News
7 April 2004
Slow but steady progress is being made, and I am grateful for your patience. You'll notice that some of the content of the Genealogy page has been moved to the Links page, replacing the now redundant search-engine links that were listed there. The content of the Genealogy page shall concentrate solely on links to our ancestry files.
My father has not been well during his stay here in New Zealand, so the combination of caring for him and my family and work responsibilities has meant that we haven't been able to spend the time we had hoped to on this project. However, Dad has left the bulk of the data with me as he is soon to return to Holland. In the mean time I intend to drip-feed what I can to this site.
The first thing you will notice is that I am now listing all known family names under the BRANCH sub-heading, whether the link is ready for viewing or not. This will serve as an appetiser (or perhaps a teaser?) for researchers.
My apologies to Sally Bruckheimer and others who have been waiting with great long-suffering ... you haven't been forgotten!
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1 January 2003
The descendant chart for Branch HA has now been published.
We do not claim completeness or absence of errors, and would appreciate any assistance that any family members can provide by contacting us as soon as possible. For further information on what we need, please refer to the subheading "HOW YOU CAN HELP . . ." on the About page.
Armand Mendes da Costa
GENEALOGIST
19 June 2001
The following news article relates to Mendes da Costa family members living in the UK. Thanks to Sam Mendes da Costa for forwarding this information.
Walking in Jewish Highgate
A walking tour on July 1 will explore the rich Jewish history of Highgate Village.
The tour, being organised by Highgate Synagogue, will visit Jewish sights in and around the village.
Jews first settled in Highgate in the mid-17th century, when the MENDEZ DA COSTA family, physicians to King Charles II, purchased Cromwell House on Highgate Hill. They were the first Jews to own land in England. Jewish life flourished in Highgate, first in secret, and late more openly. The tour will visit Cromwell House, including its family synagogue, and learn more about the Da Costas, who employed a private kosher butcher on the premises.
The tour will also visit Church House, a Jewish boarding school in the early 19th century, which had its own private mikveh. Hyman Hurwitz, a friend and literary collaborator of Coleridge, ran the school.
The tour will start from Highgate Synagogue, tucked behind the Lubetkin designed Highpoint flats.
Source: The Jewish Chronicle
For a direct link to the article, click here
22 December 2000
The descendant chart for Branch K is the first one published on the Internet - or anywhere else for that matter - of a prolific British branch of the Mendes da Costas. It had its early beginnings with Abraham and his wife Ribca TREVES who migrated to Manchester from Holland with their children. In 1949 the groundwork for this Sephardic family, which fled the Inquisition in Portugal in the 1660's, was laid for what we hope to be the definitive family genealogy of the three brothers from Trancoso who prospered in their benevolent host countries of England and the Netherlands.
Greatest credit must be given to a distant relative of mine, Eduard Victor Emanuel TEIXEIRA DE MATTOS, chief researcher who was my initial mentor; also Sir Thomas Colyer Ferguson, and Wilfred and Edgar Samuel, without whom I could never have succeeded in tracing the descendants down to this day in all continents.
This particular branch, being only an "infant," born in the mid-1800's, has finally seen near-completion thanks to the incredible photographic memory of the incomparable Julia FLETCHER (nee Mendes da Costa) of London who in 1992 supplied me with all the jigsaw pieces to complete the picture in a matter of hours.
I do not claim completeness or absence of errors, but the fact that we now have the "backbone" might spur others in the family to assist with supplying further details. Thanks to the PC skills of my son André it is our hope to finish this task begun 50 years ago.
In view of this goal, André and I would appreciate any assistance that any family members can provide by contacting us as soon as possible. For further information on what we need, please refer to the subheading "HOW YOU CAN HELP . . ." on the About page.
Armand Mendes da Costa
GENEALOGIST
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