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; the genealogical significance of this result is discussed below). 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'. 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 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-Y19847 haplogroup, and things got interesting. For as Michael Waas observed 'I briefly looked over the results and I can tell you that Ed belongs 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..'. Ed's matches point to Myers and Wertheimer ancestors, and these families are present in the circle 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. Randy Schoenberg provided access to his DNA records, and a number of matches with Randy Schoenberg were found. Further work on our Schoenberg matches (see here) was necessary to clarify the situation as discussed below. The de Symons connection might be expected to give single and double descendants of Simon Barrow of Bath a greater link to Randy Schoenberg and his ancestor Simon Michael Pressburg compared with those Barrow descendants like John Griffiths who do not have this connection. However, the situation is not quite so simple (see here). 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.
Some Fischl descendants made contact after seeing our Dirsztay Family Tree (ref 31). Dena Jenkins, with Fischl ancestry via Lajos Fischl 1798-1856, 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!' Though it is hard to see how this match with Dena Jenkins arose other than via Barrow ancestors, we were thankful that Scott McDougall's wife, with Fischl ancestry via Bela de Dirsztay 1861-1921, had her DNA results uploaded to GEDmatch. These became part of our set of data from probable relatives the analysis of which is discussed below. We are 6th cousins (once removed) according to our Barrow/Fischl suggestion, with Simon Barrow's Baruch Lousada mother a common ancestor of her (and Dena Jenkins). A subsequent DNA match is somewhat supportive as the person has a marriage link with Lazar Fischl (4*GGF of Scott's wife), and an additional Pressburg marriage link as well. In early 2020 Bob Leuzarder 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. With genealogical data so hard to find, autosomal DNA could not be dismissed, even though few people elsewhere bother with small segments of the size we were left with.
John Griffiths suggested trying to see whether segment match correlations could show underlying connections between relatives since individual matches at 3cM were unreliable. In response to John's suggestion, we embarked on a lengthy exploration of ways to extract useful conclusions from small segment matches. This led to a discussion of possible indicators of Baruch Lousada DNA, and what a small match procedure would look like. Through this process, the autosomal DNA of more relatives became available, with the addition of Julian Land's 1st cousin Allan Lousada and 4th cousin Jeremy Lousada, Randy Schoenberg's parents, and 2 US Lousadas Terri Phelan and Ernest Lloyd Luzadder. We were encouraged to make an initial hypothesis on the descent of both the Luzarders and Leuzarders from Jacob a NY chocolate merchant (with Jacob assumed to be a great-grandson of Amador de Lousada of Vinhais via Amador's son Fernando and Fernando's son Henrique who was in Vinhais until 1650). In this, based on the genealogical situation of Bob's great-great-grandfather Benjamin (likely to have been the adopted son of a great-uncle also named Benjamin) we proposed that Bob was not a male-line Lousada despite his surname; this was remarkably confirmed in 2023 when Bob reported a Y DNA match with Ernest Lloyd Luzadder; this match was of the R haplotype (that is, not the Baruch Lousada E haplotype, as noted above). This match links Bob like Ernest Lloyd to the great number of Midwest Lousadas who all descend from 'Aaron2' the namesake of Jacob's son 'Aaron1'. Nevertheless we considered whether Ernest Lloyd might have Baruch Lousada ancestry transmitted through a female line, and ultimately concluded he did - with our remarkable assertion that 'Aaron2' was not the son but the grandson of 'Aaron1' via an unknown daughter.
Our argument that David #1584 was an ancestral brother might be considered a little thin without our DNA work. Thus Isaac #42 appears to have married the widow of David #1584, making David's sons Aaron #376 and Abraham #1875 stepsons - with the later son Abraham #1875 born legitimately into Isaac's marriage; so when in Amsterdam in 1645, having no reason to doubt that he was the son of Isaac #42 (who was not in Amsterdam at the time but in Livorno with a new wife after having been widowed by the death around 1636 of the mother of Abraham #1875), he named his son Isaac whom we know as Isaac #50. On the other hand, Isaac #42 (knowing he was not the biological father of Abraham #1875) went on to have his own son Abraham whom we know as Abraham #45. On his part Aaron #376 did not suffer the same misapprehension as his biological brother Abraham #1875, for he named his first son David (after David #1584) and only a later son Isaac (who died in infancy). That David #1584 was a probable brother receives a further DNA echo as follows. 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-granddaughter of Aaron Querido as shown on geni.com based on work by Jarrett Ross. However Bob Leuzarder has a match with Dagmar Querido Sullivan (dqs1) a person who descends from Aaron Querido a great-nephew of the just-mentioned Aaron Querido (being a grandson of Abraham Querido a brother of the first Aaron). This match appears to arise from Esther #1768, one of the Den Haag Louzadas, who was not a direct ancestor of Bob Leuzarder as Esther #1768 was biologically descended from David #1584, being her GGF, and not his brother Fernando #1785 (Bob's ancestor). Bob Leuzarder's match is our first contact with a present-day descendant of the Den Haag Louzadas. The descent of dqs1 from Esther #1768 is shown here where it will be observed that Esther #1768 married Jacob de Mercado in 1691 and had a daughter also Esther (born 1702) presumably named after the paternal grandmother. Only one such Esther may be found in Amsterdam records - she became the wife of David de Mercado in 1656 - so presumably Jacob de Mercado was the son of David #2405 and his wife Esther Jessurun #3244.
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.