After many years of research I have traced numerous ancestors back to the 16th/17th/18th centuries and virtually all of the have emanated from a small band of counties from Middlesex/Sussex across to Somerset/Wiltshire. No exotic ancestors - not even Scottish!
But I have finally come across a Mustapha Hassan who I believe may be an ancestor of mine and he shows up in a 1691 baptism in Westminster at the age of 19 and purporting to come from Buda.
So firstly does anyone know if there are any Hungarian records available for that time period or anything pertaining to the Ottoman Empire.
I have Googled and it seems that Buda was conquered by the Ottomans in the 1500s but they were driven out in 1686 in the Siege of Buda. So it does seem feasible that Mustapha was maybe a muslim refugee from that conflict. And on arrival in England converted to Christianity.
Has anyone else come across anything like this?
Roger
