2,231. Whose Lineage Is Suspect

Hilchos Issurei Biah 19:17

We assume that all families are of acceptable ancestry and one is permitted to marry with them. However, if you see two families constantly feuding, one family always involved in controversy, or a person who constantly argues with people and is impudent, then we suspect their lineage. It is appropriate to distance oneself from people carrying disqualifying traits such as these. Similarly, if someone always casts aspersions on others’ pedigree, insinuating that families or individuals are mamzerim, then we suspect that he may be a mamzer. Similarly, if one accuses others of being servants, we suspect that he might be a servant because one who disparages others does so with a defect that he himself possesses. Likewise, if a person is disrespectful and cruel, hating others and not displaying kindness, we suspect that he might be a Gibeonite. This is because the trait of the Jews is to be meek, merciful and kind. The Gibeonites, however, “are not of the Jewish people” (II Samuel 21:2) they behaved audaciously and refused to be appeased. They failed to show mercy to Saul’s descendants and they refused to show kindness to the Jews by forgiving the descendants of their king even though the Jews had shown them kindness in sparing their lives.

Hilchos Issurei Biah 19:18

If a family’s lineage has been challenged by two witnesses testifying that a mamzer or a chalal had married in or that there are servants among them, then the situation is in doubt. If it’s a family of kohanim, one may not marry a woman from that family until he investigates four mothers, which are eight: the woman’s mother, her maternal grandmother, her maternal grandfather’s father, her maternal grandfather’s maternal grandmother, plus her paternal grandmother, her paternal grandmother’s mother, her paternal grandfather’s mother and her paternal grandfather’s maternal grandmother.