Following online discussions with a couple of Bnachii subscribers, I was kindly advised by Eddie to share my following message: Hi cousins, re Bnachii, sending this as a private message due to the length. Offering another perspective: a few years ago I was contacted by a person called Alasdair Reaich (also spelt Reiach) who was doing research on his family history. Alasdair mentioned that the Reaich name originated in NE Scotland, in a shire by the sea. We both looked at genealogy websites and ancestry ones which I had to join at the time to undertake the research. The first time the name was officially recorded is in the mid 1440s and the first official census start was in the 1880s. The Reaichs were seafarers, a lot travelled out of Scotland and Alasdair was trying to trace them. We were puzzled as to the Bnachii link (if there is one) but not so inconceivable as 1/5 of the Scottish population is Roman Catholic and a few could an have joined the crusades. It is a well known historical fact that these went through the northern part of Lebanon, Syria, Turkey etc and some genes can be traced to that period (entire remote villages in those regions are fair skinned, fair eyes and hair). The fascinating and puzzling fact from my perspective is that the Reaich surname (or under its many other spellings but phonetically they all match) in Lebanon is highly unusual for an Arabic name and is only found in Bnachii whereas every other surname in Lebanon can be found in many villages and sometimes even across religious denominations. I guess one option would be for a few of us to do a genetic test (particularly those from Bnachii married to cousins/distant relations) and cross check. Here you go...could we be originating from the celts?!? PS: the Reaich/Reiach in Scotland even have their own coat of arms with all its history. Its quite stunning. I unfortunately couldnt retrieve it as I had dropped my membership in all those search sites. Anyway, looking forward to seeing where all this investigative work by us Bnachians will eventually lead to!
Posted on: Fri, 28 Mar 2014 13:11:40 +0000
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