 He was a descendant of one of the oldest and most prominent Assyrian families, the Malek family or tribe that came from Assyrian village of Geogtapah, Urmi, a region in Northwestern Iran.The family dates back nearly eleven centuries.Malek-Yonan grew up in Richmond, Virginia and later moved to Oak Park, Illinois, and finally retired and settled in Carmel, California with his wife, Dr. Ingmar Malek-Yonan, a professor of German Studies at University of California at Berkeley and Stanford University who died in 2007.