Historic family tree (from ref 48) showing Leonor de Andrada and Jorge de Almeida who are believed by many to be Montefiore ancestors
This family tree was initially thought to be only of general interest - showing the history of an Iberian family from Fermoselle and Mogadouro (see note 7 below) in the Duoro River valley and caught between Spain and Portugal and between Christianity and Judaism - perhaps illustrative of what may have happened to the ancestral Baruch Lousadas. It became more relevant when it was observed that some Baruch Lousada ancestors, the Lopes Pereiras, also descend from nearby Mogaduoro in the Duoro River valley. But it became of potentially great interest when read alongside ref 38 (see notes 5, 8 and 13 below for our appraisal of it) which suggests that Joseph Leon - son of Leonor de Andrada and Jorge de Almeida - was a key ancestor of the Livorno and English Montefiores. Experiences in Cordoba (see note 2 below) support ref 38 in this.
In any event ref 48 recounts that in response to the 1492 expulsion, the Carvajals moved from Fermoselle in Spain across the border to Mogaduoro in Portugal, then back to Spain as a New Christian family. Some Carvajal family members were then persuaded to move to Mexico by Luis de Carvajal de la Cueva who had become a regional governor of New Leon in the north after brutally pacifying it (ref 179). The uncle died in prison in 1590 or thereabouts, and Luis de Carvajal the nephew (see note 9 below) despite his being penanced in 1590 could not resist a strong religious fervour, which led to many of the family dying at the hands of the Mexican Inquisition. Thus sisters Catalina, Isabel, and Leonor, and mother Francisca died with him on 8 Dec 1596 and Mariana (see etching below) a little later (see note 12 below for some errors made on the death dates in the chart above and elsewhere).
Dona Mariana de Carvajal being burned at the stake in Mexico City once she turned 19, five years after her relatives suffered a similar fate in 1596
Notes:
1. Tony Harding spotted ref 134 describing a family history quest by a Doreen Carvajal which led her back to Segovia just north of Madrid and just south of our target region. However, a Carvajal connection may be more apparent than real as her family is said to descend from Diego Arias Davila.
2. Ref 48 does not include Cordoba in its history of Jorge de Almeida and Leonor Nunes Leon de Carvajal and neither does ref 38. But it was in Cordoba that Julian Land saw the Carvajal family tree prominently displayed in June 2015. And an account of how later in 2015 Simon Sebag Montefiore discovered in Cordoba the forceful assertion that he had Carvajal ancestors can be found by clicking here (but see note 12 for some historical errors in his account, and elsewhere). Carbajales de Alba in northern Spain (see our map) is suggested by ref 48 p10 as the probable origin of the 'Carvajal' name which of course creates a puzzle in understanding how in Cordoba the name was so strongly remembered (on this see note 10).
3. James Greener has provided the following data: Balthasar - born around 1563 in Benavente; after leaving Mexico became known as David Lumbroso aka Francisco Ramirez; and Miguel - born around 1577 in Medina del Campo; after leaving Mexico became known as Abraham Lumbroso aka Diego Ximenez.
4.A cousin Thomas de Fonseca Castellanos.
