The family story on the Mulcahy side is that (as the O'Mulcahys), my forebears left Ireland in a hurry, as "criminals." A British soldier tried to rape my forebears' wife, and he caught the British soldier in the act, grabbed a battleaxe, and took his head off. Thus, the start of the Mulcahys in the US (or colonies at the time).

I don't know how true it was, but its the story on that side of my family.

Registering the ancestors of each one here in Europe could be tricky. As Jester said, the main source of the most accurate registers is the church. Other types of early registers exist, with some notable outstanding examples, like the Domesday Book ordered by William the Conqueror. But the image of your soul burning in hell for all the eternity could have a tremendous punitive power without the need to use any other enforcement method. Nobody wants to stay apart from the church... Well, let me correct myself, I' been unfair. In the dark times of the Early Middle Ages, living near a church had it's own advantages and not only for the soul. A good number of decree granted a certain security near a church, at marked days. And the churches become the logical centers of the future villages, their inhabitants trying find themselves a little more secure under the shadow of a cross, the only true authority that could restrain the new, rising feudal nobility. At least, this was the way it happens in Catalunya,the southern Frankish territories.


So the most part of old registers were in hands of the catholic church. Fine, but sometimes it has proven disadvantages. I think that the generation of my father is the first generation of Catalans (and Spanish) without living a war in their own territory. And churches, in modern times, have been targets, a way to directly hurt the local population. Burning churches, in my territory, has been a sport practiced by Spanish, French and Catalan (Thirty years war, Spanish Succession war, Napoleonic Wars, Spanish Civil War....etc, etc...). And some of these conflicts (specially the Spanish Civil War) implied a good quantity of anti religious feeling in one of the parts and he churches turned to be a symbol of oppression.The obvious result is that a lot of registers has been lost...Some families have take advantage of the lost of these registers, taking it as a new starting point and creating themselves a new genealogy and thus adding more confusion to the general picture. I'm sure that if all the coat of arms exhibited in some Spanish houses were true, the entire country must have die from starvation long time ago...


And Europe is a place full of exceptions and special cases. My second surname (from my mother) is basque... Even their language is not indo-european! A new obstacle to keep track of my roots, for example.

An MI friend who attended DLI (Defense Language Institute) told me she learned that there are two languages spoken today that appear to have no other languages related to them: Basque and Navaho. (And no, they're not related to each other, either.)

Churches were indeed a target but that also how we came to have some very nice fortified churches (very common in certain regions). Marc, you also forgot about the war of religions, french revolution and the various revolutions that spread from it.

The problem with family name is that they are fairly recent except for the nobility. Up to the 18th century most people were registered without family name:
Paul son of Peter and Magdalena, born on the 4th days after easter. Brought to god by Paul and Mary (and that's when you are lucky).

Then, when civil registration became mendatory, family name were added much in the way they were for slaves.

Further;

The evolution of language, pronunciation, coupled with illiteracy and misspelling would cause names to change. And then translated from one language to the other, or just spelling it phoneticaly, and that is how our family name changed when we came to the U.S. because here the sound starts with "W" and not the "OUE"

And again the evolution of languages and spelling. Anyone try reading things written in their original form from the 16th Century, or how about from the 10th Century.

I know my grand father was the only one to retain his original name among his family. A clerk made a mistake and the state always refused to admit it despite proofs and legal documents. Became a problem when his father died.

I tried unsuccessfully to read Beowulf in Old English. Absolute failure. I had a teacher in 8th grade that played a tape of someone reading it in Old English. I understood maybe every tenth word.

That's sort of what I wonder about Star Trek -- would they really be speaking anything intelligible to us in the 21st century?

Totally different situation now compared to mediaeval times. We have audio and audio visual recording now, not to mention widespread literacy - slows down language drift.

And they've got handheld translators.

That, and it's essential to the plot everyone understands each other...

:)

On a slightly different tack, I've also heard that about human evolution -- that with modern medicine and culture we've short-circuited the human physical evolution process and we are no longer evolving physically.

You right and, as a result, the level of information losses have increased tremendously (at the historical level). Because of that, we only keep the final draft and lose a large amount of information. Not to mention our inhability to access previous materials and the fact that these equipments break down.

One thing happen in France a few years ago that illustrate that perfectly. A commando broke in a major tax collector office in charge of controling vineyards nationwide. The commando stole all the hard disks from the computers. As a result, all informations were lost and the tax office was unable to get the informations back. The reason is simple, nobody was making paper copies anymore. A few years ago, that same commando would have had to steal at least three paper copies from three different locations.:D

Mmmmm... I dont' really think that your appreciation is totally right. Language drift exists, and this is specially true for the non-hegemonic languages. One important cause for the language drift is the coexistence between different languages in the same geographical areas, and the demographical balance between their speakers. The english language used in Australia is hegemonic and without important competence, but the future evolution of, per example, the english spoken in the south of the United States, with its daily coexistence with the spanish, could be very different. Of course, the same is true about the spanish talked in Mexico or in the southern states.

