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Help or advice please!! I would appreciate any suggestions as to how a female born in Egypt in 1917 could claim English nationality - her father was born in Egypt or Israel - her mother's name or place of birth are unknown.

Was her father's heritage Egyptian? Or was he of English desecnt?

Unknown - only know his name was Ezra Shama and he was not born in UK (no other details known)

Very limited information available - the female married an English soldier at end of WWII and her marriage certificate stated her nationality as English although she was born in Alexandria.

Do you suppose this was a brother?

Births Jun 1912
Shama Ezra L Cobley Stockport 8a 205


http://www.freebmd.org.uk

I just searched for all types of records, surname Shama. There are a half dozen births and marriages between 1871 and 1922.

This would seem to be the parents' of that Ezra:


Marriages Jun 1901
Cobley Esther Miriam Salford 8d 248
SHAMA Leopold Salford 8d 248

Perhaps your Ezra was a brother of Leopold, or Leopold could have been an older brother of your "female" (I would say "woman", myself).

(edit - on this one I *did* confuse myself --your Shama was born 1917, not married 1917, which I think was what I was thinking.)

Hi, thanks but I've already discounted the Cobley thread - Ginette (the female) was born in 1917 so the Ezra born in 1912 could not have been her father.
It is possible 'my' Ezra was married to a lady called Ida (surname unknown).

1901 census


Name: Eias Shama (Eias is what the image does seem to say)
Age: 27
Estimated Birth Year: abt 1874
Relation: Head
Spouse's Name: Rachel
Where born: Egyp Egyptin
Occupation: NK

Civil Parish: North Manchester
County/Island: Lancashire
Registration district: Prestwich

Eias Shama 27
Rachel Shama 27 - born Egypt
Joseph Shama 5
Hebil Shama 4 - son, born Egypt (sorry, looked at the wrong place - born Manchester)
Sarah Shama 1 day


Might they be your people?

Hi again,
The only Ezra I can locate who 'could' be a possibility is Ezra who was born circa 1830 in Syria who lived in the Manchester area (English connection).
If this was Ginette's father he would have been about 87 years old when she was born in 1917!!!!!!
I cannot find any details of Ezra (b. 1830) as having married a much younger woman.
Complicated case!!!!!

Hmm, I wasn't suggesting the 1912 Ezra was her father -- I queried whether maybe a brother. However, it does seem he was the son of Leopold.

One might imagine some connection though.

That Eias Shama sounds a possibility - 'my' Ezra's occupation was a cotton classifier so that would 'tie in' with the Manchester area (textiles etc).
Is there any way of discovering whether Eias and Rachel 'moved' to Egypt between the 1901 census and 1917 when Ginette was born?

It may have something to with when Egypt was a British Protectorate,/Colony i understand that some were given British Nationality.

There is plenty of info on this subject if you Google

http://www.findmypast.com/passengerListPersonSearchStart.action?

Shows no Shama travelling 1901-1917, to anywhere.

Mistranscriptions are always likely though.

I've been including SHARNA in searches -- sharna/shama -- because that's a common transcription error. No hits for that, though.

Interesting that the children in the 1901 household are shown as born in Manchester, but their births are not in the GRO. I tried a search just for Hebil given name, all events, all dates, and there were no hits.

Hi Evie,
It is such a strange scenario - I have contacted all the Shamas on the Genes site but no-one has any information that connects Ginette to any of them, yet they all appear to originate from Alexandria or Cairo.

Searching at findmypast for SHAM* turned up surname SHAMAH.

No likely hits -- but it's a spelling variant you might want to keep in mind, since any spelling in English is just a transliteration of the Arabic.

Aha. I tried doubling the M. This would be son Joseph in that 1901 household.

Births Jun 1895
Shammah Joseph Prestwich 8d 396

There are several other SHAMMA/SHAMMAH births in Lancashire starting in 1910.

Mothers:

Gubbay
Haraty (Harary)
Tchira
Khafif

Names include Juliette (Khafif, 1912) and Celine (1924) and Marcel (1925, not 1825 as I first typed) Haraty/Harary -- a common French thread with your Ginette maybe?

