish ancestry, or mixed-faith marriages, were considered scandalous until not too long ago in some social circles, and not the sort of thing that some families would want to be known.
Of course it’s credible. I didn’t find out that someone I knew most of my life before I graduated high school (city police chief and therefore my dad’s boss) was in fact my grandmother’s half brother. He was 20 years younger than my granny, and she was rather ashamed of the entire situation. I found this out when he died about 2 years ago, which was about a year before my grandmother.
Frelling Tralk:
I think it all started quite a while ago, with that one Jew changing his last name to Christ…maybe I can remember his first name if I jog my memory a bit…
Not only can I believe it, I can understand it completely.
When my grandfather came to the U.S., he changed his name. For whatever reason, he and my grandmother were willing to talk about her family tree, but not his. In fact, most of his children’s questions (and their children, my generation) were answered with some form of “if we’d liked the old country, we would have stayed there.”
Maybe my grandfather simply felt that since he had crossed an ocean to start a new life, the old stuff didn’t matter. Maybe he had made some enemies back in the old country and decided keeping his mouth shut was a wise choice. Maybe he was ashamed of his family. He’s dead now, so we’ll never know.
It’s strange, how prior generations’ issues and prejudices color what information they will pass on, when the next generations don’t care or actually might want to know.
My maternal grandmother was illegitimate. She was raised by her biological mother’s older (married) sister and husband, thinking that her biological mother was her aunt. This was pretty common when a young girl got in trouble back in the day – off she’d go on a “trip” with a married sister and the married sister would come back with a baby. I doubt many people were fooled. Anyway, she was not told until she was in her 50s and her mother (the one who raised her) was dying that her “aunt” was actually her mother, that she was illegitimate, and that no one knew who her bio father was. The bio mother/ aunt would never say who the father was, not 'til the day she died. Why? Well, the family speculation is that it was because he was Indian, meaning Native American (this was in the Dakotas). Illegitimacy might be okay, but not if your father was an Indian. My mom still shakes her head about how the family would whisper about the mere possibility that there might be an Indian in the family tree, when she and her sibs didn’t give a shit, and her children (my sibs and I) actually would think it was kind of cool.
But there was every chance the information could have died when the people who knew it did. I bet that happens all the time. How could the children know if they’re not told?
I think He was Hispanic, wasn’t He?
Of course, there was considerable controversy about who His Father was, let alone his grandfather…
Regards,
Shodan
Want to know what’s really strange? Years before I found out I was part Native American, my dad’s family had no problems telling me that we’re related to Benedict Arnold (I don’t know if we’re directly descended from him) :dubious: Family secrets are a funny thing…
If my parents had never told me about our Native American ancestors, I probably never would have known. You wouldn’t know from looking at me, my sister, my dad, or his father (who was 1/8 Cherokee). After I learned that I was part Native American, I realized that that might be why my leg hair is sparse and light, but I really doubt I would have ever guessed just from that.
Yep. His name isn’t even “really” Kerry. His paternal grandfather was an Austrian Jewish Hibernophile named Fritz Kohn who changed his name to Frederick Kohn after the county. His grandmother was too, making Kerry half Jewish. It is quite possible that Allen didn’t know, even if his admission seems very awkward.
I might add, Warren G. Harding conceded privately (after the “allegation” was made to hurt him politically) that he might have had some black ancestors, and Winston Churchill was rather proud of the possibility (never proven) that he might have some American Indian blood through his mom, Jenny Jerome.
Yeah, funny thing English snobbery & prejudice. My maternal grandfather, who was old enough to have served in the First World War so not that much younger than Churchill, added to his Jewish sounding but English surname “to avoid the risk of antisemitism” yet was happy to claim we may have gypsy blood!
I don’t know a thing about any of my great-grandparents. This seems perfectly plausible to me. Not everyone knows much about their ancestry. I personally don’t give a shit.
