Who else might be Gypsy, Roma? Ongoing interest log.

Who Else might be (or is) Gypsy, Roma?

Assimilation Process for Survival

 

Bill Clinton Gypsy Heritage?

Not a new concept at all.

This is recreational looking-up.  I have not vetted each site, just pass on as an interest the possibly Roma heritage for someone you may know.  Where assimilation may be the only way to survive, we should not be surprised at all that many could and did move, change name, marry into a mainstream culture family, and the culture may dissipate as to Roma roots for that family. See Gypsies, A Persecuted Race, Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies, including England, at http://www.chgs.umn.edu/histories/victims/romaSinti/gypsies2.html; http://www.btinternet.com/~radical/thefolkmag/gypsies.htm

I found these sites suggesting individuals with Roma heritage by a search for Rumney, a term I understood was used in England for Travelers; and the listed surname for the Rumney family who appeared on St. Mary's rolls in England with a marriage in 1730, Mitt Romney's forbear. 

Here are some Rumneys, and the Rumney term there is is used for the group. 

• Other uses of Rumney, not referring to the Traveler group, are apparently not Traveler, so the term itself is not definitive one way or the other.  See Rumney VT at http://www.reference.com/browse/Rumney; and an area of Cardiff Wales, see http://www.cardiffians.co.uk/suburbs/rumney.shtml. Rumney NH might be?  see http://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/3-rare-gypsy-photographs-taken-rumney-n-h-in-1890

1. Bill Clinton -- fair use quote

"Bill Clinton - born William Blythe III, his dad's side are Scottish Gypsies. While in office he quietly repealed the last of the laws against Gypsies in the United States, and appointed the first Gypsy to be director of the US Holocaust Memorial Council.."  This from Famous Gypsies of Hollywood (a stretch to put Clinton there) at  http://able2know.org/topic/85629-1.

Would this root make Mitt Romney, whose family name had been Rumney in the 1700's, more comfortable exploring this possible heritage as Rumney?  On the other hand, Former President Clinton had his family records sealed, see claim at this forum site, at http://www.answerbag.com/q_view/830936.  Could he unseal them now?

Linkish sites for Clinton, if: The Last of the Gypsy Royals, http://www.gypsyroyals.com/the-last-of-the-gypsy-royals/; Blythe, the Famous Gypsy Family of Scotland,  http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/755009/posts

A few of the many others listed at that able2know site --  I cannot recall if I included these in earlier lists here.  This site is a forum, so if I see a disputed identification, I have excluded it.

2.  Pablo Picasso

3.  Mother Teresa 

4.  Johnny Cash

Romani in Film; Topics

 Update:

1. EMIR KUSTURICA:

Try director Emir Kusturica's groundbreaking 1988 film The Time of the Gypsies., This clue from the National Geographic site, ://worldmusic.nationalgeographic.com/worldmusic/view/page.basic/genre/content.genre/roma__gypsy__music_778/  He was born in Sarajevo, not of gypsy parents, but has found an affinity with them.  See 2005 NYT at ://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/08/magazine/08EMIR.html

Then Black Cat, White Cat - see review of this film and other works in the New York Times, Sunday, September 5, 1999.  See videos related, on YouTube, at ://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mBbzcj1t2WY&feature=related/; and at  ://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JdRPRvhXSCo&NR=1/.  Enjoy the music. Mr. Kusturica characterizes the music as Unca-Unca, or oontsa-oontsa, a 2/4 beat, combining rock 'n roll, reggae and elements from times gone by - "a mess,  but a nice mess."

And find, in Images for Black Cat, White Cat, even more fun.

He is the only child of Muslim parents, but apparently they were not practicing Muslims. See article. By 1999, he lived in Normandy with his family.

2. JASMINE DELLAL.

PBS has this: "American Gypsy: Stranger in Everybody's Land," film by Jasmine Dellal, at ://www.pbs.org/pov/pov2000/americangypsy/index.html. The estimate there is about 1,000,000 Gypsies in America. See review at ://www.americangypsy.com/the_film/full_description.html

 
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Cross reference to another of our sites - see comment there about Roma in Cesky Krumlov - populations living well together - Roma in Czech city, Cesky Krumlov

We have no ethnic connection to Roma, but a deep interest in why humans need to scapegoat others. We also have no information on dialects, but would like to know more.

