PS. for anyone interested, I did a brief phenotypical analysis on myself in line with the physical anthropology of The New Racial Classification by Eduardo Velasco of Europa Soberana. As best as I can ascertain so far, I'm a mixture, perhaps 60/40 of Red Nordid and Armenid. My face is predominantly Red Nordid in structure, but with a partially aquiline Armenid/Dinaric nose and amber, small-pupil eyes. It's hard to tell from photos and when gelled, but my hair's not black so much as dark brown.

I'm still assuming the influence of the latter European racial category on that though, as opposed to an Alpine influence, although I'm not sure. I think my straight forehead shape, heavy-set eyes and straight skull, jawline (I have teeth missing on both sides which collapse it a little), and wide rectangular face are Red Nordid. Pure Red Nordids originated between 50,000 and 30,000 years ago in Siberia and among the glacial mountain ranges of Central Asia such as the Altai, whereas the Armenid from which they evolved are associated with sub-Pyrenean Spanish populations, the Armenids, a non-Semitic race originating 60,000 years ago from the proto-Khoisanid race of Eastern Africa, with genetic contributions from the Eastern Neanderthal race in the Near-East at sites in the Eastern Mediterranean, entering Europe 8000 years ago and establishing the earliest Neolithic European cultures, just as it is suspected likely that the Indus civilization was Armenid with some Red Nordid influence.

I have, in general, a very pale skin, approaching beige/bone at times, but with a ruddy pinkness on my hands, much as that may be scar damage as there's often stress-induced psoriasis. I bolstered that with the Celtic/Norman (Irish and Icelandic/Frank more than Viking) background, my general skin sensitivity, alcohol tolerance, inability to tan, thin philtrum, and, to a firm degree the ancestral psychological qualities, plus the historical Nature love, and perhaps a certain rotundness, much as it's hard to discern that due to the Klinefelter's/psych meds years. One of the few things out of place is the height. It says most Red Nordids are moderately short and stockier, and Armenids are small and gracile whereas I'm just over 6ft 2 (occasionally measured at 6ft 4 in the past before lower spinal damage at the point of my coccyx due to a windsurfing accident, flat feet, and a terrible computer posture put pay to that - or just, you know, getting old). Other than that, I notice my lip colour is in contrast to the surrounding skin.

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I empathise over the compromised bloodlines, and just wish others would have a little humility on this. For example, I often wish my father's family had kept their marriage choices to the Norman side (for the martial aspect; a bloodthirsty early noble family with multiple castles, retinues and stately homes) but then again, it's the Celtic (Northern Irish/Scottish) side that retained the Red Nordid aspect, much as originally the Norman side descended from Icelandic pirates, where there's also a Red Nordid prevalence. Also, there's a closer West Frankian element to the baronies than Viking. I'd been assuming that the Armenid snuck into the Irish descendants of the family around the impositions of the English Reformation to the Cromwellian years, but the 12th Century Anglo-Normans who invaded Ireland did have Near-Eastern portions to their empire.

Past the Brittany point in the Dark Ages, it's hard to trace the family, although one thinks of the Gallo-Roman/Merovingian dynasty capital city of Vorgium (Carhaix after the Fall of Rome) from where the name de Poher originates, the family name morphing into le Poer, and eventually Power (variations being the early spelling Powar, from 1176, or Poherhays in the Devon branch). Examining Velasco, I see members of the Roman patrician class had some Armenid features, so perhaps I may be able to take this mixed-tribe European component back further than I had previously accounted for. The Old Irish aboriginal inhabitants of Ireland had Iberian features also, so maybe a certain amount of later interbreeding was responsible for this (to all accounts and purposes) lesser injection, especially as time went on and family strength diminished.

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This ancient Breton principality was known as Poher, the seat of the Carolingian viscount Alain de Poher, son of Rivallon IV, Earl of Poher, and grandson of Duke Salomon, short-lived King of Brittany, himself the son of Rivallon III of Poher, the son of Count Erispoë of Poher, King of the Vannetais. The first Bretons originated on the British mainland, from Cornwall to Wales.

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A silly Countess, Lady Catherine Power of Waterford changed it to La Poer at one point, which seems to have held among some of the family. I also find de Poer, and even de la Poer, though the latter seems pretentious.

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I see, by curious coincidence, that there's Leonal Power, an early Renaissance composer, living in Kent in the 1440s, well represented in the Old Hall Manuscript, one of the few manuscripts of English music to survive undamaged following Henry VIII's dissolution of the monasteries. Unfortunately, it's choral, of a religious nature, befitting the times. Of further 'coincidence', my father informed me once that Parr is, in some complex sense, an English derivative of Power but, following an etymological examination alone, I take this with a grain of salt.

