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England (Counties as in 1851-1901) => England => Norfolk => Topic started by: Marmalady on Wednesday 29 June 11 09:38 BST (UK)
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My 4x gr grandmother always appeared as Maria Clark bn approx 1800 Diss Norfolk on the censuses. The birth cert of her youngest child revealed her maiden name as Levey
Have finally tracked her down -- she married as Judith Maria Levy but appears to have been bpt as Judith Levi 24 Apr 1799 Diss. Father Moses Levi, mother Frances Fuller
So far, have not found the marriage of Moses & Frances apart from submitted entries on the IGI . Family search gives the bpts of several siblings from 1790 onwards
Does anyone know how large a jewish community there would have been in the area at the time? Would there have been a synagogue that would have any more records?
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If the family were orthodox Jews, Judith would not have been baptised. Jews don't baptise their children.
I can't see any links to a Jewish community or a synagogue in Diss and I'd be quite surprised if there was one.
However, if you contact Norfolk Records Office they should be able to tell you if they hold Jewish records. But I think it likely that this family either were no longer orthodox Jews who practiced Judaism, or they just had Biblical names.
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If the family were orthodox Jews, Judith would not have been baptised. Jews don't baptise their children.
Yes i do realise that
I am assuming that Moses was assimilated into the local community by marrying a local girl and baptising the children in the local parish church.
But his surname always appears in the Diss registers as the Jewish version Levi, and his children all have Jewish/Old Testament names - Moses, Isaac, Samuel, Benjamin, Judith, Elizabeth. I think it more likely he is of Jewish origin rather than just having a liking for biblical names. The name isnt anglicised to Levy until the middle of the 1800s
Even if his links with the Jewish community were weakened by his marriage, his parents could still have been Orthodox Jews and so their marriage and his birth could be recorded elsewhere
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Dear Marmalady,
I came across your post and found it very interesting as I'm having some similar issues. My ancestors were Rayners and Harveys from the Norfolk/Suffolk border area around Diss and particularly Hoxne. There was a historical Jewish community in Diss officially until 1290 when all Jews were expelled from England. It is likely however that at least some converted to Christianity or went undercover. I have in my family a similar thing to you where children have many Hebrew names such as Arun, Naome, Solomon, Nathan etc. There are also others with names such as Thirza and Jabez.
Have you undertaken a genetic DNA test as that's what first pointed to my Ashkenazi ancestors.
It would be interesting to hear from you as its the same area, the same time period and we seem to have some similar experiences.
Regards,
Nicky
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Hello Nicky,
You may found this article on the expulsion and re-admission of the Jews of interest.
http://www.jewishgen.org/jcr-uk/england_articles/1290_to_1656.htm (http://www.jewishgen.org/jcr-uk/england_articles/1290_to_1656.htm)
and this article abour pre-1290 Jewish communities in England
http://www.jewishgen.org/jcr-uk/pre-1290/list_county.htm (http://www.jewishgen.org/jcr-uk/pre-1290/list_county.htm)
It is far more likely that your ancestors had become non-conformists, who frequently favoured Old Testament names. In my Berry family from north Suffolk (not far south of Diss, actually), names such as Aaron, Elijah and Nathan started to appear in the early 19th century. The family had become Baptists.
Particulary in the very austere years following Napoloen's defeat, there was significant disillusionment amongst the rural population with the Established Church. Many turned to the non-conformist churches.
Justin
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While I agree in principle that such families are more likely to have been nonconformist, it is worth mentioning that there were notable Jewish communities in East Anglian and other provincial towns at this period.
The standard source is Cecil Roth's The Rise of Provincial Jewry (1950), available online.
http://www.jewishgen.org/sigs/jcruk/susser/provincialjewry/index.htm
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Hiya Nicky
I have not got any further with tracing where my Moses Levi came from -- I have been concentrating on easier branches!
His wife Frances Fuller, however, was very much a local girl -- i have her family in Diss back another 100 years.
FreeReg gives the burial of another wife & child of Moses, some 5 years previous to his marriage to Frances -- so he had been in Diss since at least 1778
If you do find any Jewish records from this area of Norfolk, I would be very interested in looking at them
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Dear JustinL,
Thank you for those links. I will check them all out. I understand that there was indeed a large Baptist and other non-conformist population in rural areas as you say however the reason I'm convinced this is not the case with my family is due to the following:
My great grandmother who is the descendent of this line was often stopped in the streets in London in the early 20th century and asked by Jewish people if she was Jewish. I undertook a genetic DNA test which shows that I have some Ashkenazi ancestry and it doesn't plausibly fit with any other branch of my family history through naming and other processes of elimination. Reading up on naming practices amongst non-conformist Christians and Jews, non-conformists who used Biblical names tended to give each child an Old Testament name whereas Jewish families would often only name some children with Hebrew names and give the others non-religious secular names, this fits with my Solomon Rayner who has Arun, Naome, Nathan as siblings but then others with names such as Edgar, Harriet etc. Finally on the Harvey line there were Harvey members in villages close to Hoxne who anecdotally were said to have looked Jewish in the early 1800s because of their dark features and dark hair. Two members of the family were said to wear skull caps and have long beards. In early 19th century England beards were not worn but Jewish people over Europe did have beards at that time. I thought the skull cap could be a confusion for a smoking cap but even smoking caps were not popularised until after the Crimean war. Finally it is another annecdote that one of these Harvey's was cast out from his village for twice marrying his niece, this is permitted under Jewish law but not under English Law or Church Canon Law.
That is why I'm pretty convinced that this family was unlikely to be non-conformists.