Roma, Gypsies, at Mauthausen Concentration Camp, Austria WWII

Mauthausen Concentration Camp, near Linz, Austria, originally was populated with criminals deemed detrimental to the commonweal, in 1938.  That category then broadened to include ethnic minorities, and "undesirables;"  German Sinti were decimated.

We understand there is a Documentation and Cultural Center of German Sinti and Roma in Heidelburg, Germany, see this general overview we just found (we have not been there) at ://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Documentation_and_Cultural_Centre_of_German_Sinti_and_Roma/  We were at the Nazi Documentation Center in Nuremberg, however, and if this is of the same calibre and thoroughness, it is worth at least a full day's visit.
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Mauthausen was built by prisoners from Dachau, Germany, see http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/mauthausen.html. A year later, not only criminals but racial, religious, national and political groups seen as undesirable groups were designated as detriments, and imprisoned at Mauthausen. By 1939 there were already 300 gypsies from the Burgenland area there. See "Gypsies in the Holocaust" at ://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/gypsies.html

Memorial, Mother Germany, Mauthausen Concentration Camp, Mauthausen, Austria

The Mauthausen concept included this main camp, and 49 "permanent sub-camps". In looking at death statistics, other concentration camp complexes or hubs like this only counted the deaths at the main camp. Say 35,000 for the main camp, and 2,000,000 including the larger complex. Maybe "just" 100,000+.  Or 200,000. The records were intact upon liberation, but somehow nobody was made to put the figures together, so nobody did. See Death Statistics for Mauthausen at ://www.scrapbookpages.com/Mauthausen/KZMauthausen/History/deathstatistics.html/.  See the breakdowns by group.
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Exhibit, Zigeuner (Gypsies) at Mauthausen KC, Mauthausen, Austria. Photographs, text.

Data on the Roma genocide:  See the Holocaust Encyclopedia at ://www.ushmm.org/wlc/article.php?lang=en&ModuleId=10005219/  There are also photographs there.
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Wall Plaque Memorial, Roma and Sinti, (Gypsy groups), Mauthausen Concentration Camp, Mauthausen, Austria


Guard tower, barbed wire, wall, Mauthausen Concentration Camp, Mauthausen, Austria

Death by execution (shooting), disease (especially typhus), gas, hanging, malnutrition, exhaustion, at a rate of some 300 deaths per day upon liberation. This was a punishment-labor and death camp where trying to get down the long staircase into the quarry and breaking rocks killed many itself.  Many more, the exhibits state, were simply pushed off the cliff above into the quarry - those killed in that way were called "the parachutists."

Many deaths were not recorded toward the end of the war because the Austrian police had taken over and most of the staff escaped. See ://www.scrapbookpages.com/Mauthausen/KZMauthausen/History/deathstatistics.html/  Three thousand more died after the Americans took over, including the handover to the Russians soon after liberation, from similar causes to before - exhaustion, disease, but now there is note of inmates killing each other (no further information on that), and the starving dying of sudden abundance of over-rich food.

A crematory oven, two layers. Mauthausen Concentration Camp, Mauthausen, Austria

The Gypsies.  Records are sparse, compared to the fates of other populations. How many were executed at gullies, and pushed in, and never arriving at the camp. As a refresher course in the variety among this population, read the Summary for Gypsies, not only listing how they were killed in the camps, but their identifications.  See the "Sinti" and "Roma" specified in particular at Mauthausen.  See ://summary.jeetu.co.in/s/Gypsies/.

The listing of Gypsy groups is similar to earlier posts here from other sources, but this is more extensive:

• "Romanichal , the Gitanoes , the Sinti , the Rudari , the Manush , the Boyash , the Ungaritza , the Luri , the Bashald , the Romungro , and the Xoraxai ."  

Add the four Rom tribe-nations:

• the "Kalderash , the Machavaya , the Lovari , and the Churari ." 

 Other names for the Romani:

• "Gypsies, Tsigani, Tzigane, Cigano, Zigeuner, and more. 

•  Roma linguistically are in three basic groups:  Domari in the Middle East, and East Europe; Lomarven of Centrare divided into three populations:  "the Domari of the Middle East and Eastern Europe, the Lomarvren of Central Europe, and the Romani of Western Europe.

