1. Davidic Dynasty group
1.<<The Davidic Dynasty group contains the following surnames with a
possible connection to the House of David: Abarbanel, Abrabanel,
Alperin, Berdugo, Charlap, Davidic, Dayan, Don Yehiya, Dyan,
Elfandari, Friedensohn, Friedman, Galperin, Ginzburger, Halperin,
Harlap, Heilprin, Horowitz, Katzenelbogen, Landau, Landaus, Lauria,
Lew, Liva, Loeb, Loew, Lowe, Luria, Lurie, Margulies, Mirkes,
Paprosh, Parnas, Peretz, Perigin, Perin, Posner, Rabinowitz, Raines,
Reins, Roff, Roth, Safrin, Salant, Salit, Shaltiel, Shapira, Shapiro,
Shneerson, Shneur, Wahl, WEIL, Winkler, Yachia>>

Note: Yair Davidiy does not claim descent from David at least not so far as we know.
"Davidiy" in Hebrew can also mean "attached to David".
Davidiy is a Hebrew rendition of my surname in English which was Davis.
This however was not apparently our family name on the male side for more than
three or four generations.
According to information received by my aunty a few years ago and just recently made known to me
the father of my grandfather was of unknown parentage.
A DNA test in our family for what it is worth relates our male ancestry to Northwest Ireland
(and the family of Nial) or (less likely) to northern Scotland.

2. Pronouncing the Name
An interesting article on this subject is to be found at:
http://www.jewfaq.org/name.htm
The article does not tell the whole story but serves as
good background information to the subject.

See also the Wikipedia article on the Names of God but read with
very great reservation since parts of this article are groundless speculation.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Names_of_God_in_Judaism

You shall not take the name of THE LORD your God in vain

[Exodus 3:15] AND GOD SAID MOREOVER UNTO MOSES, THUS SHALT THOU SAY UNTO THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL, THE LORD GOD OF YOUR FATHERS, THE GOD OF ABRAHAM, THE GOD OF ISAAC, AND THE GOD OF JACOB, HATH SENT ME UNTO YOU: THIS IS MY NAME FOR EVER, AND THIS IS MY MEMORIAL UNTO ALL GENERATIONS.

THIS IS MY NAME FOR EVER
The word translated as FOR EVER in Hebrew
is read as "le-olam" meaning indeed "forever".
This is how it is READ based on ORAL TRADITION.
It is actually written "le-elam" meaning literally "TO BE HIDDEN" (in the future).
They who reject the Oral Law should therefore be even more careful not to
pronounce the name since it was to be hidden.
The Sages said that BOTH readings were applicable.
They implied that there would come a time when the name would need to be hidden
though in the future it will once again be used.

3. Interesting Encyclopedia Article on The British Empire (Extracts)
http://www.biocrawler.com/encyclopedia/British_Empire
This rather short somewhat critical article contains information of interest.

Extracts of Interest:
The British Empire was the world's first global power and history's largest Empire; by 1921, it held sway over a population of 500­600 million people ­ roughly a quarter of the world's population ­ and covered about 15.1 million square miles (nearly 37 million square kilometres), roughly 35% of the world's total land area.

The British Empire came together over 300 years through a succession of phases of expansion by trade, settlement, or conquest, interspersed with intervals of pacific commercial and diplomatic activity, or imperial contraction. Its territories were scattered across every continent and ocean, and it was often accurately described as "the empire on which the sun never sets". The zenith of the empire was during the mid 19th century when, as the world's sole developed superpower, Britain enjoyed unparalleled prosperity.

From the perspective of the colonies, the record of the British Empire is mixed. The colonies received from Britain the English language, an administrative and legal framework on the British model, and technological and economic development. During decolonisation, Britain sought to pass parliamentary democracy and the rule of law to its colonies, with varying degrees of success. Almost all former British colonies have since chosen to join the Commonwealth of Nations, the association which replaced the Empire.