Regards,
Nicky
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Dear Bookbox,
Thank you for that link. It was very interesting.
Regards,
Nicky
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Dear Marmalady,
Yes if I discover further information I'll let you know.
Regards,
Nicky
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Have just found that there were other Levi families in King's Lynn in the 1780's -- so these are good candidates for my Moses's family:
http://www.foxearth.org.uk/1783NorfolkChronicle.html has the following transcriptions:
Jonas LEVI, a Jew, son of Solomon LEVI, of Lynn, a youth about the age of 16 years who was attacked and robbed
a sailor, whose name is FOX, was taken up at West-Winch, on suspicion of being the perpetrator of this horrid act
...... FOX, the footpad from Lynn, who robbed and cruelly beat the son of Mr LEVI, silversmith of the same place.
...Robert FOX, convicted of robbing Isaac LEVI of King's Lynn, travelling silversmith, and most dangerously beating him, received sentence of death,
...OX, for robbing and cruelly treating Isaac LEVI, a Jew lad about 16 years of age.
There seems to be some confusion as to whether the victim was called Jonas or Isaac Levi, but he & his father certainly seem to be living openly as Jews in King's Lynn at the time when my Moses was in Diss.
Jonas /Isaac would be about 18 years younger than Moses so could be a brother or a nephew
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Nicky,
I can't explain your DNA test results. Was it an autosomal DNA test? I would speculate that the results are due to the difficulties in distinguishing segments of DNA that are identical by descent (IBD) from those that are identical by state (IBS).
This may interest you:
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=zOMRAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA74&lpg=PA74&dq=baptists+hoxne&source=bl&ots=IoKXN28ZnL&sig=G0QjqMa3IdFRXBIHLvmZhLjQzuo&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj88evctevNAhXEmBoKHaWFB6c4ChDoAQggMAE#v=onepage&q=baptists%20hoxne&f=false (https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=zOMRAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA74&lpg=PA74&dq=baptists+hoxne&source=bl&ots=IoKXN28ZnL&sig=G0QjqMa3IdFRXBIHLvmZhLjQzuo&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj88evctevNAhXEmBoKHaWFB6c4ChDoAQggMAE#v=onepage&q=baptists%20hoxne&f=false)
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JustinL,
Thank you for that. It is very interesting but that suggests Baptists from the 1810s in the area and my relatives have Hebrew names earlier than that period including more obscure ones such as Jabez.
Also did you see what I wrote about things like the beards, niece-uncle marriages etc.
In terms of autosomal DNA yes it was partly Ashkenazi and I understand about similarities with groups such as Italians etc.
My autosomal DNA is British Isles, Scandinavian, Sami, Italian, Other Southern European as well as the Ashkenazi part.
Another thing is that one of my relatives is a Thirza and that Hebrew name only tends to be used in the Netherlands so I'm not sure if it would really be used by English Non-conformists.
I used a fairly reputable company, DNA worldwide.
Regards,
Nicky
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JustinL,
Another thing is that one of my relatives is a Thirza and that Hebrew name only tends to be used in the Netherlands so I'm not sure if it would really be used by English Non-conformists.
Regards,
Nicky
I don't know where you got that info from, but Thirza is a fairly common name in the UK too
An Ancestry search for Thirza born 1800 - 1820 in Norfolk brings up over 1500 records. Even if some of them are duplicates, that still leaves hundreds of Thirzas born in that 20 year period just in Norfolk, let alone the rest of the country.
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I think we need to split this thread before the waters become very muddied.
Nicky - could you perhaps provide more details (i.e. places, dates and parentage) of those ancestors with the Biblical names? Have you been able to verfiy whether a Harvey ancestor married his niece or not? That incident should have produced quite a document trail in the parish records.
Marmalady - King's Lynn was a major port at the time with a Jewish community from at least the 1740s. However, Diss is much closer to Norwich, Ipswich and Great Yarmouth, all of which had Jewish communties from the 18th century. Unfortunately, Levy/Levi is one of the most common Jewish surnames, and very difficult to research. I should know - it's my surname! What do the IGI submitted entries have to say about Moses and Frances?
PS: By coincidence, one of my most distant identifiable ancestors was a Moses Levi, whose daughter Tsipora married into my patrilineal Levy line in 1772. That was in Bavaria though.
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Marmalady - King's Lynn was a major port at the time with a Jewish community from at least the 1740s. However, Diss is much closer to Norwich, Ipswich and Great Yarmouth, all of which had Jewish communties from the 18th century. Unfortunately, Levy/Levi is one of the most common Jewish surnames, and very difficult to research. I should know - it's my surname! What do the IGI submitted entries have to say about Moses and Frances?
The PRs are now on FreeReg -- but unfortunately they give no further usefull info about Moses.
On one of their children's burial records he is noted as a Pauper -- which does make connection to a Silversmithing family unlikely
back to the drawing board!
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As Moses had most likely 'married out', he could well have been ostracised by his family.
Did you notice that Frances was Moses' second wife? He had previously been married to a Mary who was buried on 25 March 1778 in Diss. She had possibly died as a consequence of giving birth to Judith who was buried on 21 Feb 1779, aged 1.
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Yes, I had got Moses's first wife and child -- but so far have not found any more details of this marriage
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Solomon Levi, silversmith of Kings Lynn left a PCC will made 04/06/1785 proved 20/09/1785 naming his children as Catherine, (?)Gertian, Emmanuel and Isa, all aged under 21.
Carole
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Thanks Carole
that rules my Moses out as being a child of Solomon then
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... unless he was left out of the will because he had 'married out'.
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And of course does not rule him out from being a brother rather than a son of Solomon