Tens of thousands. How many. Mother Germany. Mother Austria. Beyond comprehension. Are we also so seeded.
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Bucolic view of the killing quarry down there, here at the cliff-top, Mauthausen Concentration Camp, Mauthausen, Austria

Melungeons - Parse for American Roma, Gypsy; Other European, Moor, Native American, Black,

Origins of Melungeons

An Ethnic/Racial Mix.  Which?
Components of a Blend: Difficult to Parse

A Roma heritage may sometimes be claimed by others, who examine histories of population, but not necessarily conform to the oral tradition of some of a mixed group. Is that what has happened with a possible/probable connection of a group known as Melungeons; and a Gypsy or Roma branch within that group. Even a deep root. Whether from enslaved Roma brought to the South Carolina shores, or otherwise entering, even as early as with early explorers, as sailors; or other "undocumented immigrants" collected and dropped.

• Updates:  Melungeon origins by DNA --  South of Sahara African and then White roots 5.26.2912. Melungeon origins.  A DNA study in Tennessee shows connections within narrower sets of ethnic and racial roots:  merely black, south of the Sahara in Africa, and white. See http://www.tennessean.com/article/20120526/NEWS21/305260028/Melungeons-aren-t-who-they-thought

•  Update:  Melungeon Moorish origins 4.18.2011 -- See this site, Islamic in origin, tracing Islamic peoples to the Melungeons, see Moors -- Islamic Roots of Melungeons   Earlier here, we noted "Moors" as among the possible-probable components of the melange of Melungeons, and this site adds detail to the theory. For you to vet.  

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1.  Our start. We read "The Secret Life of Bees," by Sue Monk Kidd; and saw the film, and made connections at The Fodder Site, Mixed Origins, Clues to Religions, Cultures.

We saw a thread among various cultures in different scenes from the book and film: 

a) see the iconic painting of the Black Madonna in the book and film (if you know the story, this is the picture on the honey jars), and ask how it got to a slave-descended family.

b) see the Black carved female figure in the parlor, like an intermediary, a source of inspiration to women in kinds of bondage and suffering from "slavery days;"  and ask who that might be, what blend of African roots and other cultural intersections, reinforcing the principles,

c) see the slave-descendant culture, and slave culture more broadly - how many other groups were enslaved, not just Blacks, and that would have intermingled with other slave groups, including enslaved Gypsy or Roma; and other indentured servants. When freed, who joined up with whom, where did they go.

The American South was and is a complex geneological place. We see traces of other ethnic groups particularly in the dialect of the Old South, Uncle Remus Tales, Translations: Inland Slave Heritage.  Find there traces of the Portuguese in the words used, especially "palaver" that is Portuguese; think of all the Portuguese sailors landing in the south.

2.  We came across a name for one group of mixed heritage, the Melungeons. 

Now mostly in Appalachia, there is a group with a varied background, reflected in the name itself. The Melungeons are named perhaps after the Greek "melan" for Black; or the Portuguese "melungo" for shipmate;  or the Italian "melongeno" for eggplant; the Turkish "melun can" for accursed one; old English "melangin" for guile; or the French "melange" for mixture. See "The Malungean Heritage Association" at ://www.melungeon.org/node/4/. Their first documentation stems from southwern Virginia, bordering on Tennessee; also southern Ohio, parts of Kentucky. Groups like them, or vestiges, are also along the Atlantic Seaboard.

3.  Some find a Roma or Gypsy connection with the Melungeons. 

It is like a missing link, geneologically. How to explain the origins, the broad variation in characteristics, where they came from.  This Roma connection is explored by Linda Griggs in "Patrin," a Roma Journal. The article is "The Black Dutch, German Gypsies, or Chicanere, and Their Relation to the Melungeons," by Linda Griggs.  See ://www.geocities.com/~patrin/melungeon.htm/

With a landing point at the South Carolina coast for many enslaved Roma, see "The Never-Ending Road American Roma (Gypsies), Travellers and "Others," at ://sciway3.net/clark/freemoors/, this makes sense. Start there, many end up in Appalachia.by Henry Burke at two sites --

a.  "Origins of the Appalachian-Melungeon Subculture: A More Plausible Explanation for the Origin of Melungeons." See ://www.coax.net/people/lwf/HRB_MEL.HTM/. and

b. "A Possible End to the Mystery of the Melungeons," at ://www.melungeons.com/articles/mysteryBurke.htm/ 

4.  Other accounts of origins, including some Melungeons themselves, and according to the Melungeon Heritage Society site, however, do not include Roma or Gypsy. 

