Wow, hard to believe I’m leaping into my third year participating in Amy Johnson Crow’s “52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks“!
For decades I’ve been reading the same stories about my great x3 grandparents, Robert Nelson and Elizabeth Joseph. I have written about them before (such as here and here). They were both born in Muff, Donegal, Ireland in 1818, two weeks apart. Robert and Elizabeth married in 1842 and within two years they were living in Scotland, near Glasgow. In 1850 they emigrated to the United States. They both died in Smithfield, Utah in 1902: Robert in February and Elizabeth in May.
The oft-repeated story is that Elizabeth was Jewish. The related story is that Robert and Elizabeth were picnicking on an island, where they were trapped by a storm and had to spend the night. The next morning they returned home in disgrace and because they had spent the night together were forced to marry. Moreover, because Robert was Christian, Elizabeth’s parents disowned her.
Needless to say, I don’t believe a word of it.
Not once in over thirty years have I ever seen a shred of evidence supporting this story or the proposition that Elizabeth was Jewish. The conclusion that she was could not be further from the Genealogical Proof Standard if one tried.
When Elizabeth was born, the Jewish population of the entirety of Ireland was extremely small, and mainly centred in Dublin and Belfast. It had not really been established by the time Elizabeth and Robert left Ireland for Scotland. By the mid-1800s, there were only a couple hundred Jews in the entire country. According to the 1881 census, there were fewer than 400 Jews in all of Ireland. Muff, Donegal is on the northern outskirts of Londonderry, where there was no Jewish community prior to 1893. In 1894, there were only 43 Jews in Londonderry.
It is not entirely impossible that Elizabeth was Jewish, but it is extremely unlikely. Absent any evidence to support the claim, I don’t accept it.
UPDATE: Since going live with this, a reader suggested that a DNA test might help put this story to rest. Great idea, I don’t know why I didn’t think of it. This might be an unpopular thing for a genealogist to admit, but I’ve never taken one for a lot of reasons I really don’t feel like explaining right now. However, one of my brothers took a DNA test and he sent me the results. They were everything I expected and, frankly, boring! I took a look at it again, and there is no indication of even a trace amount of Jewish ancestry. To me, this reinforces my disbelief that Elizabeth was Jewish.
A Deck of Ancestors 
I wonder what prompted this bit of family lore? Could it be her surname? Is it unusual among the Irish? Thanks for sharing.
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I’ll have to ask people in my family who might know. It seems to be quite the odd choice without any context. John was German on his father’s side. His mother had Irish roots on her paternal grandfather’s side and Anglo-American roots on her maternal grandmother’s side. “Schuylor”, “Barry”, and “McGene” don’t appear anywhere on his maternal line. I haven’t researched his father’s side, but I doubt there are any on that side either.
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