Anny Ballardini wrote:
> Re.: "emigrant"
>
> please Stephen do not take it personally, but I cannot hold it..:
>
> Vincent: French
> Johnson: English
> Wolman: German
>
Mistake. Polish, at least back to the 19th century. Father's family
emigrated from Lublin in the 1890s. That is the only trutht about them
I know. Two theories on the source of the name. One is "Woolman" just
like the Quaker, oddly enough, a wool-merchant or wool-carder. The
other is that the family name came down from a Polish village, a shtetl,
where they might have lived ages ago. Bad memory, but this is how I
remember reading it: the shtetl was annihilated by the Nazis during
WW2. Wool may be more accurate. But the latter feeds my taste for the
literary and tragic. Think of Lear's Edgar: "Know that my name is lost."
> Ward: English
> Alpert: German
> Pollack: Polish
> Green: English
> Weiss: German
> Ballardini: Italian (previously French: Ballard)
>
> who is autoctonous here?
>
Ken
--------------------
Ken Wolman rainermaria.typepad.com
We're neither pure, nor wise, nor good
We'll do the best we know.
We'll build our house and chop our wood
And make our garden grow...
Bernstein/Wilbur, "Candide"
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