They name Portuguese and Spanish sailors, Egyptian, India Indian, Native American, Turks, Moors, Jews, Blacks, other European and Middle East. Read the long list of names given to specific groups -  See also "A Brief Overview of the Melungeons" by Wayne Winkler at ://www.melungeon.org/node/4/.

"Dark-skinned, frustratingly European-looking" - and pushed off their purchased land, in an ethnic cleansing effort in Appalachia, see this Google Book, "The Melungeons, the Resurrection of a Proud People: The Untold Story of Ethnic Cleansing in America, " by Robyn Vaughan Kennedy, at ://books.google.com/books?hl=en&id=Jqhd3tVSJNkC&dq=melungeon&printsec=frontcover&source=web&ots=_G_P-73RUk&sig=pFnoL0eaXJIhbixjOvmOa8hfZKU&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=5&ct=result

But to us, outsiders, this Gypsy Roma possible connection adds to the Melungeon Heritage site, not detracts from it. See origins also at  Poland Road Ways, Black Madonna in American South.

The Roma culture is rich in talent and survival skills. Otherwise, they would be gone after a thousand years of persecution.

Do see "The Secret Life of Bees," see ://www.imdb.com/title/tt0416212/.

The book is by Sue Monk Kidd. As you look for possible Roma background, not dispositive but interesting,  see the talent at the stringed instrument, by the character, June Boatwright.  The drive for independence from men, of June and her sister, August Boatwright.  The heritage of the women managing the household, and the men coming and going if they liked, with cultural support for that role, and in many Roma-descended people, a gender ritual separation, that may not just be slavery-related.  It may not just be because men were sold off - it can be part of a larger heritage, and one that enabled survival of a persecuted people through that thousand years.

American Roma.  Shall we open our eyes that we may see.

Current issues: Migrations, Economic Pressures, Global Movements

Conditions. Further update, on the poor vs. progress. This is 3/3/08: Read "On the Margins: Roma and Public Services in Romania, Bulgaria, and Macedonia, With a Supplement on Housing in the Czech Republic," by Ina Zoon, Open Society Institute press 2001. Covers denials of health care, lack of adequate housing, and recommendations.

Migrations. Here is a teaching, resource site with an excellent historical overview of the migration of Roma-Gypsies, from the East to the British Isles, and to US and other continents. //www.travellersinleeds.co.uk/_travellers/HistoryEngland.html. There is a timeline, maps, pictures, a great start for understanding the magnitude of the accomplishment of Gypsies - surviving for millennia, migrating, or going on routes within areas, as they kept on the road.

Like any people, move where it may be better. Look at the conditions documented in the Ina Zoon sourcebook, above.

Like anyone's immigrant grandparents and great-grandparents of whatever background, who came here, or to Canada. How stop the human desire for a life with more health, economic security, a place where families can survive over subsistence / persecution level. A water level concept. Always has been. Immigration happens. And it enriches, if others can let it. Look at the children's pictures at the Travellers In Leeds site.

See this article regarding the Romanian Roma population, set to move wherever it is safer, better. See //www.reuters.com/article/sphereNews/idUSL0932609020070909?sp=true&view=sphere.
The article asks, is the European Union any more prepared, or amenable, to sharing abundance or even sufficiency, with those who have neither, and what is the consequence of not so doing.

Us, US, heed. Immigration is a global issue, self-determination drives are a global issue. A finger in a dike cannot last. Right, right?

Roma in Slovakia: Push-cart

This family was deferential in movement, going around our car, downcast eyes. They had a heavy push-cart, with children and belongings on it. This is in Slovakia. No other persons were like them there, although there was a shantytown down the road - just no people visible. It is as though noone wastes time on the road. We finally saw one other man, head averted, was walking a ways past.

There were armed guards at the main entrance of this modest mall area, with a supermarket and gas station there.

See details at Slovakia Road Ways, Roma pos.






The caravans are large enough for living and sleeping. We saw some parked, but not on the roads.