A Prague Italian connection

This chart illustrates how Baruch Lichtenstadt - the father of Simon Barrow #64 - would have acquired Italian in-laws (the green colour above indicates this) as a consequence of his likely marriage to a Baruch Lousada widow. The chart is the result of our struggle with several interconnected mysteries - how Baruch's Baruch Lousada wife got to Prague is one of them, and how Moritz Baruh got both his name and his Italian wife are others. The name of Moritz's wife of course tells us something - that her Milan family was of German (or thereabouts) origins, and that the trans-Alps connection indicated above was of some standing. It is possible that Moritz and his wife were relatives. It is not known to which family the relatives belonged, but perhaps they were connected to the Levy Sonsinos, who centuries earlier were among those who brought printing to Italy across the Alps. Their name was derived from a town in the Duchy of Milan, but their printing moved elsewhere in the hands of others.

It is not suggested that Baruch, a glazier, was the prime mover in forging his Italian connection; rather, he may simply have been deemed to be a suitable husband for the Baruch Lousada widow left husband-less soon after her arrival in Prague. Then to link the Fischls and Timisoara to the Baruch Lousada story we propose that Moritz Baruh was not the son of Baruch Lichtenstadt (who had a father named Moses!), but the son of an Italian man named Baruch - the man who brought a Baruch Lousada wife and family to Prague with him. Moritz Baruh is the plausible grandfather of Lazar Fischl and the similarly aged Isaac Fischl #443. Also, we can link to the Baruch Lousada story the Fischls descending from Jacob #2417 by proposing an additional line of descent going back to Italy in the form of Moritz's brother Isaac suggested above who would have given his name to Isaac #443 (as shown above). Neither of these 2 Fischl lines could be explained successfully (or at all) by the author of ref 31. The will of Simon Barrow reflects only 1 sibling (Gedalia) so the 2 groups of half-brothers were evidently not close. But Moritz is shown above to have been father of Baruch #2350 and an uncle and father-in-law of Jacob #2417. In this way the Fischl family was created, its surname the result of the modernisation efforts of Emperor Joseph 2 in the 1770s.

Though Gedalia stayed in Prague, Simon went to Italy - following his older half-brother Moritz (Moses) with both presumably using family connections to make their way there. But Simon did not return to Prague. In Italy, he married into a branch of the Montefiores, which was in fact also a branch of the Levy Sonsinos, and was swept up in the move to London of leading Livorno families (though of course Simon and his brother-in-law Isaac Levy Sonsino were allocated a Barbados role - for reasons unknown - by their London relatives). But Moritz did return, having acquired an Italian wife, though ultimately not to Prague but to Timisoara - which by then was being energetically assimilated into the Empire.