I am trying to find out if my middle name is Native American and I am not able to find anything anywhere. Help

Question

My middle name is Menota which was my great grandmothers first name. I have searched ancestory websites and googled many different ways and times. I have tried talking to my grandmother and my father and neither of them know anything.

Answer 1

All I could find was the reference to a 56' sailing yacht named the Elsie Menota, used for whale watching from Grand Manan Island, off the coast of New Brunswick, Canada.

http://www.whales-n-sails.com/elsie_meno...

And from a novel by Dorothea Dahl :-

(about Norwegian/Americans)

Birger and Mariane had long spoken of selling the farm, but when Odem came racing from Menota in his newest automobile and nailed up a sign on the tall spruce down by the road, so all who went by could know that the farm was for sale [. . .], Mariane went into the large, airy living room and seated herself in the softest armchair and burst into tears.....

  Menota, Fresno County. ?

From a 1910 published family history :-

James Gordon MacLaren, born 18th May, 1876.  He married Menota  Isbester, 30th September, 1903, at Ottawa, (Canada) where they reside.   (Isbester is a Scottish name)

http://www.thistlethwaite.net/files/fold...

Medieval Nordic Text Archive :- "Menota" is a network of leading Nordic archives, libraries and research departments working with medieval texts and manuscript facsimiles.

A French sweet white wine, "Chateau Menota" is near Barsac, Bordeaux, France.

http://www.pieroth.jp/en/action.html?fus...

Menota Tekah was a female West Indian Test Match cricketer.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Wes...

I believe it is clear that Menota and Mendota are different names and not varients of the same name. whether it is of French or Native American origin is not so clear however.

It seems to have an Indian meaning, but French people

inhabited a large area of Canada, did they adopt the name

from local Indians, and take it to France, or did they bring it with them from France, or did it occur independently in more than one place  ?

Answer 2

Any family connection to Illinois?

http://mendotachamber.com/index.html

http://mendotachamber.com/about.history....

Answer 3

The website www.nativeamericans.com says that Menota is a word meaning "a basket", sourced from a book printed in 1634 by William Woods'  that contained a list of the words he picked up from the Native Americans living in Massachusetts.

That's about as far as a google search takes me.  It could be American Indian for sure, but there are also quite a number of French-language hits as well.

Answer 4

I googled Menota and I got results that were Nordic and French.

Here is a website for Native Languages:

http://www.native-languages.org/

Good luck!

Answer 5

If I remember right, I think the Menota were an actual Native American tribe.  I don't know where it's comin' from, but I think they were.