Catalans are sometimes specially sensitive to the matter of language drift. We mainly consider ourselves a nation without state, being inside Spanish state. Our language have not the same protection as the Spanish nor the same demographical weight (we are now about 7 millions). The influence of the spanish language is strong, specially due to the media, and the adoption of spanish terms is sometimes inevitable. At long term it can cause such an important drift that the the survival of our language is uncertain. I know that my point of view can seem somewhat "provincial", in my little corner of the world. But some of us have a day to day struggle to keep unnecessary variations of catalan at minimal to transmit it to our children. We have the conviction that a language implies more than words and grammar. So, language drift is day-to-day matter. Happily, catalan enjoys a good health in Internet.

I remained at the information level (especially as I misunderstood some of the point made by Targan:o ) but Marc perfectly illustrated his point. I have the same concern than him as I wish to see my daughters learn some "Provencal". I am from Wallon decent (my parents) and I already lost that.

The problem with my daughters learning "Provencal" is that, despite government official position, it is fairly hard to find teachers.

And, Marc, I don't find your position to be "provincial" in any way as I'm convinced that some kind globalisation is only possible if we preserve the local cultures as well. Catalonia is a good exemple of that. The current mistake is to play one against the other (IMO, of course).

Agreed. I wish to occitans and provençals the best of lucks in keeping your language with all of its dialects alive. I know your situation is difficult, but it seems that the future may be better. For Catalans, Provença and specially OccitÃÂ*nia are like distant cousins. Or not so distant. The occitan has been considered in our new statute of autonomy as co official language, as the occitan is spoken in one of our regions (Val d'Aran).

I remember the first time I were in OccitÃÂ*nia with my wife. We crossed the Pirenees on foot, from Berga to Montsegur, covering the 200 km of the Chemin des Bonshommes. Once in Montsegur, we became somewhat disappointed when we discover the limited presence of the occitanian in day-to-day life. I suppose we have the innocent hope that the old ties have prevailed across the Pirennes, despite the state borders and that we could ask in catalan and being answered in occitan:o . It was upsetting to have the feeling to be able to read and understand some of the troubadour poems in "lingua d'oc" of their historical heritage better than some of the locals. A useful warning for us to keep our language in use.

Anyway, in our second visit to France (a route from Carcassone to Cahors) we have a pleasant chance to find and visit a school were the children were educated in occitanian. You still have a chance to keep these languages alive.

I do agree. This was achieved not so long ago (something like the late 80's) for every regional language. However, it should be allowed in public schools but this is more difficult. The law grants that right to all regions. You'll even have teachers around. However, you need to be really motivated if you want the minister to recognize the right for these teachers to teach in public schools. Then, if one of your kid wants to present a regional language as a second language to final examination it's equally difficult for them. They have the right to have a regional language as second language but most academy will not grant them the right to pass the exam (on the ground that there are not enough teachers). The problem with France is that we have tons of laws and only apply a small part of them.:( Still we are a bit further ahead than you but that's normal we started earlier.

That's like women issue in France. I recently discovered that the same rights have been granted to women and men since 1946 through our constitution (in all maters). Still we are far from achieving that in every day life. The military has granted them access to all position only in the late 1990's, they remain under paid. None of our political party grant them the legal quorum... 62 years that France (Liberté Egalité Fraternité), country of human rights, does not even comply to its own constitution.:mad:

My previous point applies just as much to Catalan as it does to any other language including English. Widespread literacy combined with audio and audio-visual recording would help any and all languages survive. That is logical and obvious, surely?

The issue of a minority language being swamped by a majority neighbouring language due to, say, the majority language being the only one used in broadcast media or minority languages receiving poor official recognition and protection is a separate issue. Having said that I also want to point out that I wholeheartedly agree with recognising and protecting individual languages and cultures.

I agree. That's why I said I misunderstood your point hé hé.:D

Bon dia!

I agree totally in this point, too. But it would not prevent any language to suffer the normal (and quick in some places) evolution. Spanglish is a good example of very quick fusion of two strong, quiet different and healthy languages.


Mmmmm...St Patricks day must be a very long day... ;)

I would guess that would depend on how much you had to drink...

He was from the Middle East, probably from the Iraq region since he did bring up Babylon. I'm a little skeptical myself although I guess there could be some form of records perhaps.

Chuck M.

I might have an interesting past too. My great grandfather was born in Russia, he was on my father's side. His father, according to family history, I'm looking for verification, was a general on the Communist side and he was one of the generals directly under Lenin and he knew Lenin well according to what I was told. However, my great grandfather was told to "get out" or he would be drafted into the Red Army. So he came here to the U.S. and he did end up getting drafted in the US Army for World War I. His wife was a Russian Jew, she suffered under the pogroms and had a couple of villages burned out from under her. She also had two brothers, one came over as a union organizer and he organized the coal mines in West Virgina and Pennsylvania, he ended up getting shot and killed and the other was a concert violinist adopted by a Jewish family in New York City when he was young. He was accused of bigamy but was found innocent but his wife divorced him. He was like around 45 or 50, and the local matchmaker, many Jewish couples met through a matchmaker during those times, and he married a 17 year old girl, settled down and had a family and so on. My grandmother, one of their daughters, just turned 94. I'd love to verify a lot of this and find more stories, it is kind of interesting.

Mom's side, well my great, great grandfather was a captain in the Prussian Army and fought in the Franco/Prussian War.

Chuck M.

The USA is such a wonderful melting pot of ethnicities. No wonder so many immigrants considered it to be the "Land of Opportunity".