Nonetheless, British colonial policy was always driven to a large extent by Britain's trading interests. While settler economies developed the infrastructure to support balanced development, tropical African territories found themselves developed only as raw-material suppliers. British policies based on comparative advantage left many developing economies dangerously reliant on a single cash crop. A reliance upon the manipulation of conflict between ethnic and racial identities, in order to keep subject populations from uniting against the occupying power ­ the classic "divide and rule" strategy ­ left a legacy of partition or inter-communal difficulties in areas as diverse as Ireland, India, Zimbabwe, Sudan, Uganda, Iraq, Guyana, and Fiji. Colonel Frank Kitson, in his book Gangs and Countergangs (1960), described how British colonial authorities in Kenya successfully manipulated the Mau Mau uprising so that it became warfare between rival factions; ultimately only 22 Europeans were killed, as opposed to 18,000­30,000 Africans.

The credit for the first ever usage of the words "British Empire" is usually given to Doctor John Dee, Queen Elizabeth I's astrologer, alchemist, and mathematician.

The overseas British Empire ­ in the sense of British oceanic exploration and settlement outside of Europe and the British Isles ­ was rooted in the pioneering maritime policies of King Henry VII, who reigned 1485­1509.

King Henry VIII founded the modern English navy (though the plans to do so were put into motion during his father's reign) ...Henry thus established the munitions-based Royal Navy that was able to repulse the Spanish Armada in 1588, and his innovations provided the seed for the Imperial Navy of later centuries.

During the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, Sir Francis Drake circumnavigated the globe in the years 1577 to 1580, only the second to accomplish this feat after Ferdinand Magellan's expedition. In 1579, Drake landed somewhere in northern California and claimed for the Crown what he named Nova Albion ("New Britain"), though the claim was not followed by settlement. Subsequent maps spell out Nova Albion to the north of all New Spain.

The lesson of Britain's North American loss ­ that trade might continue to bring prosperity even in the absence of colonial rule ­ contributed to the extension in the 1840s and 1850s of self-governing colony status to white settler colonies in Canada and Australasia whose British or European inhabitants were seen as outposts of the "mother country". Ireland had been treated differently, being incorporated into the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland in 1801.

During this period, Britain also outlawed the slave trade (1807) and soon began enforcing this principle on other nations. By the mid-19th century Britain had largely eradicated the world slave trade. Slavery itself was abolished in the British colonies in 1834, though the phenomenon of indentured labour retained much of its oppressive character until 1920.

Between the Congress of Vienna of 1815 and the Franco-Prussian War of 1870, Britain was the world's sole industrialised power, with over 30% of the global industrial output in 1870. As the "workshop of the world", Britain could produce finished manufactures so efficiently and cheaply that they could undersell comparable locally produced goods in foreign markets. Given stable political conditions in particular overseas markets, Britain could prosper through free trade alone without having to resort to formal rule. The Americas in particular (especially in Argentina and the United States were seen as being well under the informal British trade empire due to Britain's enforcement of the Monroe Doctrine keeping other European nations from establishing formal rule in the area.

As the first country to industrialise, Britain had been able to draw on most of the accessible world for raw materials and markets. But this situation gradually deteriorated during the 19th century as other powers began to industrialise and sought to use the state to guarantee their markets and sources of supply. By the 1870s, British manufactures in the staple industries of the Industrial Revolution were beginning to experience real competition abroad.

Between 1885 and 1914 Britain took nearly 30% of Africa's population under her control, compared to 15 percent for France, 9 percent for Germany, 7 percent for Belgium and 1 percent for Italy: Nigeria alone contributed 15 million subjects, more than in the whole of French West Africa or the entire German colonial empire.
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The aftermath of World War I saw the last major extension of British rule, with Britain gaining control through League of Nations Mandates in Palestine and Iraq after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire in the Middle East, as well as in the former German colonies of Tanganyika, South-West Africa (now Namibia) and New Guinea (the last two actually under South African and Australian rule respectively). The British zones of occupation in the German Rhineland after World War I and West Germany after World War II were not considered part of the Empire.

The last territorial expansion of the British Empire was the annexation of Rockall to the west of the Outer Hebrides in 1955. The Royal Navy landed a party of seamen on the isle and officially claimed the rock in the name of the Queen. The action was prompted by the imminent intention of the Ministry of Defence to test launch a nuclear missile from the Outer Hebrides. It was feared that the heretofore unclaimed island might be used by the Soviet Union as a site for surveillance equipment. In 1972 the Isle of Rockall Act formally incorporated the island into the United Kingdom, although this was controversial in Ireland.