DNA and Barrow Lousada genealogy

Our first exposure to DNA technology was when our distant cousin Michael Waas suggested some male-line Lousadas be entered into a study of male-line Sephardic descent. This study was drawn upon in early 2020 by his collaborator Adam Brown when he covered the use of Y-DNA data in Jewish genealogy - paper uploaded here (see also ref 306). Allan and Jeremy Lousada duly proved to be extremely close Y matches with a rare haplotype E-FT 333503 (derived somehow from the North African haplogroup EM35) while Bob Leuzarder (see below) was not a match (his haplotype is R-BY 193173 of the R1b haplogroup which is common among European males). On 21 Oct 2021 Adam Brown advised us of the next closest Lousada Y match - from Finland. This match has 33 out of 37 STRs in common with Allan Lousada; this is 4 genetic steps or about 300 years (9 to 12 generations) from birth of a common ancestor but the genealogical picture is currently inadequate to explain the match other than that a Finnish great-grandfather was 'Mediterranean'. The next closest match is being approached. Adam Brown also, in the online discussion group Sephardic Diaspora during 2019, referred to the Ashkenasi founder effect (see here) and to the likelihood that Randy Schoenberg (who descends like the Barrows from Simon Michael Pressburg) does not descend from the small number of original founders of the Ashkenasi community. But when Ed Barrow got his Y-DNA results back they placed him in the R-M269 haplogroup, and things got interesting. For as Michael Waas observed 'I briefly looked over the results and I can tell you that you (Ed) belong to one of our founding Ashkenazi lineages that also has been in the Jewish people probably since the beginning. I have brought Adam Brown in to the discussion for further information and detail. I didn't see any matches necessarily that descend from Simon Michael Pressburg; of course, if you know any direct Y descendants of him, we could test that theory..'. However, Ed's matches point to Myers and Wertheimer ancestors, and as these families are present in the circle of Simon Michael Pressburg, this caused us to suggest a refinement of the family connections of Simon Michael Pressburg (particularly that Barrow ancestor Baruch was a stepson of Simon Michael Pressburg - see here).

 In the meantime, John Griffiths, descendant of Joseph Barrow, has proved inspirational in raising our interest in DNA. In late 2019 he compared his and Julian Land's autosomal DNA data on GEDmatch. It was exciting to experience this first match but it was insignificant (a single 3.4cM segment match on our 8th chromosome) and much less than might have been expected for 6th cousins (common ancestors Simon Barrow 1709-1802 and Bailah Montefiore 1720-73) but probably illustrates how drastically autosomal DNA can be discarded. By 2024 we regard this match as a false positive! Randy Schoenberg provided access to his DNA records, and John Griffiths and Julian Land found matches with Randy Schoenberg, with one segment match on the 21st chromosome being common to all 3 people. But the failure of this 21st chromosome segment to show up in the comparison between John Griffiths and Julian Land needs explanation - perhaps it reflects a match of their 21st chromosome fragments to different half-identical regions of Randy's 21st chromosome (see ref 313 pp154-5) in which case at least one of John Griffiths and Julian Land has an independent link with Randy Schoenberg. We also noted that a complementary situation occurs with Ed in that he and Randy both have a match with John at the same site. But later work (see here) shows interesting alternative scenarios. The de Symons connection might give Julian Land a greater link to Randy Schoenberg - that is, the descendants of Simon Barrow of Bath should have an extra connection with Randy Schoenberg compared with those Barrow descendants like John Griffiths who do not have this (additional) connection. However, the situation is not quite so simple (see here), and in the end we suggest that additional Pressburg genes were not in fact brought to the English Barrows and rather that Julian, John together with Ed Barrow and Scott's wife, have just a single dose of Pressburg genes. Julian Land and Michael Waas compared their autosomal DNA and as Michael reported on 25 Jan 2020 'we do have some very small 3cM segments shared between us. But who knows if that's from the Portuguese or Ashkenasi sides of our families'. Indeed, we have no certain knowledge of common ancestry - corresponding to our increasing certainty that Abraham Israel Pereira (an ancestor of Michael) did not have a Baruch Lousada mother but rather became by marriage a nephew of Isaac Baruch Lousada #42.

