Familieminder

THE LOUSADAS.

Th e Lousada family claim kinship with the Spanish ducal house of the name, who obtained for themselves the grant of the dukedon on the extinction of the main line. The evidence on which this claim was based has not been made public. The career of the Jewish branch of the family can, however, be clearly traced. In 1664 Antonio Lousada, otherwise Moses Baruh, or Moses Baruh Lousada, was one of the three wardens of the Portuguese Jewish Synagogue in London. He appears to have come from Holland in 1660, with two of his sons, Mordecai and Jacob, and he had other sons who remainded for a time in Holland, Whence Antonio Lousada came originally is doubtful. Most of the Jewish immigrants in England in the middle of the 17th century came either from northern Portugal or from the Canary Islands, and it is interesting to note that there were Lousadas in both these places in the 16th and early 17th centuries. Nevertheless, it is quite possible that some Spanish Jewish family may have ac­ quired the name by intermarriage with a branch of the Christian ducal house. Such marriages were quite common between the Spanish aristocracy and wealthy families of crypto-Jews, after the expulsion. However that may be, it is certain that when the last Christian Duke de Losada y Louzada died in the middle of the last century, Emanuel Baruh Lousada of Jamaica, a great- great-grandson of Antonio Lousada convinced the Spanish Govern­ ment that he was the next-of-kin, and thus obtained a re-grant of the Dukedom, with the rank of Grandee of Spain for his son. The first duke, Isaac, Duke de Losada y Louzada, married his