Abraham Baruch Louzada #45 was a cousin germain of Abraham Israel Pereira #1628 - what can we conclude from this?

There are 2 possibilities as shown above. In the first case, Briatis Alvares b1574 is an obvious possibility but as discussed in note 1 below there are two difficulties. The 2nd possibility gives a simpler and more natural scenario as discussed in note 2 below. In neither case does the Isabel Mendes de Losada of Vinhais (born 1578 died before 1656) marriage to Pedro Rodrigues predict which family relationship was the correct one, for there is no evidence that Pedro Rodrigues of Vinhais was connected to the Rodrigues Pereiras of Villaflor. The second possibility has proved to have far superior explanatory power (see here) and is the one we pursue.

Notes:

1. The mother of Abraham Israel Pereira was Beatriz Geronima, and Beatriz is a Spanish equivalent of the Portuguese Briatis. But probable Baruch Louzada ancestors Amador de Losada and Ana Mendes do not show the Geronima name - this is the first of the difficulties. In this possibility we therefore need to make an unsupported assumption - namely Briatis was a stepchild of Ana with the first wife being named Geronima. There is some plausibility here in that the gap in child-raising 1570-4 suggests the date of widowerhood and remarriage (though there could be other possible causes), while identifying Briatis with Beatriz Geronima produces a plausible account of the age of the son Abraham Israel Pereira in comparison with his cousin Abraham Baruch Louzada. The former was born when Briatis was around 31, while her brother Isaac #42 possibly fathered Abraham #45 as late as 1645 when he was 60 ie he was 29 years older. Briatis was born some 11 years before Isaac, so Abraham Israel Pereira was born 40 years (29 plus 11) before Abraham Baruch Lousada. However similar arithmetic works if Abraham #45 was born on a different date (eg perhaps he was born as early as 1641 ie shortly after his brother David #44 b1640 Livorno). A second difficulty in this case lies in the context of the related families of Villaflor where a social disparity was evident. Briatis came from a family of shoemakers while the more eminent Rodrigues Pereiras (particularly as shown by Tomas aka Abraham) became extremely wealthy through trade. Perhaps as Edgar Samuel remarked Briatis may simply have been beautiful. However for a modestly well-off family to pay a dowry to a wealthy family from a different town seems unlikely as we cannot point to a son earning a compensating dowry!

2. In this possibility Luna the mother of Abraham Baruch Louzada #45 would have been much younger than Antonio Rodrigues Pereira. She would have been a comparable age to Abraham Israel Pereira himself. The most obvious prospect would be that Beatriz Geronima had a much younger half-sister (by about 30 years given that Luna was bearing children well into the 1650s). The half-sisters would have had a common father (the large age difference means the mother would not be in common). It is easy to contemplate a non-wealthy Isaac Baruch Louzada finding attractive a marriage plus dowry to a deserving young woman in the circle of a wealthy family. The marriage of Isaac and Luna probably took place in Madrid in this case (rather than the AIP/ABL cousinhood being established in Villaflor or Vinhais in the first possibility). There are several people named Geronimo Rodrigues in the records who could have been the father of Beatriz Geronima and Luna  (see here note 12). Disqualified from consideration in this regard is the earlier Geronimo Rodrigues who was a merchant of Braganza and who appears in ref 180 p8 as being born around 1536, a son-in-law of Gaspar Laines, and son of Isabel Mendes; he suffered at the hands of the Coimbra Inquisition in the 1589-94 period. Apart from his advanced age when Luna was born (ie 64-85), we note that Isaac and Luna had a daughter named Luna who married in Amsterdam in 1675, and this implies that the maternal grandmother would have been named Luna (Isaac's mother being Ana Mendes) - but this earlier Geronimo was married to Ana Laines!