Hello Nola and Albert, I am replying to the list so that others who may have questions, yet too timid to post, will find out some answers. The way I found out that my maiden name is of Jewish extraction, was from a gentleman in California who answered one of my queries to another list. His family name is EISER (ancestry) but his surname is different due to marriage. He does not hold to the Jewish Faith (religion), but has Rabbi's in his ancestry. He is a charismatic Christian, so he told me. I asked him about the question of Jewish vs. non Jewish in regards to descendancy. My proposition was that since the child receives half of his/her genes from the mother and the other half from the father, then the genetic makeup of necessity contains Jewish Genes. He agreed with me that genetically, if you have Jewish persons in your ancestry, then you of necessity carry some genetic material in your DNA that would point to connection with the Jewish Ancestor. However, the Rabbi's have decreed that it is only the mother who can pass on Jewish bloodlines to the posterity. This is one point that I cannot understand. The Scientific evidence teaches that our genetic makeup can physically point to connections back as far as the family can be traced. Therefore, according to science, whether it is a male or female who is a descendant of the Jewish people, the descendant will be able to genetically track back to the common ancestor. The case in point is Cheddar Man. In the village of Cheddar, in England, the village school teacher submitted to a genetic test and was very surprised to find that he is a direct descendant (genetically) of the Cheddar Man - a being whose body was preserved in a peat bog/cave (cannot clearly remember which location they have found the body called CHEDDAR MAN) at the village of CHEDDAR. I am not trying to take on the Rabbi's of the world and their line of reasoning, but am asking which authority should we follow? That of Science and scientific finding or that of Rabbinical utterance? The question should be asked 'what is the basis for the Rabbinical stand? Is it based in scriptural tradition or philosophical tradition? or was it made the accepted way of tracking lineage due to some matriarchal pressures? In any case, those of us who find Jewish Ancestry is a given for us, we can expect to find genetic structure the same as is found in the Jewish Population of today. The question was asked of me where could one go to get genetically tested? I do not have an answer for that but I do know that there are a few groups of scientific based research groups who are collecting Genetic material for identification. I suggest that you keep your eyes open for such testing that may be advertised in your paper or you may look on the internet for such groups. I do know that here in the USA there are labs which do genetic testing for a fee but for genetic matching, perhaps a genealogically directed collection of genetic material would be your best bet. I participated in such a study about 2 years ago and it was explained there that once the genetic code had been determined, (each person was given a code name and number), there would be an attempt to find matches with material collected in England, Wales and Germany. I do not know the process by which they do this stuff, but I am excited that I may be able to make connection with relatives living now and long since lost to our knowledge. Are there any other listers who have thoughts on this subject? This could turn into quite a discussion. Remember, we are not talking about RELIGION here but rather genetic connections. cheers, Beverly.

Beverley and others, First of all the Rabbi's idea is not biblically based. If my knowledge is wrong and if it is someone will soon correct me, the Jews in biblical times created some 700 rules over and above what we find in the old testament. This was the issue with Christ. They wanted to follow laws and he wanted to follow the heart or spirit. Come on you theologians take me to task. I am intrigued by what you have written. Thought I might share how I developed this whole theory. My wife I was always told that our ancestors came from Germany. Several years ago I developed a friendship with a German migrant who was a lecturer in history at the Melbourne University. He told me that my surname was not German but Polish and meant "root farmer". That the Grulke familles were potato farmers from central Europe for generations. When I started on this project I pursued his line of reason and found that in fact they had came from Pomerania. I pursued the history of Pomerania and found that it was a nation of tribal pole from the Ural mountain regions and were originally Slavic. I was trying to find out more when somebody from the USA sent me an email and said that he was Grulke and could not find any Grulke family in Pomerania but did find them in Volhynia. Never heard of this place but research again and found it. On further research I found that the name Grulke and Beier were common names in Volhynia although the spelling was slightly different. I think Grulke had an "H" in it and an emulate. The Beier has a slight variation as well but can't recall right now the difference. On further research I came to a conclusion that these Volhynian people had migrated some centuries before form Salvia. I further researched and discovered that the Jewish population was very strong in Volhynia and that many of the progressive Jews had migrated to Pomerania and Silesia sometime in the 16th century. In fact what appears to have happened is that immediately after the reformation in Germany the Lutherans or Evangelish as they were known had sent missionaries to Volhynia to convert the Jews and Gypsy population to Christianity. As a result there was in Volhynia a large Christian population of Evangelish. I assume that the Catholic Church must have followed in also but have never had reason to consider it. Apparently in about the 17th century there was some pressure placed on these Lutheran Christians of Jewish and Slavic descent. This it seems, led to their migrating to Pomerania and to Silesia. It may be they also went to other areas because my wife's father's family of Proposch came from Spreewalde. I have a German man who calls all too often and I mentioned it to him that Naomi's grandfather came from Spreewalde and asked where it was. His immediate response was, "Bloody Gypsies." On further questions he told us that the Spreewalde people were swamp dwellers and that the majority of the people were classified in Germany as Gypsies and had came there from Salvia. Now all my research indicates that the majority and the minority is very small, of Germanic migrants in the 19th century to Australia came from Pomerania and Silesia. I am looking all the time for reasons for migration. I found out almost from the beginning that this theory about religion is just a theory promoted by certain people for their own self-ego. The fact is that only two boat loads of migrants to South Australia and one small settlement to Queensland had any real religious connection. In fact evidence is now coming to suggest that only a small percentage of the South Australian boat people were religiously motivated. If there were so many Catholics as in Queensland then there needed to be another reason. My daughter who is doing some history masters or majors degree at la Trobe came home with a story that does start to make sense. How factual her theory is I have no idea but it does provide a common thread for migration. She says that when the Prussian rulers started to take over Northern Germany in the mid 19th century they decided to rid the country of the 'impure' Germans and Poles. So they undertook a persecution programme against anybody who was not of true German or Polish origin. The result was that the many families who had came there in the passed two or three centuries from Volhynia and the Slavic regions plus the Jewish descendants were enticed to leave the land. They migrated to America and to Australia with a few to South Africa. She says that this persecution programme continued in some form or another but not with the same brutality right up until the second world war. How true all that is I have no idea but it sure makes logic to me when I read some of the reasons I recieve from people on why their ancestors migrated. I have often wondered why Hitler was so brutal against the Poles and this might even answer that. Anyhow folks that is how I have come to my present position and reckon that 99% of us will find that we are of Jewish or Slavic origin. I would love to hear from people who can prove me either right or wrong and hear some other theories. Albert Grulke