AGM & Talk by Wim Zwalf

Our AGM was conducted by our President Wim Zwalf who afterwards gave a talk on his rare & unusual surname. His father was Dutch & records started in 1811 showed three generations registered with their religions noted.
These records were destroyed during the war to prevent the Germans from finding people belonging to the Jewish faith. Several of Wim’s family were sent to concentration camps. The survivors, including his parents, were hidden by various people in many different places.
In 1960 as a student at King’s College London reading theology, he came across the surname over a jewellers shop. Having never met anyone with the surname Zwalf before he went inside and found that although the jeweller, Herman Zwalf also had a Dutch father, Wim could make no family connection.
This started Wim on his search for other Zwalfs. The origin of the name is thought to be Arabic with the name pronounced differently & translating in the middle east to mean the name for wigs or the long side curls worn by Jewish men, or to mean side burns or from North Africa, long plaits.
Wim has traced a possible ancestor to Hartog Zwalf in 1810 & his search has been worldwide. He found 3rd & 4th cousins now deceased. Despite this, there appears to be only nine male Zwalfs these being Wim’s own family. & his search continues..
At our October meeting Geoff Sewell will give a talk on the Great War.
[Barbara Holmes]