Emigration...

In my search I have found family members all over the world. Obviously here in Australia and in Lebanon.....USA, Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, Canada, Senegal, Ivory Coast, Chad, France and Great Britain.

What has amazed me is how far spread people can get. A lot of families from Derdghaya emigrated around the early 1900's. In those time Lebanon was ruled by the Ottomans and the Christians were probably dealt with a lot harsher than others as they were the only ones that paid taxes. So having said that a lot of the people not just from Derdghaya emigrated overseas with the USA and South America among the favorites.

Another reason that people emigrated was work save money and return after just a year or two. From some research I have done 1907 was a big time for people from Derdghaya go to the USA. On 0ne set of immigration papers I found at least 20-30 names from Derdghaya. They would leave Beirut by ship to France, land at Marseilles travel by train to Havre and then board another ship to Cuba. In Cuba they would either disembark and board another ship for South America, New Orleans or Mexico. The ones that stayed on board would then either got to Philadelphia or Ellis Island in New York. Ellis Island being the main point of arrival.

The majority of the travellers from Derdghaya returned but some of their fellow travellers stayed and made life for themselves in places like Detroit Michigan and Douglas Arizona being the favorites. They predominantly worked as peddlers, merchants or in the motor vehicle industry.

One of these emigrants was my Great Grandfather Boulos Geryas Khoury. I haven't been able to locate his travel papers yet but I'm still working on it. My father tells me that he travelled in the late 1890's or early 1900's. He travelled to work on the railways, save some money and come back and buy a couple of camels.....we may laugh at this idea but it was the way they transported stock around between villages and the ports like Beirut. There's a lot of conjecture about what happened to him but it seems he died while working on the railways but I've never been able to find any documentation of him arriving or being buried any where.

I have a theory that like most emigrants from Derdghaya they went through Mexico into the USA. I'm hedging my bets that he either died on the trip or died in Mexico......this is a mystery that I may never find out.

Today I received a reply to an email I sent. I must have a 1000 or so emails or Facebook message out in world wide web some where, so its always nice when I receive a reply....especially when it has some information I didn't have.

I was sitting up late last night cruising the net hoping to be able to pluck some thing out of the ectoplasm that could be useful in helping me fill the gaps in the tree. Nothing was able to be found so I decided to message someone I thought was related to my Grandmother.....I had been putting it off as I haven't had much luck lately getting a response to my messages or emails......low and behold I wake up this morning and realise I have mail.

Well as it works out he wasn't related to my Grandmother but the information I got helped fill a hole in the tree. I also realised today that I really should learn some French because the email came back in French....God bless google translate.

So now the hunt continues for the relatives in West Africa. Suppose I will send a few more messages and emails out there and see if I can catch a little fishy....

In the last post I started it with the following.......

Who do I think I am.....well up until recently I was just plain Souheil Khoury. But now I know I am Souheil Sami Najib Boulos Geryas Boulos Rizk Khoury.

I thought I would elaborate. In Lebanon most people don't have a middle name. Whether your male or you will take on your fathers name as a middle name. This can lead to your surname changing sometimes.

Souheil is my name....Sami is my fathers name.....Najib is my Grandfather....Boulos is my Great Grandfather....Geryas is my Great Great Grandfather....Boulos is my Great Great Great Grandfather and founder of our village Derdghaya. Now I also had the name Rizk in there, Rizk is our original surname. Boulos Rizk founded our village and at some stage became a priest: Khoury means Priest. They would have been referred to as bayt el khoury which means household of the priest, this is where over time the surname would have changed.

In Derdghaya I would be known as Souheil Sami, without a mention of my surname and that would be enough for people to know who I am. For instance if you mentioned my Grandfather Najib Khoury no one would have any idea who you were talking about....but if I was to say my Grandfather was Najib Boulos everyone in town would know who he was.

This took me a bit of time to get my head around but when I speak Derdghaya genealogy with my father I have to mention names of people in this way or he has no idea who I'm talking about. Another way people are referred to is the father of the oldest son, for instance my father is referred to as Abu Issam.....father of Issam. People have known father for a lifetime and wouldn't know his name was Sami, they have always known him as Abu Issam.

When I was in Lebanon last year I would be up at the shops and people realising I was from Australia would ask me who I was was. If I said to them I was Sami Khoury's son they would look quizzically at me until I told them I was the youngest son of Abu Issam. Then they would welcome me with open arms.

Who do I think I am.....well up until recently I was just plain Souheil Khoury. But now I know I am Souheil Sami Najib Boulos Geryas Boulos Rizk Khoury.

I grew up in Australia not really knowing my grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins. Was it hard.....you bet it was. At school people talked about their weekends at Nan and Pops or that they had sleep overs at their cousins. Was I jealous you bet I was because I didn't know my extended family, but soon enough you become a little numb to it and it doesn't affect you anymore. But having said that I did grow up in a loving family environment.

I had to wait till 1982 when I visited Lebanon with my Mum and sister for my Aunts wedding before I got to meet any of the extended family. It was an experience I will treasure forever; I reckon if it wasn't for the fact the country was a war zone I wouldn't have come back.

Through my teens I never really longed to know my family history even though I would sit with the olds when they visited listening to my father and the others gathered talk of the old days in the village and all the characters they had encountered. Some stories I remembered when I started my journey and others I completely forgot about.

I have always wanted to know about my family history but like a lot of people you don't want to trouble your parents with silly questions and my grandparents had since long passed. Eventually around seven years ago I thought I would have a red hot go at compiling my family tree. I think I was naive enough to think I can knock this over in no time at all....how wrong I was, 2600 names and I'm only just scratching the surface.

Introduction.....

I've decided to open a blog which will mostly be about me researching my family tree and history.