Many thanks Evie,
Your advice and information has been so much appreciated - I'll keep plodding on with the details you've provided and hopefully may 'come up trumps'.
Kind regards
Sue

No answers -- but some questions that might someday help!

Good luck.

One more thought.

http://www.cwgc.org/debt_of_honour.asp?menuid=14

There are a couple of dozen records of individuals named Shama who died in WWI, virtually all of whom are of Indian nationality.

There might be a possibility that your Mr. Shama was part of the British colonial administration who had come from India and worked in Egypt for the British government. The Brits did populate much of the world (e.g. east Africa, the West Indies) with people from India working in the colonial administration and also in the business/merchant class.

Possibly interesting:

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http://channel4.empireschildren.co.uk/category/chapters/
index.php?chapter=&cat=1&country=23&display_all=1

Civil Registration Documents for Britons in Egypt
Egypt | n/a
Topic: Family Records
Date created:05-06-2007

The registration of births of foreign nationals with the Egyptian authorities has been compulsory since 1912, but registration rates remain low. Birth certificates issued by the Egyptian authorities are, therefore, not always available. The Mixed Courts in Egypt were abolished in 1949, so using civil registration certificates for tracing family history in Egypt is difficult, if not near impossible.

However, all children, born to British Citizens had to be registered at the nearest British Consulate, so it's possible to trace your ancestors if they were of British parentage. The British Foreign and Commonwealth Office website lists details of British embassies in Egypt.

http://www.fco.gov.uk/servlet/Front?pagename=Open
Market/Xcelerate/ShowPage&c=Page&cid=10070
29395231&a=Collection&aid=1013618515017

If your ancestors were of British origin but were born in Egypt, the civil registration documents may possibly be available in the UK. The National Archives, Kew hold records relating to records kept by British consulates abroad and at sea. From the nineteenth century they were obliged to send the records that they recorded to the General Register Office of England and Wales. The army also kept its own registers for at home and abroad.

St. Catherine Cathedral: 3 Place St. Catherine, Mancheya el Saghira, Alexandria, Egypt. Tel: +20 (3) 486 4546.

The marriage registers of Britons who married in Egypt are held at St. Catherine's Cathedral in Alexandria. The cathedral does not have a website, so you will need to send your request by post. They do have a phone number but you may find that the person who answers doesn't speak English.

There were two main burial places for British and other Christian foreigners in Cairo, one in Abbasiya district and the other in Old Cairo (Misr al Qadima). Many British nationals were buried in Abbasiya cemetery because of its vicinity to the British barracks in Abbasiya. A number of Commonwealth servicemen of the First World War are also commemorated here, including many Indian nationals.

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The National Library and Archives of Egypt may also hold records of those who served in central government. They also hold records of military officials, prison officers and police. They may also hold information relating to corporations and local businesses. You can't view the records online, but more information is available via their website.

http://www.darelkotob.org/ENGLISH/HTML/ABOUT.HTM

The British Library holds papers of people who served in the colonial government of Egypt.

http://www.bl.uk/catalogues/listings.html

The National Archives, Kew holds papers relating to those who were employed in Colonial or Dominions Office positions. These include records of colonial administration, statistics and government gazettes in the Colonial Office (CO) series.

http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk

And some bits more.

Births Jun 1904
SHAMA Mazal Prestwich 8d 385

From a National Archives search for SHAMA:

http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/searchthearchives/default.htm?source=searcharchives

http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/catalogue/
displaycataloguedetails.asp?CATLN=7&CATID=-1949719

FO Records created and inherited by the Foreign Office
Division within FO Records of Consular Courts and other extra-territorial jurisdiction
FO 847 Foreign Office: Consulate, Alexandria, Egypt: Court Records
FO 847/95 Consulate, Alexandria, Egypt: court records

The name could be coincidental of course.


There are also several references to an E/Elie Shama regarding corporate, litigation and estate cases. The Eias Shama in the 1901 might have been Elias, e.g.

At that time, it didn't matter where you were born - all that mattered was the nationality of the father. This situation only changed in the 1970s (I think).