THE ANCESTRY AND GENEALOGY OF MY FAMILY By

THE ANCESTRY AND GENEALOGY OF MY FAMILY By Mazen Bleibel Professors Emily Schmitt Lavin and James Doan Honors Seminar: Genetics and Genealogy November 17 th, 2020

ORIGINS • The origins of my family comes from two primary families, and they are the families of Bleibel and Dahche, both of which came from a small village in what used to be northern Palestine, called Taytaba. • It was common culturally for a person to marry within the family, as it seemed very unfamiliar and possibly immoral to marry outside the family (for cultural and religious reasons). Because of this, my maternal grandparents, as well as my paternal grandmother, all belong to the larger family of Dahche, while my paternal grandfather belongs to the family of Bleibel.

QASIM DAHCHE • Qasim Dahche, son of Muhammad Dahche, is one of the earliest known ancestors of the Dahche family who we have information on. Born in 1895, Qasim grew up living an average life, getting married to Fattom Makhloof, and eventually having a child who he named Muhammad Dahche (born around 1920 present). At this point in time, Jewish migration to Palestine had begun, yet he did not live to see the 1948 Palestinian Exodus (he died around 1940). That was when his son, Muhammad decided to take his mother and move to Ain al Hilwa. • There, my great-grandfather married Aminah Dahche (1926 -2002) and had 4 children: Ahmad, Fatima, Wael, and Sameer.

QASIM DAHCHE Muhammad Ibn Qasim (left) and Aminah (right), Circa 1985

HUSSEIN DAHCHE • Aminah Dahche was the daughter of Hussein Dahche (1902 -1975), who was a wealthy farmer in Palestine, and an extremely important ancestor in my lineage, as he was the grandfather of 3 of my own grandparents. He was also the cousin of Qasim Dahche. After the 1948 Exodus, Hussein was forced to leave all his land start anew in Lebanon, where he stayed in Ain al Hilwa, along with the rest of the people who had fled Taytaba. There, he was married to Mariam Al-Naasri (1906 -1958) and had Aminah. For the next 22 years, Hussein and Mariam lived together in Ain al Hilwa, until Mariam passed away in 1958. • Several years later, Hussein decided to marry Zhayya Hamad (1905 -1987), with whom he fathered Mahmood Dahche. This is important because Mahmood would later become the father of my maternal grandmother, while Aminah (Hussein’s daughter from Mariam), would become my maternal grandfather’s mother.

MAHMOOD IBN HUSSEIN • Mahmood Ibn Hussein (1937 -1985) lived a life of strife in Ain al Hilwa after leaving Palestine at a young age. He grew up in Ain al Hilwa, then had the opportunity to study in Egypt, after which he married Lamiyya Dahche (1938 -present) in 1958 (in Lebanon). They had a single daughter, Sulafa Dahche, but the marriage did not work out, and they got a divorce in 1959. • Sulafa grew up with Hussein and Zhayya (her paternal grandparents), due to the divorce between Mahmood and Lamiyya. After she finished high school however, she was able to get married to Ahmad, and their story became one.

AHMAD IBN MUHAMMAD • Going back to the children of Muhammad Ibn Qasim, two of which are extremely important, and they are Ahmad Dahche (my maternal grandfather) and Fatima Dahche (my paternal grandmother). Both Ahmad and Fatima lived in Ain al Hilwa for a long time, with Ahmad eventually marrying the daughter of Mahmood Ibn Hussein, Sulafa, and Fatima marrying Muhammad Bleibel. • Ahmad had left Lebanon to find work in Libya in 1970 and it was 6 years later when he had married Sulafa who joined him. He worked as a businessman, buying and selling goods, until 1984, when he decided to return to Lebanon with his wife and three children he had in Libya, Omida (1978), Abdullah (1978), and Ahlam (1982). Unfortunately, due to war in Lebanon, he was only able to stay a few months before deciding to move to Abu Dhabi where we worked as a welder and had two more children, Alaa (1987) and Amany (1985). Finally, in 1995, he decided to join some of his relatives in Canada, and eventually in the U. S a couple years later.

MATERNAL GRANDFATHER Ahmad Dahche, Circa 1973

THE BLEIBEL FAMILY • The lineage of the Bleibels starts with a man whose name was actually Bleibel (lived around the year 1820). This man is said to be the “founder” of the family name, and he had 4 sons. After his death, his sons had some kind of dispute, and they decided to move away from each other. One brother went to Syria, another to Lebanon, one to Iraq, and the last one remained in Palestine. • The last brother, whose name was Yusuf Bleibel, is the brother my family descends from. My paternal grandfather’s lineage is Muhammad Ibn Yusuf Ibn Muhammad Ibn Ibraheem Ibn Yusuf Ibn Bleibel.

THE BLEIBEL FAMILY • Muhammad Bleibel, was born around 1938 in Taytaba, Palestine. Although he, like the rest of family fled Palestine in 1948, they did not immediately go to Ain al Hilwa, rather he went to a city just north of the Lebanese border called Yaroon. There the family stayed for a little less than a year, and they kept relocating in southern Lebanon try to find a stable income. They went to An-Nabatiya, another area in Lebanon, then eventually to Ain El-Hilwa where the rest of the Bleibel family (as well as the Dahches) had settled. My grandfather and his family spent most of their lives in in Ain El Hilwa, and he married Fatima Dahche, sister of Ahmad Dahche, and later became an UNRWA teacher. • Soon, Fatima gave birth to her first child, Chadi Bleibel (my father), in 1975. 3 years later in 1978, Muhammad decided to flee war in Lebanon and was able to travel and work in Saudi Arabia before following my father to America in 1994 (who he had sent two years prior to make a living). There he retired, and after his mother and father passed away in 2000 and 1996, he decided to remain in the U. S, and is still living here to this day.

MY MOTHER AND FATHER • My mother, Ahlam, and my father, Chadi, had been through differing circumstances which eventually led them both to America. My father had previously been sent by his father to America in 1992 to make a living and learn, while my mother had come to Canada with her own father Ahmad. After coming to the United States, my mother and father were married, and soon after they had four children: Fatin (1999), Mazen (2002), Nada (2004), and Kareem (2008). This brings us to the present day, where my siblings and I are growing up in a completely different environment than our own parents

MY FAMILY Muhammad Bleibel, unknown, Fatima Dahche (left to right), Circa 2000 Fatin, Kareem, Chadi, Ahlam, Mazen, and Nada (left to right), July 2020

FAR ANCESTRY Paternal Haplogroup RBY-250 Maternal Haplogroup H 4

REFERENCES A. Dahche, personal communication (2020) C. Bleibel, personal communication (2020) F. Dahche, personal communication (2020) Genetic Data – 23 and. Me (2020). https: //www. 23 andme. com/ M. Bleibel, personal communication (2020) S. Dahche, personal communication (2020)