My Name: One of the greatest things about blogging is hearing from readers. I try to answer or at least acknowledge messages, but all too often they slip past me, especially when I am traveling. A couple weeks ago, I blogged about anti-Semitism and one reader whose last name is "Barnett" wondered how someone Jewish like me came to have such a non-Jewish sounding name. Indeed, it is so non-Jewish sounding that when I joined the Conspiracy, Eugene touted this as adding diversity because I was not Jewish. When Richard Posner did his survey of public intellectuals (for table click here), he categorized me as non-Jewish too. Perhaps both intuited that I am not observant, indeed I am no longer a believer, but I think it was my last name that misled them.

It also misled my classmates growing up. Much of the anti-Semitism I witnessed were anti-Semitic remarks made in my presence by classmates who did not know I was Jewish. I was one of only 4 Jews in a high school class of 400 in the predominantly Polish-Catholic town of Calumet City, Illinois. (Republican activist Mary Matalin lived one block over from me and was a year behind me in school.) I got into a fist fight in first grade with a boy who called me a dirty Jew, but looking back, I see no reason to think he knew I was Jewish. I also resolved to fight anyone who insulted my Jewishness, though I very quickly gave up on that one.

So where did "Barnett" come from? Well, my paternal great-grandfather, Harris Barnett, received this name either when he entered the country from Russia, or when he joined the US Army in 1876. Family lore had it that he was in the US Cavalry as part of the relief party to the aid of Custer at the Little Big Horn. But his Army enlistment records in the geneological center in Salt Lake City tell a somewhat different story. They give his age as 22, his birthplace Russia, his occupation as peddler, and his enlistment location as Chicago. He does not appear to have been in the cavalry, though army units were sometimes attached to cavalry units. He enlisted a week after Little Big Horn, and was honorably discharged 5 years later in Montana. So apparently he enlisted in the Army upon news of Custer's defeat and fought in the Indian Wars, which is the source of the distorted family account.

European immigrants were commonly given new easier-to-pronounce Americanized names upon entry into the country. Of my 4 grandparent's names, only one is original. "Hecht" became "Abrahams" (my great-grandfather's middle name), "Turkeltaub" ("turtledove") became "Tobe." These ancestors were from Eastern Europe and arrived much later than Harris Barnett. My maternal grandfather, Charles Abrahams, was born in England (after his father immigrated there from Eastern Europe--so the name "Abrahams" was exchanged for "Hecht" there rather than in Canada). He was raised in Montreal, dropped out of school after the 8th grade and, after working as a migrant worker in Canada, jumped the border illegally in the 1920s to work in the auto-related factories in Detroit where he met my grandmother and where my mom was born. He also dabbled as a stand-up comedian named "Charlie Chess" in vaudeville on the Michigan circuit. He remained in the country illegally for many years before becoming a resident alien (which confused me as a small child when I watched Superman who was described as an "alien" from another planet "who came to earth with powers and abilities far beyond those of mortal men.") I recall his becoming an American citizen when I was a bit older, around 1962. Only my paternal ancestors who immigrated from Germany retained their original name of "Greenwald."

And me? Like my father, I have always considered myself American. Not Russian, German, Polish, or Lithuanian--American. Although I am now a nonobservant nonbeliever, for some reason I still consider myself Jewish. And for me, America has always been the "Promised Land."

UPDATE: More on Immigrant Name Changes: A reader writes to note several websites that contest as a "myth" the story that names were changed at Ellis Island. (See here, here, and here.) While these sound plausible, I have no idea whether my family entered the country at Ellis Island, or elsewhere. As I said, Hecht was changed to Abrahams most likely in England before my grandfather's parents emmigrated to Canada shortly after his birth in 1902. However, as the most detailed of these sites notes:

Once settled into their new homes, however, anything could happen. Millions of immigrants had their names changed voluntarily or by clerks or by schoolteachers who couldn't pronounce or spell children's names. Some immigrants changed their names in order to obtain employment. Many immigrants found it easier to assimilate into American culture if they had American-sounding names, so they gladly went along with whatever their neighbors or schoolteachers called them.

I was always told by my parents (who did not know from first-hand experience) that the name changes were made to assist the immigrants in assimilation, sometimes because these names were hard to pronounce, not that the immigration officials themselves could not pronounce them. Still, I found these revisionist accounts quite interesting.

FURTHER UPDATE: This blog comment on Empty Days linking to this post (at the bold type) is self explanatory: "As to all this offended-jewishness-sos-pc-police talk, I have to wonder why the Volokh guys feel the need to explicate at length how they're all pure-bred jewish on their blog. Sorta cliquish, I figure. Oy-vey, a conspiracy! :)"

Harris Barnett: While I am linking to old blog posts, I was contacted tonight out of the blue by a cousin I had never met who found me via this blog post of mine from 2004. He had done a Google search for "Harris Barnett Custer" and up popped my post. Yet another cool thing about the internet in general and blogging in particular. I have in the past been contacted by someone who thought we might be related, of course, but this is the first time it was true. (He is the grandson of my grandfather's brother and we share Harris Barnett as an ancestor.) Has anyone else found or been found by a long-lost or never-met relative because of your blogging?