Does anybody know where the surname (family name) "Patneaude" or "Patnaude" 's origin is?
I do not normally give origin of Surnames because they can come from more than one place and change over time. However, I will give you some websites that can give you an idea and let you make up your own mind. http://www.searchforancestors.com/surnam... http://genealogy.about.com/library/surna... There is quite a lot of info about this family at this site: http://boards.ancestry.com/surnames.patn... and you may be able to find someone who one who is knowledgable and can help you further. Now that being said you really, need to do the research on your family. First, start by asking all your living relatives about family history and get any documents or pictures they are willing to share with you for your files. You can photocopy or scan these and return them to their owner. Your public library will most likely have both Ancestry.com and Heritage Quest.com free for anyone to use while at the library and with a library card you can use Heritage Quest at home. Another free online resource is U.S. GenWeb at: http://www.usgenweb.org/ they have a page for every state and everything is free. Also, I would be remiss if I didn't mention FamilySearch.org they have many free online records digitizing more every day, all free. Their website is: http://www.familysearch.org/ and I found a great deal of information in the 1880 US Federal Census about this family so be sure to check it out. Be sure to check each state that you need information from as many have their own projects, for example the state of Missouri has a great website that has many free source documents online at: http://www.sos.mo.gov/mdh/ and don’t forget to check Cyndi’s List at http://www.cyndislist.com which has a lot of links for both free and paid sites. This is the only way to truly know the origin of your Patneaude name.
Can someone help me with my Ukrainian Jewish heritage (Derbaremdiker)?
My grandmother's maiden name is Derbaremdiker. A guy who provided photos and did an interview for centropa (Jewish heritage organization) also has the last name Derbaremdiker. The interview can be found at this website. http://www.berdichev.org/mark_derbaremdiker.htm This is a quote from the interview (taken from that website). "The origin of my family name also dates back to him. In 1804, during the reign of Alexander I, the officials issued a decree to give last names to the Jews. When a clerk came to the house of Leivi-Itshak, the latter was saying his prayer shmoy yisrey [shma yisrael–] – Listen, Israel – and couldn't stop praying. But the clerk kept asking, ‘Tell me the last name you want for yourself”. When the prayer was over the tzaddik said in Yiddish, ‘merakhemdiker got, vos vil fun mir?', which means, ‘Merciful Lord, what does he want of me?' And the clerk said, ‘What? Derbaremdiker?' and put it down in his roster." Only descendents from Rabbi Levi Yitzchok of Berdichev (AKA the "Berdichever") bear the last name Derbaremdiker. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levi_Yitzchok_of_Berditchev My grandmother's maiden name is Derbaremdiker. She was born in Zhytomyr, Ukraine. Her mom's name was Riva and her father's name was Mordechai. Her mothers' parents were named Feiga and Yosif. What is her connection to the people on that website?
Why are names so important?
People give certain names to their children for various reasons - to honor someone, like a favored relative or famous person (like your uncle Michael, or John F. Kennedy); because the name itself translates to something special (like my name, Timothy, translates to "serving God"), to provide a sense of uniqueness in the world (like the name of someone I knew in college gave to her daughter - Tanji), or to be frivolous (as in the case of parents who might name their child "Lucifer" or "Messiah" or "23"). In some cultures which use descriptive phrases or nouns for names, as in some Native American tribes, it is seen as bestowing the gifts or talents described in the phrase, such as Running Rabbit or Flying Arrow. In any case, the name a person bears through life is something he or she must carry, and it is sometimes the only thing others have to judge you by before they meet you. Your name travels ahead of you like a portent of things to come, a thing from which others make assumptions about people.For instance, because of trends in naming children, you expect people (in the US, anyway) named Caden and Olivia to be children, Travis and Zoey to be in their 20s or 30s, Mark and Michelle to be in their 40s, etc. Surnames also say something about a person's heritage. O'Donnelly would be an Irish name, Bellini would be Italian, Hernandez would be Spanish, etc. And by knowing a person's heritage, one makes certain assumptions about the values they hold or do not hold, about the foods they prefer, and about how they raise their children.Are these assumptions always fair or accurate? Of course not, but people continue to make assumptions, regardless. That is why, when naming a child, one must take things like this into consideration. That's what makes it such a horrible forehead-slapping what-were-they-thinking thing to discover another human being has been named something frivolous like "Satan" or "Candlestick". It already proves the parents were frivolous, and by extension the children are assumed to have been raised to be just as frivolous as the parents, and thus are irrelevant as people.
Question about the origin of my grandmothers last name?
Checking the 1880 USA Census (free on Ancestry and other sites) there were 156 Cousino listed, nearly all living in Michigan with a few in NY and Ohio, nearly all born in the USA except for 4 in Canada and 1 in Belgium. The 1860 USA census has 61 Cousino -- 2 born in England (which could mean Canada), 2 in Sweden, 2 in Ohio, 1 in Illinois and 1 in Minnesota. The remaining were born in Michigan. The 1930 USA census, Cousino has 846 people listed, most still living in Michigan or Ohio, but also spread south to Alabama and west to California. While it's tempting to say that the surname is English from this superficial search, it's also possible Cousino is from Quebec and French. The Cousino bulletin board on GenForum has people researching the alternate spelling Cousineau.