To this may be added what we have learnt from autosomal DNA analysis of some Fischl & Dirsztay descendants. Dena Jenkins with probable Fischl ancestry found on FamilyTreeDNA that 'hooray we have the same 5th cousin. I found him in your kit and then went on my cousin's kit .. we both have him....If we both have the same 5th cousin we must be related!' However this match with Dena Jenkins may have arisen other than via the Barrows. In the absence of further DNA comparisons from her, this connection has not been further examined, and we have been most fortunate that Scott McDougall's wife, a descendant of Bela de Dirsztay 1861-1921, has had her DNA results uploaded to GEDmatch, and autosomal matches with Julian Land and John Griffiths noticed. We are 7th cousins according to our Barrow/Pressburg suggestion, with Simon Michael Pressburg with his Baruch Lousada daughter-in-law as common ancestors of her (and Dena Jenkins). A subsequent DNA match supports our inclination here as it brings additional Pressburg and Fischl links. And luckily we have found a 6-person chromosome 8 match which persuades us that a Lousada/Pressburg connection is likely (for example see slide 27 of our  'Fun With Autosomal DNA' and the discussion in the next paragraph).

 In early 2020 Bob Leuzarder, who thought himself to be a probable descendant of Jacob the NY chocolate merchant, introduced some immediate relatives and also a DNA match also from the USA - Jeannine Wegmueller, a descendant of the Luzarders. It was not clear how the Leuzarders (see here) and the Luzarders (see ref 314) related to each other nor to the rest of us. They participated in the work by John Griffiths on over 200 DNA segments arising from a study group of 11 likely family members; John's latest report #4 is here, and his observations on this are here. A later inspection by Julian Land of the DNA segment matches arising from a subset of 7 of the relatives is reported here with just 2 of 133 of these superficially intriguing matches proving valuable. These 2 matches (on chromosomes 2 but especially 8) appear to represent remnants of Lousada DNA, and support our hypotheses - namely, the Portuguese origin of Jacob and our Barrow/Pressburg suggestion. Nonetheless encouraged, we went on to hypothesize a descent of both the Luzarders and Leuzarders from Jacob the NY chocolate merchant. In this, we show Bob and Jeannine as 4th cousins once removed, and Bob ceasing to be a male-line Lousada despite his surname. In 2023, Bob reported a Y DNA match with Ernest Lloyd Luzadder, though this match being of the R haplotype did not match the Baruch Lousada E haplotype. Nevertheless we considered whether Ernest Lloyd might have Baruch Lousada ancestry transmitted through a female line. We therefore updated our 7 by 7 study to include Bob and Ernest Lloyd (see our 8 by 8 study of July 2023 here). Our 7 by 7 and 8 by 8 studies led us to the 4 Lousada indicator segments:

    Cr2 218-220m        
    Cr5 79-92m        
    Cr8 52-54m        
    Cr21 36-38m        

These 4 indicator segments proved useful in developing the main structure of the genealogy of the USA Lousadas and the placement of Ernest Lloyd Luzadder (no indicators) on the one hand and the placement of Bob (3 indicators with that on Cr8 missing), Jeannine (3 indicators with that on Cr21 missing) and a Papacin-Lousada descendant (all 4 indicators) on the other hand. The 4 indicators are also proving useful in considering the Schoenberg matches referred to above, for while nothing significant appears at 3 of the indicators (Cr5, Cr8 and Cr21) we find at Cr2 that Randy's mother has 3 matches (with Julian, Jeannine and the Papacin-Lousada descendant) which raises the question of a possible Baruch Lousada link and whether it is discoverable genealogically. Though useful in our work, the indicators are not straightforward to use - the absence of matches does not imply the tester is not Lousada (JG and MikeD appear at 1 indicator, Allan and Jeremy Lousada at zero), whilst presence at an indicator site does not imply the tester is Lousada (false positives are common with small segments even with Q-match).

