re: #231 wheat-dogghazi

The yDNA tests have isolated at least four lines sharing my surname from Devon. It seems four different forebears chose the same (or similar) surnames around 1300. In my case, it means my family is not directly descended from a large, prominent colonial New England family, but comes from the same “neck of the woods” as that family in Devon, England.

Not uncommon I think. My surname is not unusual in England too, and variants of it are all over NW Europe. I know its history in my line back to the early 1600’s, and it’s spelling has been changed twice, each time a national border was crossed.

Back then, being a child of someone meant taking their first name somehow into your own, as a clan name. Even royalty were known by their first name, whether it was their birth name or one adopted when ascending a throne.

Migratory humans simply adopt their local culture and blend their childhood learnt culture with the new one. It’s always been that way. That’s why when I read xenophobes ranting about, say, Mexicans changing California by not adopting “American” customs I can only shake my head.