Jewish question

[greyingrey]

Is there any indication at all that, any point, Jewish immigrants to Britain, when forced to choose a surname that would be followed through the family, chose the name according to the area they came from & thus could identify others who came from the same area ? I have ancestors moving to be people with the same surname.....sometimes their families came to Britain at widely varying times...& they can't all have been blood relatives & it strikes me that it happened too often to be coincidence

Thanks

[youngtug]

Not sure about the "forced" part of your question, this may be of some help;  http://www.bje.org.au/learning/jewishself/family/familynames.html

Also; http://www.avotaynu.com/jewish_genealogy.htm

[greyingrey]

Thanks very much.....lots to read & digest there. But it doesn't really explain why my ancestors in nineteenth century Britain seemed to hang together with other families with the same surname.....have other posters with Jewish ancestors noticed this ?

[jorose]

Which surname(s)?

www.jewishgen.org/belarus/newsletter/turovnames.pdf
 - a nice summary of some origins of surnames (for Jewish families who came to a certain area) - including some which are definitely locational, for example:

Borodetskis and Borodoskis - from Borodichy village,
Volkovysk uezd; Koniks - Konna and Konik village,
Volkovysk and Slonim uezd; Korobochkos - Koroby
village, Disna uezd; Muravchiks and Chechiks - from
Murava and Chechki villages of the Pruzhany uezd;
Olshanskis - Olshanitsa village of the Slomin uezd

In other cases while not directly taken from the place of origin, there might have been surnames which were most common in certain places of origin. Immigrants often stuck together, so I wouldn't be surprised to find a few similarly named (but not necessarily closely related) families turning up in the same area of the UK after emigration.

[Berlin-Bob]

Immigrants often stuck together, ...

This is true regardless of the names.  Many people coming to a (for them) foreign country will prefer to settle near friends, relatives or colleagues, or sometimes anyone, who has some sort of connection (same village, for instance).

This applies to anybody, not just jewish immigrants (see the various "german pork butcher" topics for obvious examples).

regards,
Bob

[greyingrey]

Thanks everyone. I'm looking at the name of Asher, which was found in lots of places (I mean, originally & in Britain), but what I mean, is for example....one of my Asher family moved from Nottm to Southampton where he worked with/for an Asher family there & I know there was an Asher family in Nottm & my family used to refer to them as aunts & uncles, although I doubt that, in either case, they were blood relatives as both of these families seem to have arrived in Britain way before my family. The first member of my family was born abroad in 1790.... the Nottm Asher family he became friendly with had been there since at least 1700 (I got fed up with tracing back after that). There are lots of examples like that....maybe just because it was a common name (?)

[youngtug]

(I got fed up with tracing back after that).

?

[greyingrey]

Oh, well, what happened was that my there was a woman (apparently...dead before I was born) that my father used to refer to as "great aunt Clemmie" (Asher). Quite a character by all accounts. Anyway, I found her, assuming that she & her husband had been blood relatives of some kind of my family  but, as I say, I traced that Asher family back in a couple of Notts villages (not far from the city), as far back as 1700....very smooth going.....& then, as my gggg grandfather wasn't born until the 1790s & was first spotted in Britain in 1820, I realised that it was highly unlikely that they were blood relatives so she was probably a friend of the family who was just called "auntie".

[youngtug]

Was your gggggrandfather's birth name Asher, being born abroad, or did he take the name Asher when he came to England.