John Saenz:
CLASS OF 1982
Heidelberg American High SchoolClass of 1982
Heidelberg,
John's Story
John's schools include Heidelberg American High School.
Music John likes includes Caro Emerald, The Cure, New Order. Movies John likes include Bubba Ho-Tep Movie, Frankenweenie, Black Dynamite. TV shows John likes include Ghost Lab, Mr. Bean, Futurama.
One of John's favorite quotes is:"Sáenz
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Sainz/Saenz (pronounced sigh-nz) is a Spanish surname originating in The Kingdom of Spain in the Castile region, now known as La Rioja derived from its original Semitic (Hebrew) surname ס××¢× ×.
Spelling variations of this family name include: Saens, Saenz, Sans, Sanx, Sanz, Sainz, Saiz, Saez, and many more. [2]
Contents
1 History
2 Today
3 Notes and references
4 External links
History
Created by Sephardic Jews (Semitic families) who immigrated into the region, some via the Way of St. James, due to religious conflicts in their native lands using this name as a way of assimilating into their new country of settlement.
Integrating with Spain's native people, the name became common in this territory. Later in 1478, due to the Alhambra Decree, many Saenz family members that retained forms of Judaic faiths were forced to migrate to new lands.
Several Spanish Jews living in Spain, so-called Conversos or Marranos, changed their faith to Catholicism to avoid Catholic persecution for having their original faith be Judaism. These Jews were forced to adopt Spanish names to live in Spain after conversion, using Spanish names to "prove" to authorities that their conversion was "true" (see Religious conversion).
This was common place in dark-age times, both in Spain and Portugal, where Jews adopted tree names in Portuguese, like "Oliveira" ( olive tree ), "Pereira" ( pear tree ), "Salgueiro" ( willow tree), "Figueira" ( fig tree ), etc. In Portugal, these Jews were called "Cristãos-Novos" ( new Christians ). The Saenz coat of arms denotes a tree in line with this Jewish aspect, as well as two similar fruits on either side of the tree and opposing wolves on the latter half of the shield, depicting duality involved in the root of the name.
Due to the Law of the Pure Blood some families hid their previous Jewish background from outsiders but practiced the traditions in secret through the generations. Some of this was done by conversing with close family members...Expand for more
in the Judaeo-Spanish language,[1] lighting candles on Friday evenings,[2][3] and eating only kosher foods such as Pan de Semita.[4] Over time the purpose of these traditions were lost but were still carried on due to being thought of as family tradition in itself.
During the Spanish conquest of Mexico several Saenz members migrated over to New Spain, which later became Mexico and the United States of America. This was genetically proven when Bennett Greenspan, the President of FamilyTree DNA Inc., had this to say regarding a DNA research project on Mexican families:
â One item for you to be aware of... If you are testing male members of the founding families of Mexico, especially the founding families of Northern Mexico, you will probably see a strong percent of Semitic DNA evidence from Crypto Jews who were among the Spanish conquerors of Mexico from the 1500s. We have clearly seen these foot steps in the testing we have done to date.[5] â
Not all Saenz families, however, are from Jewish origin. There are some who bear the surname Saenz that are purely European or of Arab (middle-eastern) origin taken on by a small percentage of Islamic Arabs during the "Way of St. James" era, after the period known as the "Golden Age of Islam".
Being a widespread family name in Spain and Basque, not all Saenz families are related to each other today.
Today
Today a large number of Saenz families still reside in Spain, France and throughout Europe. The largest population of Saenz's in the world currently reside in Basque Country. Some of them have relatives in Hispanic countries such as Puerto Rico, Philippines, and Venezuela.
The United States also has relatively large Saenz populations. This is because many Spaniards migrated to and settled in the New Spain territories. Some time later, many Saenz families left the New Spain region during and after a Mexican revolt against the wealthy New Spaniards. With a high percentage of Saenz eventually moving farther North and throughout The Americas (Texas and California primarily). [6]).
(NOTE: While some non-Saenz family members with the Sanchez surname claim that Saenz is an original derivation of Sanchez, it is untrue and cannot be proven by historical record, DNA or other scientific data. "Sanchez", is not a Semitic or Jewish name but rather, an original - unrelated, Latin surname and is itself derived from the Latin Santxo.)".
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