I have approached this topic in the past regarding the possibility of some of the Germanna families having "converso" or Jewish convert roots yet I believe it is very difficult to prove and may be somewhat controversial for some people. I have seen this possibility in other areas of my family that originated from the area on the boarder of France and Germany. In the late 1400's nearly one half million Jews were expelled from Spain and before that many from France. Another half million converted to Christianity in Spain to avoid expulsion yet were persecuted in Spain so much that many later fled in the 1500-1600s. Perhaps over a million people of Jewish or blended Jewish roots fled into Italy, Holland, Great Britain and anywhere that would accept them. The Alsace Lorraine and French-Germany boarder was one of those areas where people of several religions and countries mingled. Spain owned much of Belgium and Luxembourg and the people in this region were more tolerant of living with people who were of a different culture, language, color and even religion. It was here that people of "Africa" as the Jews were called at that time could find some level of tolerance, peace and acceptance at least for a while but into the 1700s persecution and conflict increased. According to Paul Johnson's History of the Jews, many Jews moved into Italy after the 1492 expulsion then later moved over the mountains into Switzerland and into the Rhine Valley. Jewish converts that later left in the 1500s traveled everywhere as they faced fewer constraints but they too were considered "Africans" or blended people as their ancestors had fled into North African and Moorish regions after the expulsion from Jerusalem and many were darker than the blond blue eyed northern Europeans. Western Germany/ eastern France was one of the havens for people of different cultures and religions as was Holland, that is why the Pilgrims selected it as a home. Another area where land was open and available was Northern Ireland and surprisingly there are many "Dark Irish" and some pictures show Irish with very curley black hair and short stature one would not expect. I think it possible some of these people had Jewish roots and their families had moved into areas of Great Britain in the 1500-1600s and later into Northern Ireland where settlement was encouraged and land was open. Most of these were likely converso or Jewish/Christian convert families not those following the Jewish faith. Even before the Inquisition the Romans mixed people of Europe with people of Asia and Africa. The boot of Italy is not that far from North Africa and that area was settled by Europeans before the Roman conquest and the time of Christ DNA only confirms this blending of people and cultures that has been going on for thousands of years. In a message dated 2/23/2010 7:15:33 A.M. Pacific Daylight Time, [email protected] writes: The recent ancestral origin for the Thoma(s) family on familytreedna.com shows a preponderance of connections to Jewish ancestry on 12 markers. Not a large percentage when taken from total individual countries that we matched (11 out of 12 markers) but when compared with 71 total matches (11 out of 12 markers) in the countries of Belarus, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Russian Federation, Slovakia and the Ukraine, 29 have identified themse lves as Ashkenazi. I thought that was pretty interesting so decided to read a little more about the Ashkenazi and found it even more interesting considering that the Blankenbeckers and Thomas family were from the Bishopric of Speyers and that both families are in the E1b1b group. >From Wikepedia Ashkenazi Jews, also known as Ashkenazic Jews or Ashkenazim are the Jews descended from the medieval Jewish communities along the Rhine in Germany from Alsace in the south to the Rhineland in the north. Ashkenaz is the medieval Hebrew name for this region and thus for Germany. Thus, Ashkenazim or Ashkenazi Jews are literally "German Jews." Later, Jews from Western and Central Europe came to be called "Ashkenaz" because the main centers of Jewish learning were located in Germany. (See Usage of the name for the term's etymology.) Ashkenaz is also a Japhetic patriarch in the Table of Nations (Genesis 10). Many Ashkenazi Jews later migrated, largely eastward, forming communities in non German-speaking areas, including Hungary, Poland, Lithuania, Russia, Ukraine, Eastern Europe, and elsewhere between the 11th and 19th centuries. With them, they took and diversified Yiddish, a basically Germanic language with Hebrew influence (see Jewish language). It had developed in medieval times as the lingua franca among Ashkenazi Jews. The Jewish communities of three cities along the Rhine: Speyer, Worms and Mainz, created the SHUM league (SHUM after the first Hebrew letters of Spira, Warmatia and Magentza). The SHUM-cities are considered the cradle of the distinct Ashkenazi culture and liturgy. Although in the 11th century, they comprised only 3 percent of the world's Jewish population, at their peak in 1931, Ashkenazi Jews accounted for 92 percent of the world's Jews. Today they make up approximately 80 percent of Jews worldwide.[5] Most Jewish communities with extended histories in Europe are Ashkenazim, with the exception of those associated with the Mediterranean region. The majority of the Jews who migrated from Europe to other continents in the past two centuries are Ashkenazim, Eastern Ashkenazim in particular. This is especially true in the United States, where most of the 5.3 million American Jewish population[6] is Ashkenazi, representing the world's single largest concentration of Ashkenazim. Note: it must have been many centuries ago because the Thomas family does not match anyone on 25 markers <sigh> other than ourselves. Take care. Mariliyn If you refer to a Germanna descendant, include a link to your on-line data. ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to [email protected] with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message