My Jewish and My Gentile Robinsons and Distinguishing Them Through DNA Haplogroups and Other Scientific Help

  Nadene Goldfoot                                              

      My mother's line of Robinson, possibly from a man living in Robin Hood's Sherwood Forest?  Were they all the sons of Robin or was that just their address?  Sherwood Forest, woodland and former royal hunting ground, county of Nottinghamshire, England, that is well known for its association with Robin Hood, the outlaw hero of medieval legend. Sherwood Forest formerly occupied almost all of western Nottinghamshire and extended into Derbyshire.  I've found no connection to this part of England.  

DNA testing has brought to my attention the fact that my father's side of the family has Robinson Jewish relatives and my mother's Robinson side also gives me Robinson gentile relatives.

                                     Something like this

 Luckily, the DNA genetic scientists oftentimes can tell the difference, probably from their haplogroup, or other means, and lets me know with a blue or pink icon by the person's name, denoting which parent they come from.                                   

The Jewish Robinson surname probably came from the surname of Rubenstein  or Rabinowitz with the anglo name-change. Could we be related to Arthur Rubenstein b: 1882, the famous pianist whose family came from Poland?  Very possibly. I have found a Rubenstein 4th cousin living within driving distance from me, and we've met.  We share a lot of interests.  He's listed on the Rubenstein page, another surname for me to work on.   Then there's Alan Rabinowitz, Called the "Indiana Jones of Wildlife Protection.  He's a contemporary possible relative, same age as my son. Name changes do cover origins, and this has happened due to anti-Semitism.     

 However, many Robinsons matching me were possibly from either side so have no icon.  Then there's the men and women who match me bearing their surname of Robinson.  That for  women, it could be their husband's surname that they also take.  Women are much harder to follow unless they have had a haplogroup test.  The same goes for men without icons.  If they had the haplogroup test, I'd be able to tell as I'm very familiar with the usual Jewish haplogroups.

FTDNA allows you to check out 7 people at a time, so I took 7 men with my father's icon who would be Jewish and saw that they were 4th cousins to me, possibly stemming from the generation of my ggrandparents. 2 men shared the same segment with me on chromosome #22.  It's interesting that one's haplogroup was R-M269 and the other was J-M267.  That was the only triangulation in that group and yet they were from different haplogroups.

Then I took the 7 people with pink icons, the Gentile Robinsons, of which only my male 1st cousin bore the Robinson surname.  The other 6 were all females.  My cousin and 3 females of which 2 were twins, matched me on chromosome #1 with nice large segments, larger than my cousin's! My cousin and the twins matched me on Chromosome #7 and another female matched my cousin and me on #12.  The twins matched me on the X (23rd chromosome-called sex) but in 2 individual places, and another female also matched in another place on X.  

I then took 7 men without icons and found several were from my Jewish side and i had triangulations with several on chromosomes 1,9,10 and 20.  I'm getting the feeling that except for my 1st cousin on my mother's side, the men are from my father's side and women from my mother's side.  I'll keep going to see if this checks out.  

               My mother, Mildred Elizabeth Robinson, born 1913

Mom's dad was the Robinson "blue-blooded Yankee of a New England bloodline" along with some ancient Irish genes, and he married a lovely Swedish immigrant who taught herself English.

                            Grandpa Frank Hugh Robinson b: 1871

                                                      

  My grandpa Frank Hugh Robinson with son, Kenneth Edward Robinson. Grandpa was tall and thin, and Grandma was a professional Swedish cook. She fed him well, and he didn't gain a pound.  I didn't get those genes. Grandpa was a teamster.  He had 4 horses hooked up to his wagon together and he transported goods from the port into Portland.  That way he could transport a lot of heavy things.  Grandpa's father was Abiathar Smith Robinson who moved from Vermont to Canada and back to Illinois where he died.  Ggrandma was Julia Ann Tuller of the Tullers and Durkee line. There was the John Robinson, Pastor of the Pilgrims, who sent his flock to board the Mayflower, but but he stayed in Holland with the rest.  His son Isaac dared the trip 10 years later in a 1630 fleet of ships.  He could be our ancestor if only more Robinsons would test so I could see their haplogroup.  How many of today's Robinsons could connect to Isaac Robinson?  In the United States, the name Robinson is the 20^th most popular surname with an estimated 579,471 people with that name.  It used to be the 16th most common name.  Robinson is the 15th-most common surname in the United Kingdom. 

 My mother's maiden name was Robinson.  I've traced that line back to England, even though her father was under the impression that their line came from NOT THE MAYFLOWER of 1620, but the ship after that, and that he said they were from Wales, which is a part of England's land mass.  DNA showed and proved that we were long lost cousins to the Fitzpatrick line of Irishmen, and I've found that to be very true, scientifically with the extended DNA testing.  Well, Grandpa had left home as a teenager and when he told me was in his 80s, so he really couldn't remember clearly.  Since not all Robinsons alive today have DNA tested, I've been lucky to actually find Gentile Robinsons related to me, and there is that pink icon that has helped. I do wish more would test. There were a lot of Robinsons that came over, and they weren't all from the same line.  Sherwood forest had a lot of men living in it.  

                                            

I wonder how often this happens to other people when a surname matches up with both parents and is not truly connected to each other?  

As far as I can tell, the Jewish Robinsons already tested and match me are R-M269 which should be from my Gentile side, possibly a slip-up by the scientists, and J-M267, which is very common on the Jewish side.  

Luckily, my mother's brother's son tested, so we have the Gentile Robinson in our family and he was labeled a R-L21, but was expanded to R-FT111213 in the Big Y Test.  

This leaves me with 139  Robinson or Robinson connections on FTDNA that I don't know much about without Haplogroup testing and talking to the person to find out origins of parents and mainly, of grandparents.  One is a true detective when it comes to the hobby of genealogy of one's family.                                  

There are also Black Robinsons in the USA, who took the surname of their slave-owner who must have been a southern Robinson.  

Shirley Temple tap-danced with Bill "Bojangles" Robinson. When Shirley Temple Black died in 2014, many of the tributes mentioned one of the most iconic scenes in American movie history: the staircase dance that Temple performed with Bill "Bojangles" Robinson in the 1935 movie The Little Colonel. They were the first interracial couple to dance onscreen. But their partnership was more than just a movie milestone.He was in his 50s. She was 6. He called her darlin'; she called him Uncle Billy. 

                                                  

       Michelle Obama nee Robinson and her brother, Craig Robinson

President Obama's wife is a Robinson. Michelle LaVaughn Robinson Obama (born January 17, 1964) is an American attorney and author who served as the first lady of the United States from 2009 to 2017. Michelle's younger brother is Craig Malcolm Robinson (born April 21, 1962) is an American college basketball coach, basketball executive, and broadcaster. He is a former head men's basketball coach at Oregon State University and Brown University. He was a star forward as a player at Princeton University in the early 1980s and a bond trader during the 1990s. He currently is the Executive Director of the National Association of Basketball Coaches.

Resource:

FTDNA

Family history

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Craig_Robinson_(basketball)