The Alexander Duparc Family Tree Collection

Two Jews with the name of Isack Salomons lived around the year 1800 in the Frisian capital of Leeuwarden. One of them lived “op’t Schoenmakersperk” [perk=parc], near the synagogue; a street of the same name still exists there today. To differentiate between the two, the other one was referred to as Isack op’t Perk. Holland was under French occupation at the time and when Napoleon ordered in 1811 the Dutch subjects without a family name, and the Jews in particular, to register family names, our Isack opted for Duparc, with the French flavor of the period.

Isack Duparc was secretary and sofer (scribe) of the Jewish community from about 1800 until 1821. He was a professional translator of French, Dutch and Yiddish. His grandson, Hessel Mozes Duparc was a medical doctor, in Leeuwarden, and also Corresponding Member of the Committee for Affairs of the Dutch Israelite Congregation (Corresponderend Lid der Commissie tot de zaken van het Nederlands Israelitisch Kerkgenootschap).

Hessel collected in 1847 some valuable information about the history of the Jewish Community of Leeuwarden and Friesland, then existing already about 180-200 years. Descendants of Isack Salomons married well known Jewish families as Neumark, Drielsma, Simons, Jacobson, Lehmans and others, some with ancient known Jewish roots, among them the Loewenstamm family (rabbi’s in Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Emden, London and Leeuwarden), Moses Isserles (the REMA, author of “the Mappah”, about Askenazi customs in addition to the Shulhan Arukh) and Ury HaLevy, the first teacher of Amsterdam Jewry.

The family spread out, over Holland, also to England, and the Dutch Indies. One of the descendants, med. Dr. Sander Duparc, came to live in Yerushalayim. He is also president of the Amuta Leeuwarden (Foundation) for preserving the Leeuwarden Jewish heritage. It is a great pleasure for us to present here the results of his genealogic research, containing more than 23.000 names. The research can be best described as a three dimensional “network” of family relations throughout the ages, much more diversified than just a family tree, or a pedigree limited to all descendants (parenteel) , or just an ancestry sheet.

Sander Duparc has undertaken a terrific research endeavour, using many written sources not yet available on the Internet ; credited here are Mr. N. P. van den Berg and the Centraal Buro voor de Genealogie in Nederlands Patriciaat 1992 for the (Rosen) Jacobson family tree, Ir. C. Caran for the Leeuwarden families Dri(e)lsma , van Gelder, Cohen and a large part of the Loewenstamm family tree, the Ury Halevy descendants and the Jozef Israels ancestry by several contributors: Mr. J. Bennet, Ir. C. Caran, Ir. G. Yaari Cohen, Dr. J. Schellekens, Mr. P. Denekamp (J. Israels only) and Mrs. P.J.C. Elema (J. Israels only); Mr. N. van Raalte and others for the Van Raalte data, Mr. M. G. Simons and the late Ir. K. Kleiterp for the Simons family tree, Ir. E. Tal for the Tal family and Mrs. E. Bentheim for the Prins and Schaap (Amersfoort) data; Mr. M. Wolff for the Berlijn family. Mrs J. Weisberg-van den Bergh donated the Van den Bergh data. The genealogy of David Sjoesan from the Stibbe website and data from Rob van het Groenewoud were used for the Sousan family. The Boas-family tree (Amsterdam) by Mr. S. A. Boas, found in the library of the Center for Research of Dutch Jewry in Jerusalem was updated, as was the Van Cleeff family tree, compiled by Mr. H. J. Barendrecht in 1962 (found in the "Nederlands Joods familiearchief" in Amsterdam). Data about the Van Son and Fortuin families are based on the publications by S. van Son. Some of the material can also be found in the Northern Database, M. Mossel’s Database of 18th century Askenazim in Amsterdam and in the Frisian Database of C.Caran on this site, but duplications of this kind can be expected with a network database like this. Material from Mr. Ruben Weiser from Buenos Aires (Berger-family) and Mrs. Rita Permut-Friedman (USA) (Leiser-family) was used to complete the research of the family of Duparc’s wife. The Eger family association publication was used for the data of one of his sons in law’s family (Breuer). The Maas–Floersheim family trees were found published on the web (Jewish families from Frankfurt am Main).

A great fascinating research done by Sander him self is the Duparc descendants and ancestry tree, and the connections of the network to old rabbinic dynasties. He hereby continued the family tradition to maintain the Family-Tree and the Family Archive, started apparently by one of the first Duparc’s – the original newspaper-announcements of the marriages, births and deaths since 1821, are represented in this family-archive. The late Prof. Dr. Herman Duparc attributed a lot of research and transferred his material to Sander Duparc. The discovery of the paper "Descendants of the couple Samson de Sterke and Frale Goedje de Vries", compiled by his late father Dr. Mr. F. J. Duparc and printed by the late Mr. R.A. Levisson in 1935, together with a lot of pictures and family correspondence, found in an old valise, given by his late mother after the death of his father, was the trigger of his research. As a result several typical the Hague family-trees were put together: Boas, de Sterke (original from Leiden ), Simons, Polak Daniels, Wolff, van Oven and others. The Duparc network also contains a lot of material concerning Jews from the Noord Brabant province and from the Betuwe, so far not extensively covered in Akevoth’s Dutch Jewish Genealogic Database among them Cohen, Lion, Van Stra(a)ten, Enthoven, Wijzenbeek (Culemborg), and Hartogensis).

This is the first example of a new type of presentation of genealogical material on our website, most user-friendly, with a very easy access to ancestors and descendants. As with all human endeavors the possibility of inaccuracies, inconsistencies with other sources or additional material and typing errors remains, and also contributors not mentioned by mistake. Please let us know! This first issue suffers from a few technical problems with Hebrew text and notes, which have not always been completely solved. We hope to correct those in the next update.