This is all new to me, as I only learned yesterday about the terrible treatment of the American family surnamed Ishmael (their real name, btw), believed to have immigrated from Wales, whose patriarch, Benjamin Ishmael, was a Revolutionary War veteran. I haven't read the book, but I understand that they were a very large family that gradually moved from Kentucky to Illinois after the American Revolution, behaving like transients or nomadic Gypsies; also reportedly inbred amongst themselves quite a bit. And then during the scientifically influential Victorian era some self-proclaimed 'experts' calling themselves "geneticists" and "sociologists" exploited their plight by melodramatically casting them in the role of 'the unchosen ones' I guess.
I don't know the names of the 'experts' who did all that, but they went so far as to create a 'pedigree' chart for the family that included critical comments about their character. Yet they never figured out any of their family history beyond a possible name for Benjamin's ("Ben") father, and that they probably had somehow arrived here from Wales.
So...after unexpectedly learning about that fascinating story yesterday and thinking that was the end of it -- I then woke up this morning only to discover that my 28th g-grandfather was also an "Ishmaelite" ( !!? :-) ), with a family history no less interesting, imho. I'm a bit stunned by all this, and can't help but wonder if the tragically impoverished and persecuted American "Tribe of Ishmael" is in any way connected to the old noble family of Brittany, France. I certainly wouldn't be surprised.
The infamous pedigree chart and some of the story can be read here: https://timeline.com/ishmaels-americas-worst-family-1bacd94969b5
The fascinating book on the subject, "Inventing America's Worst Family: Eugenics, Islam, and the Fall and Rise of the Tribe of Ishmael" by Nathaniel Deutsch (published January 2009) is here: https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520255241/inventing-americas-worst...
I would really like to read that book. Meanwhile, jstor has a freely available outline of the chapters in the book here: https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv11hpsv5?fbclid=IwAR2K3pOr5p2WSHaN...
And this is the Youtube video, with its emphasis on eugenics and forced sterilization, that had originally sparked my interest because it included the Ishmael family's pedigree chart along with some information about their plight: https://youtu.be/stcFWVAeaFE?t=144
So, while I was wondering whether or not to make the Tribe of Ishmael a topic of discussion here, I found Benjamin Ishmael's Geni profile. And then shortly afterwards discovered my ancestor who is the subject of this discussion, William "the Ishmaelite", Lord of Tinténiac. As there was nothing in his Overview, I added what I could find from Wikipedia that I found interesting.
It is unnecessary to repeat those particular links in this post, but I hope some of you will take a look and perhaps uncover even more about the family. And if anyone can find a solid blood connection between the two Ishmael families, I would be very excited to hear about it. William had 10,000+ descendants, so I'm sure there are a few besides myself here on Geni.
