Our research has led to partial and in some cases substantial resolution of the following issues. In most cases further progress may be possible and worthwhile:
The 'Lousada' name appears most commonly in Galicia together with the neighbouring region of Portugal, in contrast to neighbouring northwest Spain where it becomes 'Losada'. New Christian baptismal surnames often corresponded to placenames so this in itself does not distinguish our ancestors from the many Lousadas and Losadas known in the records. However, we have looked at the 1591 and 1650 Coimbra Inquisition records. Amador de Lousada from Vinhais is the only Lousada to appear before the Inquisition in a timeframe consistent with the Baruch Lousada presence in Livorno in 1640. He seems to have produced the correct number of children to explain the Baruch Lousadas who appeared in records elsewhere. The family of Amador's son Fernando/Fernao later appeared before the Coimbra Inquisition, and this family is the probable origin of the 2nd wave of New England Lousadas. We do know where Amador de Lousada who was born in 1540 was baptized and confirmed, and his name probably means his parents were baptised either in the Portuguese Lousada town or its 2 satellite villages before moving to Braganza (where Fernao was born) and Vinhais. In the absence of further records, we have obtained some confirmation of all these connections from DNA and more such confirmation would be welcome.
We have developed an account of the Baruch Lousada passage from Iberia to Western Europe and its colonies. This revolves around a deduced marriage connection with the wealthy Rodrigues Pereira family in Madrid around 1638. Thus, the Baruch Lousada appearances in Livorno, and Amsterdam can be seen as part of the manoeuvring by Tomas Rodrigues Pereira in preparation to exit from Madrid with his fortune in 1644, and his Venice detour may also have been important in this respect. The Rouen presence may have assisted Pereira when he helped others to escape Madrid, perhaps linking with the Canaries trade involving French linen. There are doubtless many more documents to discover in the Amsterdam Notary Records.
What was the role of the Rodrigues Lamegos of Rouen and later Bordeaux? They were associated in the early 1600s with Fernando Montezinos of Madrid and thus indirectly with the Rodrogues/Israel Pereiras and the Baruch Lousadas. The Lamego Curiel/Acosta in-laws were present in Cartegena des Indes, Veracruz and pre-British Jamaica. It seems likely that our key ancestor Aaron Lamego was a descendant of the Rouen Lamegos and then from Bordeaux made his way to Jamaica via Martinique and/or Guadeloupe from where he would have been expelled in 1685 and then perhaps via Saint-Domingue to Jamaica. And we have only clues as to how the Rouen Lamegos were related to the Madrid and earlier trading Lamegos and thus we would like to create an improved account of the Lamego family, which reverted to Judaism in France and Jamaica, had been almost at the top rank of Portuguese New Christian merchant families, and the wealth it generated through early participation in the Atlantic trade made the Lamegos key ancestors of the Lousadas, Mocattas, Aguilars, some of the Montefiores and many other Anglo-Jewish families.
It would be fascinating to reconstruct the Baruch Lousada negotiation with the Mercados which took place around 1659 probably in Rouen. For it seems obvious that this event is how the Baruch Lousada deployment to Barbados and London, and then Amsterdam, was planned and agreed. It also seems obvious that soon after the Mercados exited Dutch Brasil in 1654, they were able to enthuse key people in Amsterdam (eg the Israel/Rodrigues Pereiras) about sugar and its potential in Barbados which in turn set up the Rouen negotiation.
Baron Lyon de Symons aka Judah Low Pressburg was a descendant of Simon Michael Pressburg, but we also propose an earlier Barrow link with the Pressburgs. However, though we know Baruch Lichtenstadt was the father of Simon Barrow of Barbados, and that his surname is linked many times over to Simon Michael Pressburg, we do not yet know their exact relationship. DNA analysis is helping us answer some of these questions. Thus, we are becoming confident that Baruch had a Baruch Lousada wife, and also that her ancestry (and that of the Livorno and Tunis Baruch Lousadas) goes back to Amador de Lousada like the English and USA Baruch Lousadas.
The story of how the 1st Simon Barrow got from Prague in 1729 to Barbados in 1759 is untold. We only know he married Bailah Montefiore in the period 1735-1740 when she was 15-20, but not where. As it was probably not Livorno, it may have been Tunis which after 1700 had received a subset of the Livorno community. However, how soon the Montefiores got there before 1822 (when there was a Levi Sonsino marriage - see ref 319 V1:187) is not known. Around 1750 a number of Livorno families made a presence in London including the Montefiores and Levi Sonsinos, and perhaps Simon Barrrow was part of this move but was relegated to Barbados! However, it is still quite a stretch from Prague to Tunis.
The Baruch Lousadas of Tunis originate from Livorno but whether their Livorno reappearance after a gap of 100 years was a reverse move is unknown. The close link between the Levi Lousadas and the Baruch Lousadas (ref 149) was echoed when they both appeared in Tunis. However, we have even less understanding of how the (very few) Lumbroso Lousadas and Israel Lousadas of Livorno were connected.
The ancestry of Errol Barrow, first post-independence Prime Minister of Barbados, can probably be taken back to the local Baruch Lousadas. Certainly we can establish that there were at least 5 mixed-race Baruch Lousada descendants in Barbados from whom Errol Barrow may have descended.
Montefiore ancestry is not certain and a link to the Carvajals of Mexico needs confirmation though in Cordoba to this day there is no doubt about it. Simon Sebag-Montefiore reported his experience here which followed Julian Land's observation of a Carvajal family tree in mural form there. In particular was Judah Leon Montefiore - the origin of the family that purportedly gave rise to the English Montefiores - identical with Joseph de Leon, son of Jorge de Almaida and Leonor de Andrada? For we show that it is unlikely that he was the son of Joseph de Leon as one account has it. Though the commissioned work of John Montefiore-Vita has proved difficult to obtain from Montefiore family archives due to family circumstances, at least we have the account by Edgar Samuel of what it concluded - namely, that the Livorno Montefiores could be traced back to the hilltop village of Montefiore Conca near Urbino. It is this together with the Cordoba-inspired conviction which fuels our current hypothesis that the Montefiores have Carvajal ancestry. The recently published reference on Livorno Jewish marriages has allowed us to update the family tree of the early Montefiores of Livorno and thus confirm a link to the 1620 Olivetti marriage in Pesaro.
A key Baruch Lousada ancestor was Baron Moses d'Aguilar but his history is plagued by an abundance of inconsistent accounts. Fortunately Abigail Green has noted that an Oxford colleague Michael Silber is writing what we hope will be a definitive biography and we propose to defer to him, though so far Michael has only spoken publicly of the role Baron Moses d'Aguilar played in the Empress partly reversing her 1744 expulsion of Jews from Prague. A grandson of Baron Moses d'Aguilar has given his name to numerous geographical features in southeast Queensland, and a further biography appears to be needed here as well.
While we have elucidated the link between Baruch Lousada descendants in New England, and the many Midwest Luzadders, the precise identity of ''Aaron2'' the founder of the latter clan is yet to be revealed. DNA is helping here as well.