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I read amber (and indeed green) eyes are simply a pigment loss from blue, like my father's light blue/grey and the blue of his father and grandfather, and all before. I'm glad I'm sterile though (much as that selfish part of me would have liked to have had my own children, could I ever have managed so. Realistically it would have been a poor decision racially though as it's evolutionarily unwise to breed if one is looking to retain the phenotypic/genetic purity of a people, a purity almost lost in the modern world, and dwindling fast: my interest is in - to use the colloquial American expression - 'whites' more than other races).

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A Note on "Power":

The name was spelled differently in 'the olden days' (as my partner would put it) and changed over time as pronunciations changed.

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One reason for this is the /bh/ pronounced as /w/ in Irish Gaelic pronunciation, occurring when the /bh/ is found in the middle of words, (and as /v/ when found at the beginning of them) and a subtle mispronunciation of the then Anglo-Norman family name by the Irish natives of the Poher/Le Poer baronies. This pronunciation occurs in the 'Munster dialect' of the ancestral province encapsulating Waterford, the main area of Ireland invaded and settled by the family's knights accompanying Strongbow in 1170-1172.

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Irish wasn't written down at all until Christian monks arrived after AD 400 and attempted to utilize the Latin alphabet, which is entirely unsuited to the task and there is no letter /h/ in the Irish alphabet. The /h/ symbol in used nowadays as a diacritical mark only, showing an "aspiration", where a consonant is 'softened', and replaces the sheimhiu (pronounced: 'shayva'), a dot put over the consonant in question.

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The consonant sound is changed i.e. /b/ goes to /v/ or /w/. One can now see how Poher would be translated in writing as Po(u)er. Here are two examples of Munster dialect pronunciation: cabhraigh (pronounced: 'cawrig') and cabhsán (pronounced: cawsaun) [the /w/ sounds like a /u/ vowel].

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I could see the /h/ disappearing in written spelling, but not a further shift to /v/ in "le Pover" and then an additional /w/ replacement and it was the other way around - /h/ to /v/ did not occur and /w/ to /v/ is not considered to be part of the High German Consonant Shift. It looks like the High German Shift occurred by AD 500 (potentially as late as after the 16th century) and Power is commonly found in England in this exclusive spelling only from the 14th Century onwards, rendering this hypothesis achronological.

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It seems vengeful enemies and court rivals had some play in the laboured explanation that Power comes from 'le pover' ("poor man"; "pauper"), which is merely a nickname (or soubriquet), given either to Roger of Salisbury as a pejorative, or to his son Robert, or self-attributed as an accolade suggesting generosity and a  holy vow of poverty, the latter of which is unusual as they financed the building of castles (including the stone iteration of Devizes castle in 1120, referred to by a contemporary source as “the most beautiful fortress in Europe”).

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The family name de Poher (late AD 700+) morphed over time into le Poer (AD 1100+) and then into the Anglicised Power (AD 1300+). "De" mean "of" in French. "Le" is the masculine form of "the" in French. Various branches retained the distinct names longer. The hardest point to find them is just before then during the Black Death, but they crop up again in force from the 1400s onwards.

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Pou (Latin, from "Pagi" "district"), pronounced: Po +

Kaer (Old Breton "fortified city"), pronounced: kêr

= Poher, pronounced: P’her.

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The House of Poher, beginning proper with Erispoë I of Poher, represented one iteration of the rulers of Brittany.

Conan I, son of Judicael (Berenger in Frankish sources) of Poher, Duke of Brittany and Count of Rennes established the Norman-Breton pact with Richard I of Normandy.

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Another notable member is Arnold le Poer, Seneschal of Kilkenny, and commander of the army of Edward II which defeated the invasion of Ireland by Edward Bruce, the younger brother of Robert the Bruce. Arnold had the formidable Bishop of Ossory, Richard de Ledrede, the prime instigator of the Kilkenny Witchcraft Trials arrested and imprisoned. When the bishop secured his release, Arnold was himself arrested on charges of heresy and died in Dublin Castle in 1328 whilst awaiting trial. I know the feeling.

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Following the Irish rebellion of 1641 the Power family were pardoned in the Cromwellian Act of Settlement, though left impoverished by the war. Having been respited after inquiry from the threat of transplantation to Connaught, they were placed in a state of recusancy, although there was no forfeiture.  

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