Some methodological points have become apparent. A high degree of consanguinity was present in Sephardic families such as ours; making connections seem closer. Apart from possible unknown earlier cousin-cousin marriages in each line, there was a probable uncle-niece marriage in 1698 in both Jeannine and Bob's ancestry together with 2 cousin-cousin marriages in 1832 and 1743 in Julian's ancestry. Julian and Ed Barrow are 4th cousins and their match may also be somewhat enhanced due to consanguinity - the 1832 cousin-cousin marriage in Julian's ancestry. In our 7-relative study we used some nominally unrelated people so that we could contrast cousin-cousin matches with cousin-unrelated matches. It will be noted that the 'unrelated' people turn out to have some interesting unexplained connections anyway - such is the nature of autosomal DNA matching especially where there is Jewish ancestry! Finally, the default settings used by GEDmatch have changed over time - in our earlier comparisons with a 3cM threshold we found 'segment threshold size will be adjusted dynamically between 200 and 400 SNPs' whereas in our 2023 8 by 8 study we found 'segment threshold size will be adjusted dynamically with an average of 200 SNPs. About 2/3 will occur between 185 and 214 SNPs'. The effect of this was to increase the number of matching segments and hence the total match sizes. In late July 2023 GEDmatch suggested we try Q-match as we have small segments - this was a good suggestion (see here Attachment 4).

In Nov 2021 MyHeritage notified Julian Land of an 8*GGF who had been in Recife namely Aaron Querido #3161. This ancestral contribution enters via Baron Moses d'Aguilar whose wife Simha da Fonseca was a great-grandaughter of Aaron Querido as shown on geni.com based on work by Jarrett Ross. However Bob Leuzarder shares a 7cm DNA match with a person who descends from Aaron Querido a great-nephew of the just-mentioned Aaron Querido. This match appears to arise from Esther #1768, one of the Den Haag Louzadas, and perhaps Bob Leuzarder's match is the 1st present-day descendant of the Den Haag Louzadas we have encountered. Esther cannot however have been a direct ancestor of Bob Leuzarder, who has a different descent from Amador de Lousada who was Esther's 2*GGF. Remarkably Bob's sister Christine does not share the match, so the relevant genes were discarded from her DNA in the previous generation. Julian Land does not share the match either, but here the relevant genes may have been lost many generations ago.

On 10 May 2021, FamilyTreeDNA reported an interesting match Julian Land has with 3 successive generations of the Nunes Vaz family. Using the obvious point of linkage evident in Nunes Vaz ancestry namely Simha Henriques Faro #1629, we could not resist suggesting an earlier linkage between the Henriques Faros and the Baruch Lousadas than was deducible from the paper records. This was not entirely impetuous - we had been looking at ways further Henriques Faro links could have arisen. Jarrett Ross on 26 Sep 21 cautioned not only that there may be other Sephardic elements in the match, but that an Ashkenasi element is important as well because his GM (the 1st of the 3 generations referred to) is Ashkenasi! We interpret the matches as follows. Julian's match with the GM has been halved (as judged by the largest segment being halved) by the GM's marriage with a Nunes Vaz descendant. However, because total match was similar in the next generation, the missing Ashkenasi matching genes have been more or less replaced by matching Nunes Vaz genes. That is, there is a Sephardic match with the Nunes Vaz GF roughly comparable to the Ashkenasi match with the GM. In the next generation, the combined match has been largely preserved, probably because the matching DNA has largely survived (as judged by the largest segment not being much reduced), with only a small introduction of new matching DNA. While our original interest was the Sephardic match, the original Ashkenasi match is as close or closer than Julian's other Ashkenasi matches, and we explore it by looking at 3 common Ashkenasi matches but as summarised here, we can see some patterns but nothing of statistical significance.