Judah Cohen from AMSTERDAM in mid 1700s/early 1800s

[colee]

Hi

Thanks Steve - that is the potential relative of the Judah I'm focused on (as I mentioned in my DM back in November).

I don't suppose you (or anyone?) knows how to access any records in Kingston, Jamaica.. So another interesting record I came across was a newspaper announcement from 1825 (attached) about the death of the eldest son of Whitechapel Rd Judah, Asker Judah Cohen. Maybe there are records in Kingston which provide info about why he was there and any other family info.

Thank you for any more thoughts - yes I'm still going on this one.. also waiting for GEDmatch info to see if the 2 sides of the family are related

[colee]

So I eventually tracked down Judah's death duty info from the National Archives, but I'm not proficient enough with that register's info to be able to really understand the significance of what it's saying. I will attach here the link, and would really appreciate any help in interpreting it. Very many thanks in advance for any help.

https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/recordcopy/RC6934670-04fe0476-b5fb-4b59-8e71-815dd9e633aa

but in case that doesn't work it says:

Sum sworn under: £200

Esther Cohen ('gone away'), under the column 'kindred' I think it says Relief and 3 separate dates

3 l 4 May/37
4 l 5 Apr/38
5 l 12 May/39

then I think 'discharged' 27/7 maybe 39? (ie 27 July 1839?).

Or I could attach a screenshot of it if that helps.

[colee]

so.. interestingly this is what it all means:

not relief but relict, which means widow; Judah’s estate was valued at under £200; and the 3 dates given with an 'l' next to them mean letters that were sent to Esther the widow on those dates. Finally the reference ‘Lr. 2717/39 is to a letter received by the Stamp Office in 1839 (which sadly won't exist anymore), possibly in response to the last letter sent to the address at City Road.

So such is the nature of this sort of research, a rather long drawn out process of getting the death duty reveals not a lot. But of course in a sense the revealing of not a lot is significant in itself. It confirms that Esther moved after Judah's death, and I think we found her possibly elsewhere on a census, so that fits with that.

What I have now also discovered though is that Judah's nephew Edward was the original merchant who with Greverus Kleinwort set up the predecessor to Kleinwort Benson, when it was Kleinwort Cohen. He left a rather large fortune of £258,000, and no direct descendants to pass it on to as he didn't marry or have children as far as I have worked out. I have put in an order to view the will in Kew, so that should be interesting!

[thimblewheel]

Hello! I followed this thread on Judah and Edward Cohen with great interest. I'm looking for an ancestor, John Cohen, who was from England and settled in Jamaica and then Colombia in the early 1800s. Judah and Edward Cohen are some of the few British Cohens I found with business ties to Colombia -- they were agents for ships sailing to Cartagena and Santa Marta, as seen in the attached newspaper ad.

I posted a separate thread about another 19th-century English Cohen family with ties to Jamaica:
https://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?topic=882932.new#new

Thanks for reading!

[colee]

Hi Thimblewheel

Fascinating to read your thread about John Cohen and Catherine Cohen/Knight. So there were a few branches of European Cohens that came to London, it could well be that John is somehow connected the Judah/Edward branch. There was another one, in fact another Judah Cohen who had a brother Hyman and they were very involved in the sugar (read also slave) trade in the Caribbean. I'm trying to map them all out and see if they're related.

I was actually going to post a fresh question about this family, as I have come across a pretty mysterious newspaper article which might shed some light on the origins of the family. However, since I am replying to you here anyway, I'll post the newspaper article here and see what happens.

The more I read this article the more I think it cryptically relates to Issachar/Jacob, who was Judah and Edward's father, and points to him coming from Copenhagen. Even though the article is written in the 1820s after Issachar's death (1815), there are just so many coincidences in it: textiles salesman in Rosemary Lane, his name Issachar Cohen, the link with Dr Leo (I think Issachar married Dr Leo's widow after his death). The article seems completely fantastical, but I think I could validate some of the details in it (eg existence of an Alexander Donaldson at the right epoque, ie before Issachar's death). I have tried to attach it but I had to reduce the size to keep within the size limit.

Is this all wishful thinking by me? Or will I actually be able to pinpoint Issachar's birth in Copenhagen? Has anyone got any ideas? I would be unbelievably grateful!

[colee]

I don't think the pdf is clear enough to read, so I'll try to post another version that isn't a pdf. In the meantime, here is the direct link to Find my past for anyone interested that has access:

https://www.findmypast.co.uk/image-viewer?issue=BL%2F0000612%2F18211020&page=4&article=022&stringtohighlight=dr+leo+st+mary+axe

[colee]

Maybe this version is better. The author of the article may have been a doctor, which could account for him being so irked. I wonder if the letter mentioned in the article, that Dr Leo wrote to the Royal College of Physicians to seek admission for Issachar is hidden away in the archives. It would make great reading if it exists. I may have to make some enquiries.

[thimblewheel]

Newspapers of the time had an odd way of sharing the "news." I found an unredacted version of the story, it's Dr. William Brodum, birth name Issachar bar Ber Ha'Kohen (Issachar son of Ber Cohen), according to the Hebrew:
https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/ba7a/ff095e2bc308d6e3342b08f1bec396595ae4.pdf
"Ber" is a common Yiddish name, meaning Bear, equivalent to the Hebrew "Dov."

The article is “Of Quacks and Empiricism,” which first appeared in The London Medical and Physical Journal, Volume 13. Jan. to Jun. 1805. This blog post elaborates, Dr. Brodum was an infamous quack doctor of the time:
https://www.mimimatthews.com/2015/10/12/aphrodisiacs-elixirs-and-dr-brodums-restorative-nervous-cordial
The degree to which the article makes Jewish identity seem shifty (while also claiming to not be saying that) is pretty gross. 

I see your other Jacob Issachar Cohen was the son of Judah. I sympathize, it's hard to find a Cohen in a haystack of Cohens!

[colee]

Wow Thimblewheel, how amazing that you found the original unredacted version! (how did you find it out of interest?!).

The date of 1805 places it in 'my' Issachar's lifetime. The mentions of Rosemary Lane, Dr Leo (Issachar married his widow) and the name Issachar (there can't have been that many around Rosemary Lane) are quite tantalising coincidences. But at the same time there is no mention of the name Jacob (which 'my' Issachar) was definitely known as. So maybe it is wishful thinking on my part. He may be a relative I guess, so it's still worth looking at the Copenhagen link.

Does anyone know about Copenhagen records?