A LITTLE HISTORY ABOUT THE AMALI - The name Amelang or Amalungi is one of ancient royal families, mighty kings and fierce queens, there can be no doubt. In German-American Names, by George F. Jones, he describes the family name, Amelung, as originating from a Germanic tribe or dynasty.(1) Not merely Gothic royalty but "the highest nobility" within the so-called "barbarian" world of Roman times. Many of the names of the actual individuals will sound strange and distant to the modern ear, especially those of us who grew up speaking English, a language we Amelangs have used for only a very small part of our long history. Even in our German "Fatherland" major language shifts over the centuries have made the old names sound at least a bit foreign to the modern ear. (5) Any serious student of our family history should read a book called History of the Goths, by Herwig Wolfram, and what follows are a few comments about our early family history discussed at length by Wolfram. Amelang is derived from the ancient tribal name Amal, (pl. Amali) and is the genealogia Ostragotharum, the family of the Ostragoths. The Amal clan was revered among the Ostragoths who assigned divine charisma to their leaders, acclaiming the Amali as Aesir, or of the old Nordic ruling dynasty of Gods. The Roman Cassiodorus (b. ca 484AD) recorded the Amal tribal history of the Goths, and Jordanes (6th Century AD) preserved it for posterity. Early Amal history is both complex and rich in legend. Dietrich von Bern better known in English as Theodoric of Verona (Theodoric the Great), perhaps most famous of the Ostogothic kings, traced the family origins to Scandanavia. Cassiodorus said that King Berig led the Goths "long ago" from the island of Scandza and as soon as they set foot on land they named their landfall Gothiscandza. From there the Amali marched on settlements along the coastline, making war on the inhabitants and driving them from the land. Theodoric tells us that the Amali made the long trek through central Europe by way of eastern Pomerania and the Vistula to the Black Sea, from there to Panonia and Moesia, and finally to Italy. The long, arduous journey, beginning around the time of the birth of Christ, lasted more than a half a millennium. Some facts can be sorted from the legends surrounding the trek of northern Goths across the Baltic to the Continent by referring to the Amal genealogy, and three of the earliest related tribal founders. Older than Ostrogotha, King of the Black Sea Goths, is Amal, with whom the history of the Amali begins. And older than Amal is King Gaut, and the Scandinavians who called themselves Gauts (or Goths). The Iron One, Hisarna, son of Amal, is an "acculturation" to the ancient Celts, a process that began long before the Amali became Goths and reached the Black sea. Indeed, in the realm of myth and saga the Gothic name disappeared completely; one spoke of the descendants of the Amali, the Amalungi, if one meant the Goths. And, In medieval poetry and historiography the Goths are the Amalungi, the descendants of the Amal Theodoric (Dietrich von Bern). There are several variations of the name. Amelungen is defined in the New Century Cyclopedia of Names as the ruling family of the Ostrogoths (and possibly at an earlier date, before the division of the Goths, of the Visigoths as well) which first came to prominence in the 4th century under their King Ermanric and attained their greatest fame under Theodoric the Great (c. 454-526). (2) The Visigoths were the descendants of the branch of the Gothic race established by Aurelian in Dacia (270). The descendants of the other branch of the race, which remained in Southern Russia, were called Ostrogoths (Eastern Goths). (3) The Goths were a Germanic people who probably migrated from southern Scandinavia sometime before the time of Christ. By the 3rd century the Goths had settled in the areas around the Black Sea and