Any Information on the family Jacob and Catherine Cohen, Wales, Swansea

[DavidM]

Dear Leonard, Justin

Justin thanks for addressing my queries.  This is an extraordinarily productive thread.

Leonard asked about the "unknown" Phillips.  I don't think that she ever existed and I will explain my reasons in a slightly roundabout way.

In his will Solomon Phillips left part of his estate to his sons-in-law rather than his daughters.  This reflected the prevailing view of the status of women at that time as well as their marriage contracts.  By contrast Mordecai Phillips, in his will, took some care to make sure that his daughters benefitted from his estate rather than their husbands or any future husbands.  One way he did this was to set up trusts for each of his daughters with the trustees being some of his sons-in-law (except the relevant daughter's husband) and in each case there was an "independent" trustee who was Edward Foligno.  Edward was a friend of Mordecai's and, like Mordecai, a successful silversmith in the City of London.  However he went to the Bevis Marks Synagogue which followed the Sephardic tradition and indeed held almost all important positions there in the course of his life.  He also donated silverware to the synagogue and I am trying to find out if it is still in their collection 150+ years later.  Mordecai's allegiance was to the Hambro synagogue where his father had been a minister and his brother a warden.

I think that the role of Edward was to keep the family trustees honest and to avoid the risk of any collusion between sons-in-law.  However there is one passage in the will setting up these trusts that could be interpreted in a way that implies that Edward was also a son-in-law.  I think this (in my view erroneous) interpretation has given rise to the assumption that he was married to an unknown daughter.  I don't think that Edward ever married.  However I have not gone as far as getting hold of his will to see if he left any money to a wife or any descendants.  Perhaps I will sometime.

Which leads me to describe the end product of my researches.  Leonard is creating an art work.  I am creating a series of "coffee table" style family stories for my children and grandchildren.  The twist is that each story / chapter is linked to an object.  The object does not necessarily have to be in my possession.  At the start when I sketched out the 50 objects, I planned to use what I thought was a portrait of my 3x great grandmother, Sarah Phillips.  Since discovering that it was the "wrong" Mary Phillips I am now casting around for a suitable object.  Edward's silverware gift to the Bevis Marks synagogue may have to serve although I would like to find something that is more directly associated with an ancestor.  So far I have completed three volumes of stories each with ten chapters.  I am now working on volume four and, provisionally, the Phillips / Silverston / Cohen saga will be chapter 37.  On average I take about 18 months to prepare each volume.

On 7 June Leonard referred to the Wikipedia entry for the artist Barnett Samuel Marks.  I was aware of this already and had come across him before without realising that he had married a cousin.  For thirty years after leaving Wales he lived in Ealing which is the London suburb where I live.  He got involved in community affairs and, in particular, is remembered for working to establish a free library in the the borough.  A self portrait of him and another portrait of John Allen Brown (the main driving force behind the library) used to hang in the mezzanine section of the main library that was devoted to local history.  This building has now been reconfigured as a result of budget cuts and I don't know if they are still displayed or consigned to some store room.  Why did Marks chose Ealing?  I don't know but there has been a small Welsh community in Ealing since the 1840s when the GWR railway was built. There was / is a Welsh speaking chapel a few hundred yards from where he lived and there is still a Welsh speaking school for children aged 3 to 11 in the borough.  Perhaps he thought he would feel at home with fellow Welshmen around!

David

[LCohen]

Hi David, Justin, Sam,

Thanks, David for adding all this great detail. I'd like to work out our genealogical relationship. On Family Search you can only view the deceased not living even though they may have been added due to data protection. Link to my father (deceased) https://www.familysearch.org/tree/person/details/LRFP-CDT

Mordecai Phillips was my 3rd great-granduncle.

Thanks

Leonard

[DavidM]

Leonard,

You are my mother's fifth cousin and my fifth cousin once removed. I think that the generations were that bit closer together on my side.  My mother, Patricia Mary Davis was born in 1924 and died in 2017.  I was born in 1949.

[LCohen]

Yeah, my 2nd great grandfather Reuben Cohen was the youngest boy and second youngest child. Did you know we're related to the family of George Washington? I've mentioned this previously in the thread.