5. According to ref 38, Joseph Leon escaped Mexico with his uncles. These uncles could have been the husbands of Isabel and Catalina or their brothers Miguel and Balthasar, but not Gaspar who remained a Dominican friar. Helpfully, ref 123 p111 informs us that from Mexico Joseph's uncle Balthasar (Leonor's oldest brother) migrated to Italy and joined the Sephardic community at Pisa, whilst Miguel (her youngest brother) moved to Salonika where he studied and became a rabbi (we have some further data on these 2 people - see note 3). It also informs us that Jorge de Almeida had lived as a Jew in Ferrara in the 1570s. He then returned to Spain and in 1580 with his mother and two brothers went to Mexico where he acquired a mining enterprise and shop in Taxco. In 1588 he married Leonor de Carvajal (so we note Joseph Leon was probably born in 1589). In 1589, she was arrested by the Mexico City Inquisition with her mother, brother Luis, and two eldest sisters. Jorge de Almeida successfully went into hiding with his brother, and later returned to Madrid where his house became an important meeting place for travelling Portuguese New Christians. In 1590, the Inquisition sentenced Leonor's mother and brother to perpetual penitence in seclusion. The search for Jorge de Almeida was abandoned and eventually in 1609 he was burned - only in effigy. In Madrid, Jorge de Almeida met father and son Jacob Dias and Diego Dias Nieto - from a family that had migrated from Portugal to Flanders and then to Ferrara where they lived as Jews. He, having known Jacob Dias in Ferrara, assisted them get to Mexico which they reached in 1594. They provided letters to Luis one from his brother Balthasar, and Luis arranged for them to stay in the house of Antonio Dias de Caceres (see chart) - an early Portuguese New Christian merchant in Mexico City who had just returned from a long business journey to Manila in which Jorge de Almeida had an interest. Jacob and Diego then spent much time with Leonor's family and together their Judaism strengthened. As a result, Leonor, her brother, mother and 2 sisters were put to the Inquisitional flames on 8 Dec 1596; and Diego Dias Nieto under torture and the threat of a death sentence made a confession. Amongst other things this led to another relative (see note 4) of Jorge de Almeida being put to the flames in Mexico City in 1601, and also led to an Inquisition in Ferrara in 1602. Given that Balthasar was not in Mexico in 1594 (a letter from him to his brother Luis aka Joseph Lumbroso arrived with the Dias father and son in 1594), it seems likely that Balthasar and Miguel left Mexico with Jorge de Almeida around the time of the 1589 Inquisitional activity, when Joseph Leon was an infant or perhaps even unborn! Dias father and son were put up in the house of Antonio as arranged by Luis aka Joseph Lumbroso, so the uncles that Joseph Leon left Mexico with around 1596 (when Joseph was around 7) were much more likely to have been his aunts' husbands Antonio and Gabriel. However, by 1601 Antonio Dias de Caceres had returned to Mexico, as in that year he was penanced in person, but not put to the flames, as a result of the Dias Nieto testimony (ref 123 p115).
6. Perhaps of further interest is that ref 130 contains a Portuguese/Spanish family history also starting in Mogadouro/Fermoselle which not only connects with the Carvajal history shown here, but which also contains a 'Losado' - though it is possible many unrelated Losada families emanated from the Leon and Asturias region of Spain, and (with the Lousada name) the nearby Galicia and northern Portugal.
7. Alvaro de Leon was born in Mogadouro - see ref 179 p47
8. Judah Leon Montefiore married Rachel Olivetti in the 1620s (dates of 1620, 1629 and 1630 can be found in the literature) - see here for the parochet made for the wedding. It is most unlikely Joseph Leon was his father for Joseph himself was only in his thirties; his parents married in 1588 - see note 5. Further, the naming of Judah Leon Montefiore is odd - for Judah denotes 'lion' (Edgar Samuel explained this to us) as does Leon(e) - and thus contains redundancy. A possibility therefore worth considering is that Joseph Leon was renamed Judah Montefiore after he arrived in Italy - Judah being a reference to his past, and the surname a reference either to a Montefiore family which presumably assisted Joseph grow to adulthood, or alternatively a village named Montefiore. Given the Mexican Inquisition was capable of catalyzing Inquisitions in Italy (see note 5), such a change of name would not be surprising especially as his father Jorge de Almeida was still at large in 1609! A date of 1605 can be found in the literature as Judah's birthdate with no source cited but perhaps 1605 is the date of a late circumcision for Joseph. It may be tempting to suppose a marriage between Joseph Leon and a Montefiore female to explain Judah's Leon Montefiore surname combination (in Iberian and other naming customs both parents' surnames are used with the father's preceding the mothers'), but the unlikelihood of such a marriage, due to the impossibly young age of the bridegroom as we have just shown, makes such rationalisation implausible.
