In a message dated 11/24/99 12:59:03 AM Eastern Standard Time, Lohbrunner@prodigy.net writes: << Margaret, The children of Jan Mangels changed their surname to the English ROLL. I have not found the parents of Jan. >> ____________________________________________________________ Hi Nancy, i found your information to be really interesting. This is the first time -- outside of family 'folklore' -- that I have heard of anything sounding like MANGEL being changed to ROLL. Was this done in Holland, do you think? You may remember that we once talked about my Jewish ancestors who fled Spain into Holland during the fifteenth century where their Hebrew/Arabic sounding name (unknown) underwent many changes in response to social pressures (e.g., marriage, religious persecution, etc.) until it became BENEL (Ben-El = Son of God), MANNEL (Mann El =? Man of God), MANGEL (change one letter and you're there), and then ROLL (a 'roll' is synonymous with a 'mangle' as in 'washing machine mangle'). The same family stories also make reference to a member (noname) who came to New Amsterdam from the Dutch colony of SURINAM. It is not told whether this individual continued to maintain the Jewish faith, or if he was not already Christian. I know that some Jews were deported from Brazil and did enter New Amsterdam during Pieter Stuyvesant's term as Governor. I believe that he did not wish to allow them to enter the colony and wrote to Holland expressing his objections but was overruled by the Dutch government much to his chagrin (probably some of my ancestors ruined the entire neighborhood). Do you think it possible that Jan MANGELS who changed his name to ROLL after New Amsterdam was taken by the English may have come from a family whose traditions included the changing of names -- or horses, or religions -- whenever it seemed advantageous to do so? That would sound like my family all right -- Lord Eric Roll (British 1st cousin) is, for instance, a member of the Anglican Church and few know that he was born in a Jewish ghetto in eastern Europe. I feel certain that I will never know the answers. People who make such life style 'adjustments' would not, I think, go about advertising what they had done. Else why make those changes in the first place? The records must contain enormous gaps. It is all very interesting though, in a romantic sort of way. I wonder what they must have been like, those early pragmatists; I wonder if some of them may not, themselves, have looked into the future and wondered what their descendants would someday be like. Too bad we cannot reach across those gaps. Here is an interesting aside for you: When I was a teen-ager I attended Newtown H.S. in Elmhurst, NY. Elmhurst had once been part of a Dutch area which either they or the British referred to as NEWTOWN. There was a Dutch church near my school which had been built in the time of New Amsterdam. It had burned to its' stone foundation during the early eighteenth century, and had been rebuilt. The graveyard still contained early gravestones which had been marked by fire. One of these, I recall, was of a young girl -- about seventeen -- who had died in the mid sixteen hundreds. The stone was too much damaged to decipher completely but someone must have known who she was because, often, in the Spring, there were flowers on her grave. The church and the graveyard are still there on Woodhaven Blvd. near the Public Library... There are many early names. If you come up with anything more about Jan MANGELS -> ROLL in 'Amerika,' please let me hear from you... Now to turkey matters!! Thanks, Eric Roll bjolla@aol.com