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The FREUNDs of Schmiegel

(Re-posted 17 September 2020)  (Originally posted October 2018)

Late last month, going through the Family Archive at Don’s house, Don and I found his original FREUND family tree which he prepared in the 1970s, most likely with information from Tante Doe (Elisabeth Dorothea FREUND geb. FREUND (1898-1982)).  The main FREUND family tree started with our great great grandfather Hirsch FREUND (ca.1786, Schmiegel -1863, Breslau).  We also found a brief family history written by Tante Doe that also seemed to start with Hirsch FREUND, but which had an inserted note that Hirsch’s father was named Jakob FREUND.

We did not find an old (1970s) family tree which I recall as my starting point on FREUND family research in the 1980s and 1990s.  As I remember it, that family tree started with Jakob FREUND with the information that he was born in “the 1730s” and died in 1807 (or about 1807).  However, while the source eludes me, there is this note in my family file for Jakob FREUND:
“[assumption:  this is the same as Hirsch Freund's father Jakob Freund (1730s-1807, Lissa)]”

That note was written in November 2002 after I had found this entry:

     F - No. 31  Freund, Jacob, S. d. Samuel (aus Schmiegel)  1 Tischri 568 / 3 Oct. 1807

which is on page 20 of the document “Aus dem Friedhofsregister der jüdischen Gemeinde Lissa, Posen 1734-1930” (copied from Bernhard Brilling Collection, Jüd. Museum Frankfurt) which I had copied from the James Bennett Collection (AR 5518 - Folder II/3) in the archive of the Leo Baeck Institute.

Based on the name “Jacob FREUND”, being “aus Schmiegel”, dying in 1807, and dying, or at least being buried in, Lissa, it was my conclusion in 2002 that this death/burial information was for Hirsch FREUND’s father Jakob FREUND.

That conclusion also had the advantage of identifying a new great great great great grandfather, Jakob’s father Samuel.  Having an ancestor named Samuel [FREUND] seemed reasonable since Hirsch FREUND had named his first son Jakob in 1821 and his second son Samuel in about 1823.

Sometime, I think in the last 5 to 10 years, I ran across the information that there was a R. Siegfried FREUND who was born in Schmiegel in 1829.  He was rabbi in Görlitz for over 50 years, from 1857 to 1914.  He died in Görlitz in 1915.  He was a contemporary of my great grandfather Wilhelm Salomon FREUND (1831, Schmiegel - 1915, Breslau).  So, of course, I wondered whether they might have been first cousins, with FREUND fathers in Schmiegel who would have been brothers.  Possible; or maybe they were from two different Jewish families in the little town of Schmiegel who happened to both adopt the name FREUND in the early 1800s.  Also quite possible.

R. Siegfried FREUND first made it in to the family file in October 2014 when I added information from a BRANN / KANN Stammbaum prepared in 1936 in Glogau by Hans LACHMANN (b.1900, Lissa) and received from Viviana SALAMA geb. BRIEGER, possibly back in 2000.  Siegfried’s brother Fedor FREUND (1831, Schmiegel - 1890, Breslau) was married to Stephanie KANN, a 1st cousin 3 times removed to Viviana, and 2nd cousin once removed of Hans LACHMANN (and also the great great aunt of Ruth LYNN geb. NADELMAN).

Interestingly, R. Siegfried FREUND was married to a LACHMANN, Doris Sara LACHMANN, but I did not learn of her from the family tree prepared by Hans LACHMANN.  Differently interesting, Siegfried’s and Fedor’s mother was Sophie (Pesse) SKLOWER of the name-sake family of the Sklower Schul in Breslau where the FALK family was active for over a century.

The father of Siegfried and Fedor was Marcus (Mordechai) FREUND (ca.1776, Schmiegel - bef 1869, possibly in Breslau).  In March 2017, I learned from the Heirats-Anzeige for his second marriage to the divorcee Sophie SKLOWER in 1824 that Marcus’ father was named Samuel FREUND.  With Marcus born in about 1776 and Hirsch FREUND born in about 1786, they could have been brothers, but Marcus’ father was Samuel, while Hirsch’s father was supposed to be Jakob — in fact, “Jakob ben Samuel”.   Jakob and Marcus could not reasonably be brothers, or half-brothers, because Jakob was believed to be 35 to 45 years older than Marcus.

This constellation of names quickly led to a new family ancestry theory.  What if Jakob was not Hirsch FREUND’s father, but his grandfather?  If Jakob was really born in the 1730s, there was plenty of time to fit in another generation between Jakob and Hirsch, who was born ca.1786.  What if Jakob had a son Samuel who was that father of Marcus FREUND and was also the father of Hirsch FREUND?  That putative son Samuel would have been named after his paternal grandfather.  And presumably, that Samuel FREUND would have died about 1822, between the time when Hirsch named his first son Jakob (1821) and his second Samuel (ca.1823), and before Marcus had his son Siegfried (1829) who had the Hebrew name Samuel.

I have not found any primary sources identifying Hirsch FREUND’s father.  The FREUND family burial site in the Lohestrasse cemetery no longer has the gravestone for Hirsch FREUND.  The “Sterberegister vom 1. Januar 1861. bis 31. December 1871” (JHI file 105_0565) has an entry for Hirsch FREUND, but the Hebrew portion has his name only as Zwi FREUND without the common “ben XYZ”.  Likewise, the Todesanzeige for Hirsch FREUND also does not give his father’s name.

This new theory and the lack of confirmatory evidence was what led me to want to review my original sources for the identity of Hirsch’s father as Jakob FREUND.  From that review, it seems like Tante Doe may have added the information that Hirsch’s father was named Jakob after she had put together her recollections on the FREUND family.  If, as I now hope, Tante Doe was wrong about this, it could be that she knew that her grandfather Jakob (ben Zwi) FREUND (1821-1895) was named after an ancestor of his, and just assumed it was his paternal grandfather.  Or, she might have been told that Jakob was named for his “grandfather” meant as a generic term for ancestor, as appears sometimes in Hebrew gravestone inscriptions.  Either way, if Jakob was named after his great grandfather, rather than his grandfather, it would make room for an extra generation between Hirsch and Jakob, and that gap could be filled in with Marcus’ father Samuel FREUND.

I tried to trace the descendants of Marcus’ known sons R. Siegfried FREUND and Fedor FREUND.  Siegfried had two sons Otto and Martin.  Otto was a physician in Posen, but I have not found information on a wife or any children.  Martin was a dentist in Berlin.  He did marry, but his only child appears to be an adoptive daughter.  I was able to trace her and her family in Israel, but did not manage to make contact with Eva’s daughters.  Fedor had two daughters, but I was not able to find any living descendants.

I had hoped to find a family member with a trove of information about his or her FREUND family history, or to find a direct male-line descendant to open up the opportunity for a Y-chromosome DNA comparison, but neither of those plans seems to be an option.

So for now, finding some primary source information on Hirsch FREUND’s father is probably the best option for determining whether Hirsch and Marcus were brothers.