I see myself as very fortunate to belong to a family which documented its rich heritage back to the 16th century and before it. We have created a family tree of all our ancestors tracked back to three main roots of my family: Spain, France and Iran. In the high-level, my father was born in Sofia, Bulgaria and my mother was born in Cairo, Egypt, what makes me part of the following family branches:
Mother: Jerusalem (600BC) -> Iran (to 16th century) -> Iraq, Syria, Lebanon -> Palestine -> Egypt -> Israel
Mother: Jerusalem (600BC) -> Spain (to 15 century) -> France,Russia -> Algeria -> Egypt -> Israel
Father: Jerusalem (600BC) -> Spain (to 15 century) -> Italy -> Greece -> Bulgaria -> Israel
My late grandfather David had really good memory, and thanks to that and to my uncle which interviewed him, we have the Palestinian side of our family documented back to our Iranian heritage. In this photo, my grandfather (the young guy in the back), his brother Mark and my great-parents are photographed in Jerusalem:
My grandfather had to leave Jerusalem under the Oatmans regime as they used to herras and over tax Jewish residents. He moved to Egypt, the economical power of the time, where he met my late beautiful grandmother – Blanche. “Blanche” in French means “white” and indeed she had a white pale skin like of snow-white. Blanche was the fifth daughter of Jacuque Nanish, my French great-grandfather which was a very rich and active business man. David and Blanche got married in Egypt where my mother was born.
Blanche Nanish, my grandmother, won the lottery prize in Egypt
As I said, we managed to track the family history to the 16th century where we merged our history with the French branch of the family. In the following picture you can see the birth certificate and the marriage certificate of my great-great-great grandmother, Marie La’ Bere:
Marriage certificate of Marie Le Bear, my great-great-great grandmother
We have managed to connect recently with our French side of the family, which accomplished our family tree to the 16th century:
More documents:
- Moise Nanishe, my great-great grandfather, birth certificate
- Blanche and David (my grandparents) marriage certificate from Helliopolis (today is Cairo), 1928