The Basset Geneology File
Abe Bassett's genealogy file is available to anyone. To request access, write to Abe at abebassett@gmail.com. Your additions and corrections to the file are very welcomed.
My primary genealogy software is Family Tree Maker, an intricately constructed software program. I regularly synchronize my files at Ancestry.com where it is a public file. I would be pleased to converse with any one regarding genealogy or genealogy programs.
The basis of the Bassett Family genealogy collection was the work done by my first cousin Victor Bassett in the 1950s. He researched the Bassett family based entirely on interviews with his father and relatives. He stopped gathering information because, he said, too many said they couldn’t remember and others said they had no interest in remembering. My first computer genealogy program was “Clear.org” dating from the 1990s when printers of the day were dot matrix.
I have two drawers in my file cabinets devoted to genealogy material that I collected through interviews over the years. In 2019, I began seriously going through this treasure to add names to my collection, increasing the size of the files from about 1,500 names to the present 7,900 and 2,600 marriages. I have many stories to add.
In 1991, I returned from Kfeir, Lebanon with the genealogy of four Bassett clans. These were the recordings and remembrances of village elders, and I think they are quite good, but they come without dates and lacking the first or maiden names of most females.
I have made contacts in Lebanon, Syria, Israel and Canada. All of it is interesting but not all results in additions to my file. There are the Bassetts of northwestern Israel (The Galilee area), and Malah, (Jebal Druze area of Syria), and the El-Khoury family in Lebanon. These surely make researching fun. My Facebook contacts in Syria are extensive, especially with Bassetts and Abou Jamras. I have located several people that I can claim as cousins.
Of course, my files contain non-Lebanese names created when I and my sisters married into non-Lebanese families. There are English, Scotch and Irish names such as Rutherdale, Morton, Scott, Parlette, and Smith. I use the Ancestry “green leaf” to add names and dates and to correct errors. Some of my early data came from Kevin Donley’s distribution of information at the Kfeirian Reunion. So, there is an inevitable repetition of some families in our collections. However, our files have not been coordinated.
I have a number of duplicate names, but paring them is very difficult without solid identification. And to complicate the drive for accuracy, there are many people with the same name who are not duplicate people. For example, there are eight Bassetts whose first name is "Michael,” and four “Mariams”. Too often, older files lacked the woman’s maiden name or the names of her parents.
A commonly held but false belief is that immigrant names were changed at Ellis Island. An officer on each passenger ship was tasked with completing the ship’s passenger manifest. It was here that names were rendered into English and the accuracy depended on the skill, seriousness and handwriting of the transcribing officer. Very few Middle Eastern immigrants of the first wave of 1890-1915 were fluent in English and their accents could impede understanding. My mother Rahija Saad, for example, had her first name rendered as Bahijo.
Arreph El-Khoury’s history of the village, El-Kfeir, Cradle of Genius, documents how family names can change over a period of time. He also shows how difficult it is to convert names from Arabic to English, and even how names in Lebanon are inconsistent.
Here are some examples of how common Kfeirian names came to have different Americanized versions:
Bassett / Bassit / Bassiet / Al Bassiet, Albassit, Albasseet
McCarus / McCarius / Markaros / Markarios
The wildest variation of all is El-Khoury which became Corey, Courey, Coury, Kirey, Koury, Fakoury and, would you believe, Kelly?
While Ellis Island was perhaps the dominate port of entry for immigrants, it was only one of many. Besides the major ports such as Philadelphia, Baltimore, Boston on the Atlantic seaboard, there was Galveston, Texas, and Halifax, Canada. At one time there were 70 federal immigrant stations along the shores of the United States. My Uncle Moses Bassett arrived in Halifax where he boarded a Grand Trunk Train to Detroit, which was also a significant “port of entry.”
-Abe J. Bassett
