Tracing Southern Ancestry Back 2600 Years to the King of Babylon
A genealogical posting on an ancestry message board regarding the surname, "Nunes" says oral history states that the name was originally "Ben-Nun", a reference to Nebuchaneezer, the king of Babylon who captured Jerusalem and in 597 B.C. kept the Jews captive for over fifty years.
I read another fascinating story regarding the surname, "Nunes" or "Nunez". A genealogist denotes it is a Sephardic Jewish name that began in Jerusalem. The family line fled to Spain, then to Portugal then to Savannah Georgia.
In some instances Nunes/Nunez became "Eunice". In Acadian Louisiana there is a community "Eunice", settled by rice farmers, many from South Carolina, whose ancestors originally came to the colonies from Barbados, Jamaica, Bermuda, Spain and Portugal. Do you have a Eunice in your family tree? How about Nunes or Nunez? Is it far-fetched to believe that family oral history could survive for over 2600 years?
Suellen Ocean is the author of Secret Genealogy available at Amazon.
About Suellen
Historical fiction writer Suellen Ocean has a Bachelor of Arts degree from Sonoma State University. The former radio personality has a "knack for storytelling and for making characters come alive." Although the stories are rather sexy and string romances...
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Suellen’s Favorite Books
"Rembrandt’s Jews", by Steven Nadler, "Clan of the Cave Bear", by Jean M. Auel, "The Red Tent", by Anita Diamant