7-27-09

Rapparlie Update

I wanted to provide an update for the Rapparlie, Rapparlien, Rapparlier and any similarly spelled (or even close) surname.

So far, this project has been quite interesting, but not in the way I’ve expected.

We only have 4 participants, 2 of whom should have matched each other but don’t.

The first two people are both from a family in Mutterstadt Germany. The genealogy is sound, but in one family or another, there is an adoption. Without testing a different line, we won’t be able to tell which line has had the adoption and which line is the DNA of the ancestral Rapparlie family in Germany.

Adding to the intrigue of this family, a family crest has been found that states that this Rapparlie family is descended from Spain. Additional research indicates that indeed, this family was very likely part of the Jewish expulsion that occurred in 1492. Many of those families went to a new location in what is now France but was then the Netherlands. They were silk weavers and lived in Valenciennes. Another part of this family was found about 1490 outside of Brussells. By 1590 we find them in Paris as well. By this time, they were French Huguenots.

Abraham Rapparlie who was the founder of the Mutterstadt family was born in Calais, on the coast. He was believed to be a part of this Huguenot family who migrated from Spain to Valenciennes in the late 1400s.

The next person who tested was thought also to descend from the Huguenot Rapparlie family, but the surname is spelled differently in his line. It is now spelled Rappleye but was originally spelled Rapalye. The first ancestor in this line is Gaspard Colet de Rapalye. This family was from the Loire region of France. He apparently became Huguenot and fled in 1548 to Holland, with his descendants migrating eventually to the US. However, this man also has an extremely rare haplogroup, T, found typically in the Middle East and North African and very, very rarely in Europe.  Please note that there is a fraudulent genealogy relating to this line  http://www.genlit.org/agr/viewarticle.php?id=10

There had been discussion for a long time that these two families were in fact one and the same, but unless there are more adoptions, the Rapalye line does not match any of the others, so this line does not appear to be related, a myth we can put to bed.

The 4th individual has the surname Relyea and he does not match either. His haplogroup is the most common in Europe as is the second Rapparlie gentleman.

In order to resolve this quandary, we need more people from the same ancestral lines to test, preferable descended from branches far up the tree and not close to the individuals who have already tested.

While we may not have yet discovered what we hoped, it is certainly an interesting journey.