Esdaile Philip Cohen (1792-1856) was the brother of my 2nd great grandfather Reuben Zaleg Philip Cohen (1810-1881). Esdaile immigrated to Baltimore, Maryland possibly with his sister Harriet Cohen (1801 - 1889) shortly after Harriet’s wedding to David I Cohen (Baltimore Cohens banking etc.) on the 7 July 1830 in Swansea, Wales.

Esdaile’s 2nd great-grandson, and my 4th cousin, is John Yocum Randolph Crawford (August 4, 1915 – February 14, 1976) an American bridge and backgammon champion, he was a member of the United States bridge teams that won the first three Bermuda Bowls, or world teams championships, in 1950, 1951 and 1953.

John married Marie Blackburn Washington on the 25 November 1939 Marie is the 4th great-granddaughter of John Augustine Washington, brother of US President George Washington. John Yocum Randolph Crawford and Marie Blackburn Washington had three daughters (that I know of): Ames Wright Crawford, Dudley Washington Crawford and Fenton Randolph Crawford making them John Augustine Washington's 5th great-granddaughters and my 4th cousins once removed.

[LCohen]

Have you published your stories yet? I guess they'll be books, as you described them as coffee table stories, rather than online. I'm making a media rich online family tree, that'll be a repository and exhibition on the family and decedents of Jacob and Catherine Cohen (still deciding on whether it should be lineal and collateral or just lineal).

I have Catherine Cohen's (née Philips) DOB and death as 1773 - 1865 making her 92 when she died but her headstone says she was 95 when she died (see screen grab, I can't make out year of death). Any thoughts David, Sam, Justin? There's an error somewhere here.

I think Justin mentioned a painting of Catherine being in the possession of her daughter's Harriet's children. I wrote to Maryland Historical Society requesting access to their Cohen Collection, 1773-1945, MS 251. I haven't had a response. See copy of email below.


Cohen Collection, 1773-1945, MS 251

I'm hoping I might be able to access the Cohen Collection, 1773-1945, MS 251. I'm doing a genealogical study and art project on the family and descendants of Jacob and Catherine Cohen of Swansea, Wales my 3rd great-grandparents. Their daughter Harriet Cohen (1801 - 1889) married David I Cohen of the Maryland, Baltimore Cohens on the 7th of July 1830 in Swansea, Wales. Harriet Cohen is the sister of my 2nd great-grandfather Reuben Zaleg Philip Cohen (1810-1881). I understand there is a portrait of Catherine Cohen, this may or may not be in your collection, bequeathed to Mendes Cohen (1831 - 1915) Harriet's son by her daughter Margaret Cohen    (1837 - 1902) sometime in 1902. Which is one of the items I'd be very keen to see if it is indeed in your collection?

Many

Thanks

Leonard Cohen

[LCohen]

Catherine Cohen's headstone.

[JustinL]

Good morning,

Only the other day, I spotted that the year of death given on Catherine's gravestone is 5625, which corresponds to 1865. 17th February 5625 (1865) = 21 Sh'vat 5625 in the Hebrew calendar.

Without a birth record of some sort, you can never be certain of the year of birth. I would enter a range or simply say "approx." or "circa".

I meant to ask you how you determined that Jacob was born in 1773.

I don't recall writing anything about a painting of Catherine. I'll have to check.

Justin

[DavidM]

Clever detective work by Justin to identify Levy Phillips as the husband of Catherine's sister Haya.  I am applying for Levy's death certificate (he appears as Levi Phillips in the index) in the hope of getting his occupation and possibly Haya's secular name.  But certificates are suddenly taking an age to come through having been very quick at the start of the pandemic.  So I don't know when I will have anything to share. 

Apart from his wife's name (Sarah) and that he died before 1847, what do we know about Catherine's brother Abraham?  She was living in Abergavenny in 1847.  I wonder why as it is quite a small market town.  But not that far from Merthyr Tydfil where we learn that Frances died.  Has anyone found Sarah in the 1841 or 1851 census?

David

[JustinL]

I have had no success in finding either Abraham Phillips or his wife, Sarah. Very frustrating given that we know she must be there somewhere ... unless she happened to live in Paddington or some other for which the 1841 census has not survived.

Surprisingly, Haya(h) only appear a few times in the online Anglo-Jewish records. One of the records was purely in Hebrew. In the other two cases, the women's secular names were Fanny and Kitty.

Justin