My gut reaction was that no, Allen must have known, that it’d be unreasonable for him to not know that. And then I thought about it… I’m German on both sides, with a little Czech mixed in on my mother’s side. I’ve got no Jewish relatives that I know of, but my father’s (religious conservative hick) family might have covered that sort of thing up- I only recently learned that the man I’ve known as my uncle my whole life is, ya’ know, no blood relation to my grandfather. So it’s not inconcievable that Allen didn’t know, in my mind. His reaction is a little strange, though; he’s pretty defensive. That could just be shock at hearing this for the first time, or it could be something he’s covering up. Color me unconvinced either way. It’s definately possible that he didn’t know.
Aren’t North African Jews called pied noir?
I’m curious to know if the OP has revised his opinion after reading this thread.
Not exactly - as I understand it the pied noir were ethnic Europeans Jews, French mainly who settled in Algeria & other parts of North Africa during colonisation. Most returned to France after independence.
Hey, that’s neat. I have a Christ somewhere in the tree, also from Germany. Bavaria, if I remember correctly and I probably don’t.
I’m pretty sure her first name was Wallaburg. Such a shame that name didn’t get passed down.
I didn’t know my matrilineal great-grandmother, but she may well have been a Jew. She came to the USA as an orphaned child from somewhere in what is now Germany, and her last name was Hess, which is used by both Christian and Jewish families. Since her daughter was my mother’s mother, I’m ethnically a Jew if Great-Grandma was. However, she was raised Christian by the American family that took her in as a maid and housekeeper. If she knew of (or even suspected) Jewish ancestry, she kept the knowledge/speculation to herself.
This article on Crypto-Judaism may be of interest to readers of this thread.
Among members of the so-called First Families of Virginia, accusation of black ancestry was historically deemed “fightin’ words”, but these aristocratic folks weren’t hesitant to acknowledge (or create) descent from the “Indian princess” Pocahontas.
That’s another possible reason. I’m sure that some families consider Jewish ancestry a dirty secret, and that could be true of the Allens even though they aren’t Southern (good cite, An Arky). For the record, the opposite is also sometimes a problem: people who convert to Judaism when they marry will sometimes get the cold shoulder from their new in-laws.
I am, too. However, like appleciders, I’m perplexed by Allen’s alleged defensiveness on the issue, and I wonder if astro also may have picked up on that. There’s nothing implausible about Allen’s claim of ignorance, but his response is confusing. Maybe he’s just defending his mother and feels it’s private; maybe he’s unhappy that the word is out. I’m trying not to judge it either way at this point, but I’m sure you can understand if people sense that he’s ashamed based on his reaction.
That should be “Frederick Kerry,” which I’m sure you meant to type. The way I remember it, Kerry’s reaction to this news was also a little weird. Frederick and his wife also converted to Catholicism when they came to the United States in 1901. In 2004, John Kerry said he was not only unaware that his grandparents were originally Jewish, he said he didn’t know, until reporters told him, that his grandfather committed suicide in 1921 by shooting himself in the restroom of a Boston hotel. It’s possible the Kerry family just never talked about it (if there was ever a type to keep quiet about those things, from what I’ve read about them, it’s the clans Forbes and Kerry), but I think it’s also understandable if some people found it tough to believe that Kerry had never heard any of this for the first 60 years of his life.
Speaking of families hiding things, my girlfriend’s entire genealogy is a mystery to her. She is pretty sure that she has some Finnish ancestry (one of her maternal grandparents, or maybe her mother, had the surname Finn), but other than that, her family clams up suspiciously whenever she broaches the subject. We’re not even sure what the origin of her last name is. [Does anybody have a good Web site I could use to help find out?] Her mother has given her a few variants on “it doesn’t matter, why would you want to know something like that,” which is a little like what George Allen’s mother supposedly told her kids. My girlfriend and I are positive that she has ancestors who are either Jewish, or - although it’d have to be something like 1/32nd - African-American. We favor the second theory, because she has something close to a blonde Afro.
If she knows her parents’ dates of birth, real names, and the states they were born in, going to those states’ websites ought to provide resources for getting her parents’ birth certificates (many states have “non-certified”/“non-official” copies for less money and with pretty much no proof that you have any good reason to have a copy. From there, at least the birth mother’s name ought to be on the birth certificate, and you can do the same with that name to track further back.