9. Manuscripts in his own hand have recently been rediscovered in Mexico's National Archive and were loaned for a New York exhibition 'The First Jewish Americans' Oct 2016 - Mar 2017. There is a digital copy - see http://pudl.princeton.edu/objects/s7526g29j.
10. It is no doubt significant that the family should be known as Carvajal in Cordoba, because (if the suggestion of ref 48 is true that Carbajales de Alba was the origin of the 'Carvajal' name) the name seems to have adopted after leaving Cordoba and before arrival in Fermoselle. Perhaps the family retained trading and other links with Cordoba for many decades after departure.
11. In the absence of publication of the Montefiore family research referred to in note 13, much new work will be needed to explain the connection between the wedding referred to in note 8, on the one hand, and the Montefiores of Livorno, on the other hand. At present one can only say that the story may involve both Montefiore Conca (Province of Rimini, Region of Emilia-Romagna) which is the village identified in the unpublished research, and Montefiore dell'Aso (Province of Ascoli Piceno, Region of Le Marche) which the wedding (and specifically its Torah ark curtain) seems to suggest.
12. This press report contains obvious historical errors - the Carvajals may well have left Cordoba but it was not immediately to Portugal as a result of the 1492 expulsion as claimed - for the genealogy pictured above suggests that their arrival in Fermoselle was actually before 1486. Their move north from Cordoba was possibly in response to the formation of the Spanish Inquisition in 1478 or soon thereafter (see also note 10). The press report asserts that the Mexican regional governor was the father of Luis (he was an uncle) thus further adding to the litany of errors made in the telling of the Carvajal story. Similar errors are pointed out by ref 48 p354 which notes that even the classic works on the Mexican Inquisition are guilty; one example is that Luis de Carvajal de la Cueva the uncle has been confused with Luis de Carvajal aka Joseph Lumbroso the nephew and another example is that the 1591 and 1596 trials of Francisca the sister of the governor have been confused. A full account of the life of the uncle is given in ref 179 up to his death in a an Inquisitional prison cell in 1590. It confirms the uncle/nephew relationship of the 2 Luis (see p156 for example), but neither is it free from errors! Its caption to an image of the death of Mariana (differing from the above image) mistakenly claims that she died at the same time as Isabel and Luis the nephew - but as indicated above she died 5 years later. Note that our chart gives a January date for the death of Leonor, Isabel and Catalina - but this is an (internal) error in ref 48 for chapter 13 shows they died on the same day (8 Dec 1596) as Luis the nephew and his mother Francisca. A further clarification to the above press account should be pointed out - a more refined estimate of the number of Jews leaving Spain in late 1492 or early 1493 can be found in ref 193 (about 65,000 compared with 50,000 - 200,000).
13. Ref 38 suggests that the original Montefiore (ie Judah Leon Montefiore in the online genealogy) was the son of Joseph Leon who was the son of the marriage of Jorge de Almeida and Leonor Nunes Leon de Carvajal (shown in the diagram above as Leonor de Andrada). But Simon Barrow of Barbados married Bailah Montefiore who was of the same vintage as Moses Vita Montefiore of Livorno, who started the English Montefiore line and who was perhaps also a descendant of Judah Leon Montefiore. That is, the above tree may contain early ancestors of all the English Montefiores and Barrows, and all those Baruch Lousadas descending from Bella Barrow. However this conjunction of accounts probably cannot be accepted without modification (see note 8 below). Ref 38 also suggests Joseph grew up in the village called Montefiore Conca and we note that Edgar Samuel knew the late John Montefiore-Vita who was an Italian Jewish descendant of the Livorno Montefiore family and who had settled in London before WW2. He had tracked the family to Urbino, and said that they came from a hill village near Urbino called Montefiore Conca. This work was cited in ref 50 p433 in note 1 of Chapter 1, and is probably the basis for the similar account in ref 38, but is not yet public (see note 11).