Word has come down that on my mother's side (Chandler) Mary Dan, b. 1741, Norwich, England, was Sephardic. Is this possible? Mary Dan moved to Greenock, England where she married great grandfather Chandler. They immigrated to Lynn, MA, where they and other Chandler brothers operated a shoe factory. If there is a basis to this family story, how do I find out more about the Dans? Thanks so much for any information.

Hey Carolyne!

If you go to http://www.jewishgen.org and search under their Family Finder, you will find other Dan and Dann researchers. I noted one out of England that may be a start. While there, you might want to search their other databases, including their forums. Dan could be a shortened Sephardic name beginning with Dan..., but I believe it could also, but less likely be a shortened "Daniel" too, which would be directly Semitic, *I think*. Sephardim.Com has quite a few Dan... in their seachable database. The British Jewry Mailing List here at Rootsweb is really great and has lots of traffic. List Admins. and members have a lot of knowledge about British Jewish records and are so helpful. You can get there by going to http://lists.rootsweb.com/index/other/Ethnic-Jewish/BRITISH-... and can search or browse archives, and receive directions on how to join and place a query.

Good luck to you and Happy New Year!
Donalyn

About the name Dan. I have a Danish friend who said that Denmark is named after the Tribe of Dan....That was one of the Ten Lost Tribes and it all happened so long ago that facts are up for grabs. We do know that the ten tribes included the Tribe of Dan and that they all were taken captive by the Assyrians, the Babylonians and then the Persians and they all just turned up missing. The remaining tribes were Judah, Levi (priestly tribe) and Benjamin. These tribes made it into the modern world as the Jews.
Here are a couple of websites which will provide more information than you can imagine:
http://thecapitalscot.com/pastfeatures/tribes.html
and
http://watch.pair.com/dan.html

The latter is entitled The Lost Tribe of Dan and is 20 pages long with a lot of Biblical stuff. It's very interesting and some of it might just be historical.
Good luck,
Barbara Chimene

Some relatives posted info on TOWNSEND ancestry.com so I recently found various family lines to research for Jewish roots. Here's one of my early ancestors, SARAH CHANDLER, who married MOSES SIMMONS... She goes back to about a 1600 birthdate. Keep in touch if you like; I'd like to learn more about the CHANDLER name. I don't have proof of Jewish roots yet; many of our family surnames appear in avotaynu, CJSI, etc. so my theory is they were sephardic families who went to Engl, and who were crypto Jews in early America, too. A lot of our family surnames appear in First American Jewish Families, which includes early Canadian settlements. (The surnames appear, I don't know yet if my actual families are listed...) Out of print book...Barb
Campbell-Poulter
Entries: 597 Updated: Sat May 3 19:52:09 2003 Contact: Kim Poulter

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ID: I528275996
Name: Sarah CHANDLER
Given Name: Sarah
Surname: CHANDLER
Sex: F

Marriage 1 MOSES SIMMONS
Children
Mary SIMMONS b: 1638